Comments on: Big new research programme on empowerment and accountability in fragile settings gets under way – can you help choose its name?

By: Duncan Green

Duncan Green — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 08:24:29 +0000

I’ll post now and then, but we’ll get a website up and running once we have stuff ready to disseminate

By: Duncan Green

Duncan Green — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 08:23:44 +0000

maybe combine the two to get ear-peace?…….

By: Lotte Ruppert

Lotte Ruppert — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 22:15:18 +0000

Agree with Stephen – REACH is a great name but many people with a humanitarian background will immediately think of the needs assessments from: http://www.reach-initiative.org

By: Sharon Bell

Sharon Bell — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 22:13:05 +0000

Is this blog the best place for those of us currently researching in this space to keep up with the research consortium? Taking off PhD researcher hat and putting on INGO hat for a moment – we’re observing interesting things at a small scale in an isolated church in a conflict-affected part of Myanmar. They have a development pastor – something we’d never heard of – so ahead of the game of NZ churches ;-). We’re grappling with how best to support their incipient projects, i.e. drug rehab centres in communities with extremely high rates of drug addiction – funded through business. (And more cognisant of human rights than centres operated by the ethnic armed organisation that I’m researching for PhD.) So I’ll definitely be watching your work on faith-based groups with much personal interest.
P.S. Vinny Nagaraj of NZ MFAT pimped your book at a meeting of INGOs & Govt. here this week 😉 .

By: Laura Ahearn

Laura Ahearn — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 16:24:15 +0000

Good luck with this ambitious new project! Any anthropologists on board?

Here are a couple of possible acronyms for it:

EAR — Empowerment and Accountability Research (references the listening that Makarand emphasized)
SPEAR — Social and Political Empowerment and Accountability Research
PEACE — Political Empowerment and Accountability in Conflict Environments

Laura Ahearn
Learning Division
USAID DRG Center

By: Alan Hudson

Alan Hudson — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 15:12:32 +0000

Yep, something that’s more about listening and learning would be good. Does it have to be an acronym? Of the three, I prefer REACH, and could see you all singing along to S Club 7’s “Reach for the stars” with its emphasis on collective action, rainbows and mountains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SxSnjL3nZ0

By: John Magrath

John Magrath — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 14:04:44 +0000

I’d vote for Makarand’s acronym LISTEN – very good idea; turns the feel of the research on its head; more humble + more inviting.

By: masood

masood — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 13:54:38 +0000

I would call it moving mountain. A non functional State is like a mountain very difficult to move. Peter Drucker once said wishes don’t move mountains bulldozers do. Similarly rarely do voice and accountability projects funded by international funding move mountains. But practical examples on the ground which change lives can influence policy and build empowerment.

By: Stephen Jones

Stephen Jones — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 11:17:05 +0000

I quite like REACH although some other programmes may have got there first… see “REACH: Improving water security for the poor” (reachwater.org.uk) and “REACH Initiative – Informing More Effective Humanitarian Action (www.reach-initiative.org).

By: charlotte sterrett

charlotte sterrett — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 09:16:37 +0000

Perhaps choose something that is simple – that those involved in the research at the community level can understand. Not easy with all the development lingo-speak. EMPACT seems the most likely candidate out of the three, but I reckon you could do better.