"I feel no different from someone in an open prison." Chuma describes life in the UK's asylum system, where people are often banned from working while they wait for a decision, living in inhumane conditions.

The UK gov wants asylum seekers to repay £10k of their accommodation costs. We ran the numbers, gov could raise 3.5x more in tax & lower support costs by asking asylum seekers to work instead (with @helen-dempster.bsky.social & @ianmitchell1.bsky.social) cgdev.org/blog/asking-...

52 percent of Jakarta Schools located near heavy metal-contaminated sites www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/20...

No taxation without representation in Africa www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

More over-70s die of diarrhoea than under-5s washeconomics.com/2026/07/10/m...

Upward intergenerational spill-overs from education! When Chinese people go to university, their parents stop smoking www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Traditional kohl eyeliner is sometimes made from near pure lead (in this case 30%). Its application to children is common in the Middle East and North Africa. This observational study in Ghana found eyeliner use increased odds of high blood lead rates by 41x www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Traditional kohl eyeliner is sometimes made from near pure lead (in this case 30%). Its application to children is common in the Middle East and North Africa. This observational study in Ghana found eyeliner use increased odds of high blood lead rates by 41x www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I have a piece with Niamh O Regan in @newstatesman1913.bsky.social mapping child lead exposure by parliamentary constituency, drawing on modelling by @leecrawfurd.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/he...

Some unpleasant lead recycling arithmetic from Micaella Rogers - Demand for car batteries in small low-income countries like Malawi is too low to sustain safe recycling - Unsafe recyclers in Malawi can pay more than safe recyclers elsewhere, so export doesn't work either

20 years later, can we track down the people taught to read in primary school through different RCTs? We're going to try, here are the studies we're looking at, are we missing any?

Revealed: Britain’s lead poisioning legacy could still be affecting children (featuring an interactive map to look up how bad it is in your area) www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/he...

The World Bank Has Invested $3 Billion in Drinking Water. We Don’t Know if the Water Has Lead www.newsecuritybeat.org/2026/06/the-...

"Study warns Cambodia may be overlooking hidden toxic pollution risks to thousands of children" phnompenhpost.com/national/stu...

🗣️ Published today in @aeajournals.bsky.social. Ethan Lewis and I use a visa lottery, as a nationwide randomized experiment, to test the effects of foreign labor on US firms and workers. doi.org/10.1257/app.... A concise summary from @nber.org —> www.nber.org/digest/20221...

Brief pause from Messi's magic to share my new piece in the Annual Review of Political Science: "Education as a Political Institution" which explains why we should stop treating education as just another public service Open access here: tinyurl.com/yezzkam5

How common is child sexual harassment and abuse in schools? How you ask matters. In Malawi, 4% of 8-12yr olds report sexual harassment or abuse by school staff, if you ask face-to-face. Let them answer privately on a tablet, it that rises to 17%. 1 in 6 children aged 8-12.

The World Bank spent over $3 billion funding water supply projects. But when the Water Institute tested in Ghana, Mali, and Niger, over 82% of rural water systems contained lead. In a new piece, Lee Crawfurd and Caroline Mallory call for lead-free parts and additional testing. New on #NSB.

What's the point of academic conferences? Answering this question recently, my mind went straight to a 2020 paper by de Leon & McQuillin. One big conference was cancelled due to a Hurricane. Papers were cited less & there were less diverse collaborations. Conferences help scientific progress!

"Hidden danger: Thousands of Bangladesh’s schools lie close to toxic battery recycling sites" www.thedailystar.net/health/news/...

"Why So Many Latin American Schools Sit Near Toxic Sites" www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-schoo...

"Nigeria's Solar Revolution Depends on Lead Batteries. Nobody Knows Where Most End Up." www.energytransitionafrica.com/insights/art...

Nearly 2 decades after the suit was filed, hundreds of Peruvian plaintiffs have secured a $150m payout from US owners of a lead smelter www.businesswire.com/news/home/20...

"Elon Musk Said Zero People Have Died. Researchers Have Already Estimated 332,000 Deaths." mitchthelawyer.substack.com/p/elon-musk-...

The World Bank Has Invested $3 Billion in Drinking Water. We Don’t Know if the Water Has Lead. www.cgdev.org/blog/world-b...

"86% of Metro Manila schools near toxic sites" www.philstar.com/headlines/20...

Everything we learnt about lead exposure at the 2026 global conference www.cgdev.org/blog/what-we...

El 26% de las escuelas en México y Ghana están cerca de un foco de contaminación www.sinembargo.mx/4822841/el-2...

"Pollution near schools may be undermining learning, Researcher warns" (its me, I'm the researcher) www.myjoyonline.com/pollution-ne...

Un informe especializado advierte de que una de cada cuatro escuelas en México está cerca de lugares contaminados elpais.com/mexico/2026-...

Now out in the Journal of Development Studies! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"Thousands of Ghanaian pupils attend schools near toxic sites, study finds" www.myjoyonline.com/thousands-of...

More than 250,000 schools across 17 LMICs are located near known contaminated sites linked to pollutants like lead and mercury. New research from @leecrawfurd.bsky.social maps where schools and toxic sites overlap—and suggests the true scale of exposure is likely far greater. go.cgdev.org/4vNiciu

New @cgdev.org paper featured in the @financialtimes.com Across 17 low- and middle-income countries, at least 1 in 10 schools sits within 5km of a documented contaminated site. That's roughly 250,000 schools and 43 million children. www.ft.com/content/19be...

📣 Are you researching solutions to global lead poisoning? Join CGD and Coefficient Giving for a Q&A webinar on how to apply for up to $5 million in research funding. Featuring @leecrawfurd.bsky.social, the session will walk through the new RfP and answer applicant questions. go.cgdev.org/4e2ufCK

Our latest long read looks at lead pollution as a form of air pollution — including residual emissions from before the ban on leaded petrol, and private aviation. environmentjournal.online/pollution/he...

"An Introduction to the ULAB Problem" leadbatteries.substack.com/p/an-introd...

Global convergence in feeling free news.gallup.com/poll/710513...

Coverage of our lead conference in the Independent: "Inside the fight against the global $6 trillion lead poisoning problem" www.independent.co.uk/news/health...

And we're live! Tune in today & tomorrow on YouTube

"AI is killing the cheap smartphone - The sub-$100 smartphone risks becoming “permanently uneconomical”" substack.com/home/post/p...

Maybe the school phone ban worked in Brazil? (though the matching seems to be doing a lot of work here)

Great interview with the excellent Jenna Forsyth by the excellent Hugo Smith leadbatteries.substack.com/p/jenna-for...

The last piece of the first issue of In Development is out! There are 7.7 million people with opioid use disorder in India. Only 45,000 of them are receiving evidence-based treatment. Akshay Narayanan explains how this happened. indevelopmentmag.substack.com/p/cheap-drug...

Now out in Environmental Pollution! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New @cgdev.org paper! What can you actually do about lead poisoning? Nutritional supplements probably help a bit, are very cheap, but far from solve the problem. Paper: www.cgdev.org/publication/... Blog: www.cgdev.org/blog/can-nut...

Detectan plomo en sangre de 329 niños en Nuevo León www.adn40.mx/mexico/2026...

Next week is the UK Global Partnerships Conference in London www.cgdev.org/blog/what-a... Of course everyone knows the side-events are the best events. Join us to hear about the latest evidence on keeping children safe in school! www.cgdev.org/event/keepi...

"Sherwin Williams, the largest global United States-based paint company, continues to sell lead paints in Mexico." academic.oup.com/annweh/arti...

➡️ Our panel now online: "The Science of Scale and Implementation: New Frontiers for Research" @oxfordcsae.bsky.social conference @deankarlan.bsky.social @gamblingondev.bsky.social @wwhglobaled.bsky.social @blavatnikschool.bsky.social @youthimpactorg.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-5H...