
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.
Latest Political Economy Analysis in Action online training course launched
We are pleased to announce the launch of our next Political Economy Analysis in Action online training course, starting 5 February and running until 13 June 2024
The course is designed to equip participants to identify the challenges arising from political economy features of the contexts in which they work, and to draw well-grounded conclusions for policy, strategy, or programme design and implementation.
If you or your colleagues are interested in participating in this course or a tailored one in the future, please see our course flyer or email training@thepolicypractice.com for further details.
Saleem Ul Huq
We are very sad to hear of the passing of Prof. Saleem Ul Huq, one of the world’s most prominent climate change experts and Director of the International Centre for Climate and Development in Bangladesh. Saleem was a tireless champion of action on climate change. As a leading author in two of the major assessments undertaken by the International Panel on Climate Change, his work highlighted the impact of climate change on developing countries, and the importance of greatly increased funding for adaptation to climate change. He also advocated for the establishment of a mechanism to pay for the loss and damage already sustained by countries such as his own, which was finally agreed, in principle, at COP27 in 2022. In the same year, he was named one of the top 10 scientists in the world by Nature, the international science journal.
Having attended every single one of the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC, Saleem was a strong believer in the importance of understanding the political economy of climate action. In 2021, he kindly agreed to be interviewed by TPP Principal, Sam Bickersteth as a contribution towards our course on the Political Economy Analysis for Climate Action. The interview can be found here.
Political economy analysis for climate action training course running from 31 October 2023
The Policy Practice is delighted to announce a new short online course focussing on the Political Economy of 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 seven, 2-hour online sessions from 31 October to 27 November 2023. For more information and to register please click below