Is Flying the new Smoking? If so, should aid workers stop flying?
Guest post from Dorothea Hilhorst of the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University. She suggested this just after I had got off a plane to Mexico, so I figured I had to publish it…. Update: this post has generated so much interest that we’ve put up an opinion poll here – please complete…
How Aid has helped Pakistan’s Women’s Movement achieve Political Breakthroughs
Guest post from Ayesha Khan of the Collective for Social Science Research in Karachi Do aid dollars help or hinder the women’s movement? In Pakistan, there are advocates of both points of view. I believe that my recent research as part of the Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) programme has gathered enough evidence to…
I need a survival guide for conferences. Anyone got one?
I go to quite a few academic conferences and to be honest, they sometimes make me fear for my sanity. Mood swings; weird rages against people (OK, men) who insist on stating the blindingly obvious at great length, in obscure academic jargon; a twitchy need to check emails and twitter feed every few minutes; sudden enthusiasms…
Putting Gender into Political Economy Analysis: why it matters and how to do it
Guest post by Emily Brown of Oxfam GB (left), and Rebecca Haines (right) and Tam O’Neil of CARE International UK. For many development professionals, political economy has become the gold standard of foundational analysis for programming. It helps us to understand how power and resources are distributed in a society or sector and is important for…
Whither Large International Non-Governmental Organisations? Smart new paper.
I’m glad to see Penny Lawrence, an Oxfam big cheese for 12 years before she resigned so publicly last February, has been busy reflecting and talking to other leaders (and me) about how large lumbering INGOs need to change. She has put together a useful paper on the topic (a source of endless fascination to INGOs,…
Which Devspeak horror words topped the poll + some v interesting comment threads
It was only intended as a bit of Friday fun, but last week’s post on which devspeak words you would most like to ban generated such interesting comments that it warrants a follow up. First up, the people have spoken. After 500 votes, ‘beneficiaries’ and ‘the field’ are the clear joint winners in the hall…
Which awful Devspeak words would you most like to ban? Your chance to vote on the Terrible Ten
Ann Huddock of Counterpart got in touch recently to discuss the idea of a post on how much she hates the word ‘empowerment’ (she’s banned it in Counterpart comms). In the end, we decided that the word had already got enough criticism, but I put out a tweet asking people to nominate other devspeak words…
Should Positive Deviance be my next Big Thing?
I’ve been mulling this over for a while now, and thought I’d consult the FP2P hivemind, following a few initial conversations, including one earlier this week with Oxfam’s Irene Guijt and some PD fans at the Said Business School (here’s their rather good report of a PD conference back in 2010, from which I nicked…
Peace has a PR Problem: How would you fix it?
Today is the UN International Day of Peace. You probably won’t have heard of it. Harriet Lamb, CEO of International Alert, explains why that matters. Our dictionaries mirror what’s happening in society. And the words we use shape how we see events and how we act. So it’s a sad reflection that dictionaries are full of…
Thumbs up or thumbs down? Did the Millennium Villages Project work?
Guest post by Chris Barnett, Director of Technical Excellence, Itad Back in the mid-2000s, one project stood out as a bold attempt to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at a local level: The Millennium Villages Project (MVP). Spearheaded by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the project sought to demonstrate how the MDGs could be achieved through…