News and views from the Blavatnik School of Government community 
Beirut, 4 August 2020. In the midst of what came to be one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history, an image of a young nurse holding three premature infants while clutching a telephone, surrounded by blood, chaos and destruction, went viral. The picture not only spoke of the young […]
In 2020, the Mongolian government set out its five-year mission to build a ‘digital nation’, harnessing data and technology to facilitate innovation, streamline public services and diversify Mongolia’s mining-reliant economy. In July of that year, I was appointed as the Chairwoman of the Communications and Information Technology Authority of Mongolia […]
On 27 January, the Blavatnik School of Government co-hosted a multi-stakeholder workshop on the ‘Implications of digital trade provisions in UK trade agreements’. The workshop, a joint project between Digital Pathways at Oxford and the Global Economic Governance Programme – both research programmes based at the Blavatnik School – and […]
COVID-19 has offered some tough but useful lessons about governance. Many wealthy countries did not manage the crisis as well as anticipated, whereas many poorer, populous, and vulnerable countries exceeded expectations. The difference raises important questions not just about public health management but also about the state of governance in […]
This time of year marks the run-up to the MPP and DPhil application deadline, which falls on Friday 8 January 2021 at midday (GMT). The week before the deadline is an extremely busy time for the admissions teams both at the Blavatnik School and at the University of Oxford, so […]
Professor Sir Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. Awarded a knighthood in 2014 ‘for services to promoting research and policy change in Africa’, his expertise covers areas including conflict and fragility, democracy and development in low-income and natural resource-rich societies, and […]
It was 3 February 2017 – the 19th session of the United Nations Youth Assembly. As I stood at the podium as a youth delegate and surveyed the room of dignitaries, I suddenly felt a great weight of responsibility. Under its own volition my heartbeat increased suddenly and exponentially, but […]
For the past year I have been running a humanitarian mission in Yemen. It is not the first armed conflict I witness, yet the scale of carnage and suffering, destruction to civilian infrastructure, and continuous collapse of peace negotiations have been shocking. Nonetheless, the past few months have left me […]