From Poverty to Power

Do we need to rethink Social Accountability? Thoughts from Myanmar

Duncan Green - September 27, 2016

The main reason for my recent visit to Myanmar (apart from general nosiness) was to take part in a discussion on the role of social accountability (SA) in the rapidly opening, shifting politics of a country in transition from military rule. It got pretty interesting. The World Bank defines SA as ‘the extent and capability of citizens to hold the state accountable and make it …

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Links I Liked

Duncan Green - September 26, 2016

Beta version of How Change Happens website now live – need your feedback please (and delighted to hear from the accompanying poll that you aren’t sick of me going on about the book – at least not yet. Give me time…..). How corporates & NGOs might collaborate to promote tax transparency. Ethical Tax Initiative anyone? 17 rage-inducing bits of aid jargon (robust, circle back, buckets, …

how change happens

How Change Happens – need your help with the website and promo tour

Duncan Green - September 23, 2016

Sharp-eyed readers of this blog will have noticed that I have a book coming out (that’s irony, people). 27th October in is the UK publication date, and 1 December in US (don’t ask). First copies are just back from the printer (see pic). Over the coming weeks, I will be trying to maintain that fine balance between British reserve and authorial desperation – I’m relying on …

Why the World Bank needs to ask Jim Kim some tough questions in his Job Interview

Duncan Green - September 22, 2016

Guest post from Nadia Daar, head of Oxfam’s Washington DC office Preparing for an interview is often traumatic – by this point I’ve done a few and believe me, Oxfam doesn’t make things easy! And I’ve heard the World Bank doesn’t either. Yet for the position of president, there is a widespread feeling that Jim Kim’s upcoming interview with the Board of Directors this week …

How do you critique a project proposal? Learning from the Experts

Duncan Green - September 21, 2016

A confession – I’m not a programme person. I’ve never run a country programme, or spent aid money (apart from squandering a couple of million quid of DFID’s during my short spell there). So I really enjoyed a recent workshop in Myanmar where a group of real programme people (and me) were asked to critique an imaginary (but not that imaginary) project proposal. It was a great …

Is Trust the missing piece in a lot of development thinking?

Duncan Green - September 20, 2016

I have a kind of mental radar that pings when a word starts cropping up in lots of different conversations. Recently it’s been ‘trust’, which surfaced throughout my recent trip to Myanmar, but also during a fun brainstorm with Andrew Barnett and Louisa Hooper, two systems thinkers from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The search for trust drives a lot of economic behaviour. Enforcing contracts in …

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Links I Liked

Duncan Green - September 19, 2016

Politicians’ medical reports aren’t what they were [h/t Amol Rajan] Unleash your inner geek – introducing Real Geek, Oxfam’s new blog on monitoring & evaluation High Level UN report criticises pharma industry, abuse of intellectual property laws and calls for rethink. Props to Oxfam’s Winnie Byanyima and Mohga Kamal Yanni for their influence. Gig economy heads South. Uber-type apps for domestic workers (maids, cooks, gardeners) …

Is ‘fragile and conflict-affected state’ a useful way to describe Myanmar?

Duncan Green - September 16, 2016

After spending ten days there earlier this month, I barely even understand the question any more. Nothing like reality for messing up your nice neat typologies, or in this case, complicating my efforts to finalise a paper with the catchy title of ‘theories of change for promoting empowerment and accountability in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS)’. That paper defines FCS as ‘incapable of assuring basic …

The world’s top 100 economies: 31 countries; 69 corporations

Duncan Green - September 15, 2016

The campaigning NGO Global Justice Now (formerly World Development Movement) have done us all a favour by updating the table comparing the economic might of the largest countries and corporations. Headline finding? ‘The number of businesses in the top 100 economic entities jumped to 69 in 2015 from 63 in the previous year’ according to the Guardian’s summary. The last such table that I know …

Please help sharpen up the World Bank’s theory of change on governance and law

Duncan Green - September 14, 2016

The World Bank is helping us hone our speed reading skills this week, by publishing a draft of its forthcoming World Development Report 2017 on Governance and the Law and asking for comments by Friday. Someone has helpfully put a track changes version online here, comparing the new (‘green cover’) draft with the previous (‘yellow cover’) one, which I blogged about in July, but it’s …