What we're reading at RSA Global

Have a look at the selection of articles the RSA Global Team have been reading over the past month! They include articles on global education innovations, fake news and disinformation and lastly, the challenges and possible solutions to the housing crisis in the US.

Education

Andreas Schleicher, Director of the OECD Education and Skills Team refutes the 5 common myths that exist in education in this recent blogpost. He also goes into greater details in his new book “World Class: Building a 21st century school system.”

Have a look at the latest Brookings update on global education innovations. The team also debates how these innovations can lead to on the ground transformations at a recent event “Citizens of the future: Innovations to leapfrog global education.”

Topclass is a podcast curated by the OECD Education Team which focuses on global education practices and policy. The most recent episode focuses on “What we can learn from classrooms in the world’s top-performing education systems?”

Economy

The World Bank's flagship annual publication, the World Development Report 2019 will  focus this year on the changing nature of work. In an extraordinary move, the World Bank has allowed the WDR authors to post the draft online which is updated on a weekly basis. For those also interested in looking at this complex issue on a regional basis, have a look at The Future of Work - Regional Perspectives.

Fake news and disinformation are now part of our daily lexicon and this Brookings blog shows how it spreads across the internet and what can be done to address it. Although, as the technological tools advance, progress in terms of government policy to combat disinformation has been slow to respond.

The Aspen Institute’s Future Work Initiative recently released an issue brief proposing Lifelong Learning and Training accounts in the US as policy makers and others continuously seek ways in which citizens are able to update their skills and adapt to the changing nature of work.

Public Services

This recent New York Times piece gives us a glance at the housing crisis in New York City and the challenges regarding affordable housing in another global city. In a different world, the King County Housing Authority in Seattle is increasing its affordable housing opportunities by returning to public housing. To add to this, Rebecca Regan, Executive Vice President at the US based Housing Partnership Network, addressed four new approaches non-profit organizations and charities can use to meet the demand for affordable housing particularly among millennials in this Stanford Social Innovation Review article.

How can you build a social safety net in Sub Saharan Africa? This Economist article provides some insight on how Ethiopia is building a social safety net which will one of the largest social programmes in sub- Saharan Africa.

The OECD recently released Opportunities for All – a framework for policy action on Inclusive Growth which hopes to assist governments in addressing those left behind.  Looking more specifically at building community wealth, this report compiled by The Democracy Collaborative compiles 11 different case studies of community economic development initiatives from across the United States. Also the Cities Building Community Wealth report examined the drivers to community wealth building and identified 20 case studies cities.