The Open University

The Open University joins programme promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights in crisis hit countries

10 April 2019

The Open University has announced its commitment to a new multi-million pound Government funded consortium within the UK Aid Connect programme to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) led consortium, in which the OU is a partner, includes Frontline AIDS, Internews Europe, London School of Hygiene and […]

Curious Kids: why don’t poorer countries just print more money?

17 December 2018

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages, where The Conversation asks experts to answer questions from kids. All questions are welcome: find out how to enter at the bottom of this article. In this piece, Economist Alan Shipman explains why poorer countries don’t just print more money. Why don’t poorer countries just […]

Learning lessons on coping with death from an African perspective

7 March 2016

The report, Responses to Death, Care and Family Relations in Urban Senegal, conducted by academics from the University of Reading and The Open University provides the first in-depth understanding of responses to death, care and family relations in an urban West African context. Funded by The Leverhulme Trust, the researchers suggest that Britain could […]

Hand holding up two scales. Image credit: Thinkstock

‘Enormously damaging’: OU experts on inequality and poverty report

21 January 2016

Global inequality is reaching new extremes, according to a new report by Oxfam which states that the richest one per cent of the population have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. The report puts power, privilege and the plight against poverty under the microscope and claims “the fight against poverty will not […]

Is there a link between youth poverty and crime? The answers may surprise you

10 November 2015

Today, for a substantial minority of 16 to 24-year-olds, to be young is to be workless, poorly paid or just plain poor. Young people in this age group are among the most disadvantaged in the UK, according to a disturbing new report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). But despite economic and other hardships […]

Is this the answer to ending extreme poverty?

16 September 2015

Internationally-renowned statistician Professor Hans Rosling asks whether it’s possible to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030 in a one-hour BBC programme made in partnership with The Open University. Don’t Panic: How to End Poverty in 15 Years considers whether the goal set by the United Nations (UN) of wiping out ‘extreme poverty’ for almost one billion people […]

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