Links I Liked

When scientists protest, their placards have footnotes [h/t Bill McKibben]

Are economists partly responsible for the rise of populism? Dani Rodrik argues that by abandoning evidence to become cheer leaders for globalization, they helped contribute to the backlash

The Digital Divide is serious: Fewer than half of all Africans have phones; 3/4 don’t use the internet. Here’s one reason why that matters. From 2008-14, 2% of Kenyans were lifted out of poverty by MPESA mobile banking, according a to new study vox.com/world/2016/12/…

A Year of Big Ideas in Social Change. Interesting, challenging (if apolitical) from Tina Rosenberg of NY Times on what corporates can teach activists

Harvard tops the latest global university rankings for development studies, followed by Sussex & LSE. Cool – 3 of my favourite places

Talking of which, here’s the Harvard Business Review with a sensible introduction to the strengths and weaknesses of Solving Social Problems with Machine Learning

World’s worst tax havens, from ‘Tax Battle’, a new Oxfam report on the global race to the bottom on corporate tax

Making America Grate Again? Pres Elect Trump’s 17 cabinet-level picks have more money than a third of American households combined

The EU made an awful propaganda video about how it has responded to refugees, so MSF fixed it for them in a nice update of the old adbusting style [h/t Ben Phillips, plus Bill Sims and Annie Feighery for tech advice!]

 

 

So @EUCouncil made an awful propaganda video on refugees. @MSF_sea took it and added a dose of reality… Brilliantly done. pic.twitter.com/VNIQI3xaRp

— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) December 15, 2016