Across the world, a familiar story is being retold with striking success: that stagnant wages, housing crises and crumbling public services are the fault of migrants and outsiders - not the billionaires and global systems quietly getting richer. It's a story reshaping elections, hardening divisions, and in some places, fuelling violence.

In this episode of Think Change, Sara Pantuliano is joined by Dimi Reider (Othering and Belonging Institute / Shared Futures Institute), Tania Cheung, Libby Lenkinski and Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou to ask: why do stories so often beat facts? Why has fact-checking failed to stop divisive narratives from taking hold? And what would it actually take to build a competing story - one rooted in justice and redistribution, not nostalgia for a status quo that wasn't working either?

The conversation ranges from the mechanics of how harmful narratives spread, to what's breaking down in how NGOs and philanthropy communicate, to where power, money and attention need to shift if progressive narratives are ever going to compete.

Guests:

• Sara Pantuliano (host), Chief Executive, ODI Global
• Tania Cheung, Head of the Shifting the Power Programme at Comic Relief
• Dimi Reider, journalist, policy analyst and facilitator at the Othering and Belonging Institute and Shared Futures Institute
• Libby Lenkinski, Founding President of Albi
• Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, Director Politics and Governance, ODI Global

Related resources:

• Building Narratives for Change: where culture strategy meets policy (Event recording, ODI Global)
• ODI Global Strategy, 2026-2031
• Shifting Narratives: From Aid to Agency Shifting the Power Comms Lab Report (Report, Comic Relief)