Oxford Policy Pod

As we close International Women’s Month, this episode discusses the economic challenges and opportunities facing women all over the world. The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic displaced millions of women from the global labour force and unraveled several decades of progress in closing economic gender gaps. Governments around the world will need to prioritize gender-based policymakin...

This episode discusses the housing crisis that cities around the world are facing, and explores the public policy solutions needed to address it. Urban areas are shouldering much of the burden associated with global population growth, including with respect to affordable housing supply. Given this growth is expected to continue, affordable housing policy is likely to be one of the most salient pub...

On February 24th, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since the initial invasion, the Russian army has made significant advances on the capital Kyiv and several other major cities. This invasion has shocked the world and has resulted in a level of violence that has rarely been seen in Europe since the Second World War. Tragically, many civilians have lost their lives and the conflict...

Welcome to Season 4 of the Oxford Policy Pod, based out of the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. This season, join students in the 2021-2022 Masters of Public Policy cohort who will guide you through policy challenges shaping our world.

March 15 marked the 10 year of the start of the conflict in Syria. This conflict that started as civilians protests against the Assad regime quickly became a proxy war waged on many different fronts. Over the course of 10 years, 12 million Syrians – half the pre-conflict population were displaced. Over 400,000 Syrians lost their lives in this crisis and the infrastructure is in shambles...

As the COVID-19 daily confirmed cases and death rates decrease in some African countries, the need for strategically re-opening economies and developing sustainable recovery plans has become increasingly imminent. The pandemic offers an opportunity to build forward better. To understand what building forward better means in practice, our correspondent Hafsa Anouar is joined by Professor Kevin Chik...

In recent years, the United States and the European Union have taken more aggressive actions to check big tech firms through antitrust or competition law. Join us as we look into the key issues associated with the power that big tech companies hold and how antitrust law can correct for some of these, as well as how some of these considerations may change in the context of developing countries, and...

As COVID-19 continues to rage and ravage our communities, the gains made in the past decades towards gender equality are at risk of being reversed. How have women been hit by this pandemic? Which groups of women are most vulnerable? And what are gender-sensitive policies for COVID-19 response and recovery? To look at the impact of the pandemic on women, our host Sruthi Palaniappan is joined by Ama...

On the morning of February 1st, Myanmar's military imprisoned prominent political figures and imposed a yearlong state of emergency, alleging fraud in the November election. Protesters have since taken to the streets in what has been Myanmar’s largest civil disobedience movement in over a decade. So what led to this coup? What are these protesters demanding? And why?  To unpack these question...

After rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, several social media companies took an unprecedented action — banning then-president Donald Trump from their platforms. This decision has spurred much conversation on whether and when limitations to online speech are justified.  Increasingly, social media giants have come under fire ...

On January 20th, the world watched the change of leadership in the White House as President Joe Biden took office and quickly re-joined the Paris Agreement. Was this a political action or one which will result in meaningful policy changes in the U.S. and elsewhere? Will Biden be able to effectively act on climate change? And who will pay for climate actions globally, especially to support the worl...

COVID-19 has led to two million deaths worldwide. With distribution of the highly anticipated vaccines underway, ethical questions about who should receive the vaccine first are of great significance. How should governments prioritise healthcare workers, seniors, people with pre-existing conditions, and racial minorities, who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19? How do international...

Welcome to Season 3 of Oxford Policy Pod based out of the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. In Season 3, join our host Sruthi Palaniappan as she speaks with leading experts in public policy and unpacks some of the most pressing policy challenges we face today.

On December 6, 2020, President Nicolás Maduro consolidated his grip on power after claiming victory in Venezuela’s parliamentary election — an election that was denounced by electoral observers and boycotted by opposition parties. The question now is who has political legitimacy? The Maduro regime or the opposition?  In the last episode of season 2, Suta Kavari introduces our new host Sruthi...

Peerce McManus, Merin Joseph and Roy Sefa-Attakora, alumni of the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford join Suta Kavari to discuss what the most appropriate policy responses to crime and social disorder should be. They dive deep into the questions around whether the criminal justice system, and in particular prisons, are a failure of imagination or policy, and if they are, how should they be ref...

On 4 August 2020, a massive explosion rocked Lebanon. The explosion, caused by a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely in the port, devastated the capital, Beirut and left least 204 dead and 6,500 injured. Amid growing anger at years of corruption and mismanagement, the government resigned. Three months after the explosion, as the palpable anger and frustration at a failing state a mo...

Covid-19 has had a profound impact on the education outcomes on millions of children across the world, following the unprecedented closure of schools. While the pandemic represents a larger shock to the education system for this generation, prior to it the world was living through a crisis in education.  In this Episode, Suta engages with Dhruv Gupta on ways to counter these shocks. On matter...

Did the media get it wrong in 2016? And, how have lessons in covering Donald Trump shaped media coverage of the 2020 presidential elections? On this week’s episode of Oxford Policy Pod, Suta Kavari posed these questions to Everett Rosenfeld. Everett covered the 2016 elections as digital editor for CNBC and reflects on his time covering a very bizarre presidential election. He also talks about some...

From Wednesday, 16 September 2020, A Look at the Issues , your monthly policy discussion will become  Oxford Policy Pod . In Season 2, Join Suta Kavari every week as he speaks to leading experts in public policy from the Blavatnik School of Government and the University of Oxford, analysing and debating some of the most pressing policy challenges we face today.  

With fears increasing that Covid-19 is set to reach full speed in South Africa, this episode explores what went wrong in a country that was praised for having one of the most effective responses at the start of the pandemic. The South African government has been walking a tightrope of trying to protect an underfunded healthcare system, while also trying to revive a stagnant economy, long hurt by y...

On this episode of A Look at the Issues engages with Dame Helen Ghosh who is currently Master of Balliol College, Oxford, former Permanent Secretary at the UK’s Departments for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, and the Home Office about how government’s respond to and design policy. Dame Helen reflects on her time as a senior civil servant and offers insights into how to manage a crisis simil...

COVID-19 has not only upended our lives but also changed the ways in which we engage with anything else, and especially public policy. Governments around the world have responded differently to threats posed by COVID-19, implementing a variety of measures to contain the spread of the virus and save lives. The focus of many interventions has been about saving lives and sustaining an economy while i...

On 21 March, South Africa observed Human Rights Day, a day that commemorates the events of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and the brutal legacy of human rights violation during apartheid. The month of March is also serves as a reminder of the sacrifices that went into the struggle for democracy in South Africa.  At the dawn of democracy in 1994, South Africa enshrined into its constitution one...

In political science, there is accountability when actions by the government are in line with the needs of her citizens. In this Episode, a look at the issues dives in to explore the different ways we can hold the government to account. Join us to listen in on four different experiences from Anelize, Callum, Nick and Prianka. Anelize Almeida works as attorney of the National Treasury in Brazil. To...

On this episode of A Look of the Issues, we follow on from our conversation last week about Brexit and talk to Damian Boeselager about the need to counter rising populism in post-Brexit Europe. Damian is a German Member of the European Parliament and co-founder of Volt, the first pan-European party in the European Union. At 32, Damian finds himself in a European Parliament that is younger and more...