World Development Movement blog

Wheat prices have hit a two year high. Prices are again climbing steeply for wheat and, despite claims by some analysts in the media, there is plenty of wheat available and talk of global shortages is unfounded.

The last time prices were higher, there was a food crisis and people were going hungry across the developing world, whilst in the US and UK people were paying more for their weekly shop.

Yesterday afternoon, James, Kiama Kaara from Kenya Debt Relief Network and I drove to Thika, a medium-sized town 40km north east of Nairobi along a bustling road lined with traders, construction workers and shops for a meeting with Zachary Makanya from the PELUM Association.

The Kibera slum in Nairobi is home to around 1.5 million people. That's half the population of Nairobi, squeezed into just 2.5 square kilometres. On the way there, our driver, Charles described the extent of the violence that erupted in Kibera during the 2007 elections.

While I’ve been in Kenya I’ve been reading a new book by Milford Bateman; Why doesn’t microfinance work? The destructive rise of local neoliberalism. Microfinance has been feted as an effective solution to poverty for the very poor for a number of decades now, and in 2006 Mohammed Yunus, the founder of the first microfinance institution, the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rosie Rogers, used to be campaigns and policy intern

Bright-eyed and ready to save the world in one internship, I was ready to take on any challenge! As part of our new commodities campaign. I was asked to find out how to complain about Goldman Sachs (GMS). A simple task I thought…

Tim Jones, used to be policy officer

Some of us may have been surprised to wake up this morning to hear that a hosepipe ban may be introduced soon in north-west England following a lack of rain. For the past few years the ‘weather story’ in the UK has been one of cold, wet summers. Those unable to distinguish between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ have used this story to spread absurd falsities about climate change, such as the Conservative MEP who told me “the world has been in a cooling phase for the last ten years”.

4 June 2010

We have recently launched www.whoshouldicheerfor.com – a website that ranks the countries playing in the World Cup based on development and social justice indicators such as income inequality, maternal mortality rates and carbon emissions per capita.