From Poverty to Power

Aid
NGOs

What do you do, when you don’t know what to do? Careers advice for the confused.

Duncan Green - July 27, 2017

A colleague was recently waxing eloquent about George Monbiot’s advice to aspiring journalists (he gets so many enquiries that he’s written it up). It’s nicely written, as you’d expect, and basically urges young would-be Georges to follow their stars rather than money or security. Don’t go and do something you hate (eg write press releases for some pointless PR firm or fluff pieces for a …

Research into Use: how can Climate Change Researchers have more Impact?

Duncan Green - July 26, 2017

Following on the recent kerfuffle about ‘research impact’ (see original and follow up posts), I spent some time chatting to climate researchers in Cape Town about ‘research into use’ (RiU, basically the same thing). The researchers are part of ASSAR, a consortium (of which Oxfam is a member) working across Africa and India with a big focus (30% of its project weighting) on RiU. Feel …

Aid
NGOs

The 8 rules of Corporate Bullsh*t: now for the aidspeak version

Duncan Green - July 25, 2017

I recently tweeted a link to a truly wonderful piece by the FT’s Lucy Kellaway, How I lost my 25-year battle against corporate claptrap, and a couple of people demanded an aidspeak version. Where better to turn than the FP2P hivemind? Her 8 rules are: Never use a short word when a long one will do Everyday euphemisms are the way forward Disregard the grammar …

General

Links I Liked

Duncan Green - July 24, 2017

POTUS continues to keep social media interesting, if alarming. ‘The World is an Angry Place’: Ben Phillips reckons there should be an app to watch all Trump interviews like this. While the Economist points out that the Trump White House has no pets for the first time since Johnson. But check out the others (hippos, alligators etc) Couple of good pieces on China in Africa: …

The Unvarnished Project Cycle

Duncan Green - July 21, 2017

This is genius from Lisa McNally – feel free to suggest further improvements And I guess this is the exec sum, although it’s actually a very optimistic version, in that ‘what happened’ ends up roughly in the same place as the planned version, in the top right quadrant (there’s three others available…..) Anyway, they’re both brilliant. …

How can the Anti-Corruption Movement sharpen up its act?

Duncan Green - July 20, 2017

Spent a day earlier this week in a posh, but anonymous (Chatham House Rule) Central London location, discussing the state of the global anti-corruption movement with some of its leaders. The meeting took place in a posh, very high ceilinged room, under the stern gaze of giant portraits of assorted kings, aristos and philosophers. I wondered what they would have made of the assembled academics …

The Case for a ‘Slow and Steady’ Approach to Capacity Building

Duncan Green - July 19, 2017

In response to Lisa Denney’s piece last week on the low quality of much capacity building work in the aid biz, several people got in touch to say ‘but we do it better’. Here’s one example – a guest post from Arjan de Haan and Olivia Tran, from one of my favourite organizations, IDRC (see rave review of some of their previous work on evidence …

Can a new Index measure whether governments are serious about reducing inequality?

Duncan Green - July 18, 2017

Oxfam’s inequality ubergeek, Deborah Hardoon, needs your help with an ambitious new index As a researcher working on inequality, there are plenty of data and statistics for me to analyse, model and generate ‘killer stats’ from. Of course, there are many data gaps, plus lots of debate on which measures are the best to use (hint, not the one proposed for SDG10). But for the …

General

Links I Liked

Duncan Green - July 17, 2017

Off to Cape Town this week, giving talks on Thursday lunchtime at the Isivivana Centre in Khayelitsha; Friday lunchtime at the GSDPP in Rondebosch and Friday evening at the Sustainability Institute in Stellenbosch. The Hamburg G20 riots: That feeling when you’re overthrowing capitalism but just can’t resist taking a selfie on your iPhone 7 (plus vanity beats security, every time – where’s your hood, dude?) …

How Does the Aid System need to Change? Reflections from the OECD’s new aid boss

Duncan Green - July 14, 2017

Charlotte Petri Gornitzka took over as chair of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee last October, and from her new vantage point, reflects on the necessary evolution of the aid system For the aid system, the SDGs call for transformation rather than “business as usual”. Everybody is talking the talk but how ready and willing are we to change our own ways of working to enable …