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Alex Evans

  • Non-Resident Fellow

Alex Evans is founder and executive director of Larger Us, which explores ways of driving change in the world that bridge political divides rather than deepening them, in particular through applying psychology to politics and change-making.

He is the author of “The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough?” (Penguin, 2017), which focuses on the power of collective stories to unlock political change.

Until March 2018, Alex was a campaign director at Avaaz, the global citizens’ movement, where he led campaigns on areas like Brexit, tax havens, and human rights in Turkey and Yemen.

Alex has been a fellow at the NYU Center on International Cooperation since 2006 and has twice been seconded to the UN Secretary-General’s office (once as part of the team that organised the first head of government level climate summit, and then again as the writer for the 2010 UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability).

He has also worked as special adviser to two UK Secretaries of State for International Development, and as research director for the 2017 Business Commission on Sustainable Development.

  • Publication: Policy Brief June 18, 2019 Inequality and Exclusion

    Rebuilding Common Ground: An Agenda for 21st Century Democratic Health and Resilience

    All over the world, countries at widely varying levels of development and with very different histories are grappling with a similar challenge: breakdown of common ground in politics. The exact contours of the problem vary from one country to another, and variously include falling trust, declining citizen engagement in politics, shrinking civic space, rising autocratization, or increasing political polarization in public attitudes or political party positioning. Yet across these areas, there are underlying themes – above all, the emergence of concerns about whether citizens and leaders share a sense of the common good, or have the capacity to reach compromises on complex issues.

  • Publication: Policy Brief April 10, 2015 Pathfinders

    What Happens Now? Time to Deliver the Post-2015 Development Agenda

    This September, the world’s leaders will gather in New York for a United Nations summit at which they will agree a new development framework to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expire at the end of 2015. We already know much about what will replace them, with countries debating a proposal for 17 Sustainable Development Goals. A great deal, however, remains unclear. Will this much more ambitious set of goals and targets really drive delivery? Does the new agenda create a narrative that will resonate beyond the UN’s negotiating rooms? What role will be played by poor, middle income, and rich countries?

  • Publication: Policy Brief December 10, 2014 Pathfinders

    Post-2015 Means of Implementation: What Sort of Global Partnership?

    Until recently, 95% of the bandwidth for talking and thinking about the post-2015 agenda was focused on goals and targets. Now that the Open Working Group (OWG) on the post- 2015 agenda has reported, though, policymakers and opinion formers are starting to think more seriously about the ‘how’ as opposed to the ‘what’ – and what a new Global Partnership on development, as well as the overall political outcome on means of implementation (MOI) more broadly, might look like by the end of next year.

  • Publication: Policy Brief November 22, 2013 Pathfinders

    Delivering the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Options for a New Global Partnership

    The debate on what should follow the Millennium Development Goals after their 2015 deadline is now underway in earnest. But in some ways, agreeing to the new goals is the easy part. Governments also need to reach agreement on how those goals will be delivered – a question that touches on both financing and policies in a much wider range of areas, like trade, migration, sustainability, technology, and global governance reform.

  • Publication: Report October 23, 2013 Pathfinders

    What Happens Now? Taking the Post-2015 Agenda to the Next Stage

    The debates surrounding the creation of a new development framework to follow the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have progressed significantly over the last three months, but will only gain in momentum and complexity as 2015 draws closer. CIC’s new publication, What Happens Now? Taking the Post-2015 Agenda to the Next Stage, considers both the substance and process for current debates on the post-2015 agenda. It reviews key inputs into the intergovernmental process and provides a road map for member states geared toward negotiating a final agreement on a new international development framework.

  • Publication: Policy Brief June 13, 2013 Pathfinders

    What happens now? – the Post-2015 Agenda after the High-Level Panel

    Last week saw the publication of the report of the UN High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, co-chaired by the heads of government of Indonesia, Liberia and the United Kingdom. It set an ambitious agenda centered on the eradication of absolute poverty by 2030, a more effective integration of development and sustainability, and the development of a global partnership able to turn that vision into reality.

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