Webinar on Neil McCulloch's new book - "Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet" - LISTEN NOW
The recording of this webinar is available here
Neil McCulloch gave a presentation of the main ideas in his new book "Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet" on Wednesday 12 April from 2pm-3.30pm BST (GMT+1). Dr. Mashekwa Maboshe, a researcher at the University of Zambia, provided some initial short comments, after which the floor was open for questions and discussion.
The Speaker: Dr Neil McCulloch, Director, TPP
Dr. Neil McCulloch is a Director of The Policy Practice. His main area of focus is on the political economy of reform in the energy sector. This has included work on corruption in the electricity sector in Lebanon; power sector reform in Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan; energy access in India; coal phase out in Indonesia; fuel subsidy reform in Indonesia, Nigeria and Zambia; and electricity market reform in Guinea, Mali and Togo. Previously, Dr. McCulloch was the Director of the Economic Policy Program at Oxford Policy Management and, before that, the Lead Economist of the Australian Aid program in Indonesia. He has also led the Globalisation Research Team in the Institute of Development Studies in the UK and was a Senior Economist for the World Bank in Indonesia.
The Chair: Astrid Haas, TPP Associate and Urban Economist
Astrid is an independent urban economist, working in both research and practice, supporting cities around strategy generally and specifically to strengthen their financial systems, with a focus on unleashing new opportunities for sub-national financing. She is currently an Extraordinary Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria and a Fellow at the Infrastructure Institute at the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. In addition, Astrid has worked extensively with city governments across Africa and Asia in her diverse roles, including previously as an urban economist with the African Development Bank and Policy Director at the International Growth Centre.
She holds an MA in International Economics and International Development from Johns Hopkins University. In 2016, she was nominated by the University of Cape Town as one of Africa’s Young Leaders and in 2020 she received Johns Hopkins University’s Outstanding Recent Graduate Award, for her work on urbanisation.
Political economy analysis for climate action - new course launched starting October 2024
The Policy Practice is delighted to be re-running the popular online course on Political Economy Analysis for Climate Action. This course explains how political economy analysis can be used to understand the challenge of action on climate change and to design more effective interventions. The course will consist of eight, 2-hour online sessions from 4 October to 12 November 2024. For more information and to register please click below or see our flyer here.
The political economy of energy transitions in Ghana, Zambia and Vietnam - Policy Brief 17
Written by Sam Bickersteth with Neil McCulloch and Meron Tesfamichael, this policy brief draws out some of the common constraints hindering the energy transition in Ghana, Zambia, and Vietnam and many other countries in the Global South. It also shows how political economy analysis can help to identify politically feasible pathways of change in each country demonstrating the importance of such analysis as an essential tool to understand energy transition.
Media support: aid funding does not match donor rhetoric
Laure-Hélène Piron (TPP Director) presented her analysis of official development assistance to media and the information environment to the Governance Network of the OECD Development Assistance Committee on 6 March 2024.
The draft report shows that the rhetoric of governments which support freedom of expression and condemn disinformation is not matched by sufficient funding. And too little directly goes to local media organisations.