Oxfam’s latest inequality report puts negative wealth back at the centre of the conversation. For social investment, the harder question is what happens before opportunity arrives: whether public systems, markets and institutions allow people to retain value, build assets and move beyond permanent economic exposure.

There were fewer than 30 people in the first session of the ILO and ITCILO’s BRICS South-South Knowledge Series. The room was small enough to read. Present was a strong ILO contingent, a large Ethiopian group, formal Indonesian representation and a scattering of practitioners from elsewhere in the Global South. GrowZA appeared to be the only clearly South African organisation present. It was a serious room, but also a very particular kind of room. Most of the visible particip

Localisation, Gatekeeping and the Problem of Closed Development Networks