Ian Mitchell

A great way to close out 2025—several of our partners joined BNN for a year-end wrap-up series, sharing insights across seven key sectors on the trends and developments shaping the market and driving industry forward.

Nevil Shute and the lessons of the R101 disaster

“This book tells the story of one incident in the silent, unceasing war between bureaucracy and art. As usual, the bureaucrats won, but the artist was right.” writes Ian Mitchell

The OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is discussing changes to the rules on which countries are eligible to receive official development assistance (ODA), the primary measure of foreign aid.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) is no longer a good measure of overseas or international aid or development. We have developed a new way to measure and talk about aid actually spent abroad.

While India's cooperation is undeniably strategic in nature, it demonstrates that even lower-income countries see the value in international cooperation. India has been and is a critic of the lack of transparency in others' provision of finance—and it could maximise the diplomatic benefits of its assistance and set an example to other providers by being more transparent about it. One opportunity would be for India to consolidate all data sources into a more accessible database, and to report to the UNDP-hosted International Aid Transparency Initiative.

On Tuesday, June 30, 2026, CGD's Ian Mitchell was invited to appear before the UK's International Development Select Committee to present evidence on the subject of “The UK’s International Climate Finance.”

Although Spithoff and colleagues mention some benefits of legalizing cannabis, they provide more details about the potential harms. The positives are limit

The next three years could be among the most important for UK foreign policy in decades. Against a backdrop of conflict and geopolitical rivalry, the UK will chair both the G20 and G7. The foreign secretary must realise that actual UK international assistance on development has already reached a 20-year low, and is set to fall, undermining the UK’s stability and security. His first priority then, should be to make the case to No10 and No11 that international development is an important tool which (alongside defence and diplomacy) must be properly resourced to support security—and he will need to win that argument in the coming spending review.

Lexpert Special Edition: Mining 2026 has distinguished seven Gowling WLG lawyers for their leading work in the sector. The recognition reflects the depth of our mining practice and the confidence clients place in our team on sophisticated matters spanning exploration, financing, development, operations and strategic transactions.