This week:
I read No Second Chances by @morganj0nes.bsky.social
Also an old lecture on Weber's relevance to modern politicians by @iprnickp.bsky.social
And a piece about aid cuts and violence by @leecrawfurd.bsky.social
aveekbhattacharya.substack.com/p/readwatche...
RIP India's IT outsourcing industry?
www.ft.com/content/a522...
Great piece by @aveek18.bsky.social in the FT:
"On lead, Britain is the laggard of the developed world"
www.ft.com/content/bbd5...
The Nazis stopped Jewish doctors from practising, so thousands of them left the country (my great grandfather was one of them). So many left that this was a good natural experiment for estimating the causal effect of losing doctors on infant mortality (& thousands died)
26.02.2026 23:23 — 👍 108 🔁 47 💬 1 📌 3
Earlier this month, the @cgdev.org hosted a research workshop on the topic of school-related violence. Here is a round-up of every research paper we saw. www.cgdev.org/blog/what-ar...
If you want more, you can watch videos of the conference here. www.cgdev.org/event/call-p...
I think it was just showing the national average & national population (for that age range) for areas with missing data - should be fixed now - lcrawfurd.github.io/lead-map/
25.02.2026 18:58 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Uber reduced traffic fatalities by 5%?!!
direct.mit.edu/rest/article...
“the largest act of mass murder of this decade, and of this century so far, was not perpetrated by militaries or militias, but by the world's richest man in Washington D.C.'s Eisenhower Executive Office Building.” @mckay4senate.bsky.social www.liberalcurrents.com/what-elon-ha...
24.02.2026 11:29 — 👍 755 🔁 347 💬 9 📌 19
Reform don't want to regulate your landlord.
They don't want to regulate your employer.
But they do want to regulate your sex life.
Up to half of used lead-acid batteries in Africa could be coming from off-grid solar systems.
Important new paper by @rachelbonnifield.bsky.social & Caroline Mallory
www.cgdev.org/publication/...
New data shows US aid cuts have led to a measurable rise in armed conflict.
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social breaks down new evidence on how aid cuts are affecting conflict dynamics, specifically in Africa:
https://go.cgdev.org/40nCem8
Congratulations to Drew and everyone at @pureearthnow.bsky.social !
24.02.2026 15:21 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A new analysis from the Center for Global Development (@cgdev.org) explores whether lead poisoning may be a missing link in the global fight against child malnutrition.
Check out the full blog here:
We cannot wait for another tragedy before the Government takes meaningful action on lead exposure and poisoning.
Many might think of lead poisoning as a problem of the past. But that simply isn’t true.🧵
The big lesson:
Stunting is not fixed by geography or culture.
It is historically contingent — and reversible.
Countries that eliminated widespread stunting did so over decades of sustained change.
9)
Looking forward to speaking on this panel next week - so much shifting so quickly at the foreign office at the moment and there's a big and (I think) v interesting convo in there about how we scrutinise aid spend.
20.02.2026 15:58 — 👍 1 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
How Should the UK Scrutinise Its Aid Spending?
Come discuss with us at tomorrow @cgdev.org in Westminster Tue 24th at 5pm
with @sarahchampionmp.bsky.social
@hannahkeenan.bsky.social @instituteforgovernment.org.uk
@ianmitchell1.bsky.social
www.cgdev.org/event/future...
About 2% of children in the UK have elevated blood lead levels. I made an interactive map (with a little help from Claude) so you can see the % in your local area.
lcrawfurd.github.io/lead-map/
US Aid Cuts Fueled Conflict in Africa
open.substack.com/pub/leecrawf...
interactive version here lcrawfurd.github.io/lead-map/
23.02.2026 12:52 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0raw data is available here ghdx.healthdata.org/record/ihme-...
23.02.2026 11:55 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The UK is terrifyingly ignorant when it comes to the problem of lead exposure. I've described it as a "don't ask, don't tell strategy".
So it's great to have got politicians, scientists, policy researchers and to endorse the call for a national child screening program
www.ft.com/content/ee60...
MPs and peers call for all UK children to be screened for lead
www.ft.com/content/ee60...
Good piece by David Miliband:
"As Rachel Glennerster, president of the Center for Global Development, has argued, aid would go further with radically simpler interventions in far fewer places that need it the most"
foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/19/f...
Nice coverage--and replication--of our working paper "Aid, Interrupted" by @leecrawfurd.bsky.social in a revlcent @cgdev.org blog post.
Here is the link to the current version of the paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
New Blog for CGD:
US Aid Cuts Fueled Conflict in Africa
www.cgdev.org/blog/us-aid-...
What America did through ideology, the UK does in order to get a budget projection that we don't even really care about
16.02.2026 09:50 — 👍 202 🔁 75 💬 6 📌 1
new lead smelter poisoning drama on Netflix!
metro.co.uk/2026/02/12/n...
Aid cuts in the UK signals a move from "grants to expertise"—meaning a shift to low-cost technical assistance.
Through his work with African governments, @leecrawfurd.bsky.social shares examples of both good and bad models of technical assistance:
https://go.cgdev.org/45atSBo
