Aidnography

Stories about bad volunteering experiences, voluntourism and things that go wrong when predominantly young people yearn for meaningful experiences in the global South are regulars in my weekly link review. As tempting as snarky comments and virtual eye-rolling from development insiders (myself sometimes included) are, it is important to engage with the phenomenon constructively as well. Australia’s efforts to ban orphanage tourism and to educate young people about more responsible ways of global engagement are an important step in the right direction. Among all those pieces of a complicated puzzle, Claire Bennett, Joseph Collins, Zahara Heckscher & Daniela Papi-Thornton deliver a comprehensive, accessible book on Learning Service-The Essential Guide to Volunteering Abroad that comes very close to delivering what the title promises. What I really like about Learning Service is that the book takes a while to outline the framework of learning and broader issues of global volunteer

Hi all, The week started relatively calm, but after a last-minute invitation to a great conference on development volunteering in Cologne, a new book review and plenty of interesting readings for the latest review I'm ready for my weekend! Development news: UNEP's travel expense problems; WHO abolishes unpaid internships; inside the localization debate; a lot of aid is still tied to Northern expenses; Healing Solidarity; companies & SDGs-mainly empty promises; H&M's trouble with 'good'; factories; African designers & sustainability challenges; sex & the Indian village; a young MP rises in South Africa; Nepal's cool Kautam reminices on a career at UNICEF & #globaldev; getting the story of migration & aid workers on stage. Our digital lives: A Mandela exhibition with a sour corporate aftertaste; mental health well-being in the gig economy. Publications: The u nprotected, unsupported & uncertain status of refugees in Greece; journali

Not just for a development-related autobiography enthusiast like me is Elaine Mokhtefi’s Algiers, Third World Capital-Freedom Fighters, Revolutionaries, Black Panthers a literary treat! Mokhtefi’s memoir centres around the decade after the defeat of France and independence in 1962 until she is forced to leave Algeria. A journalist, translator, ‘fixer’ as well as book author and seller in later life, Mokhtefi’s vivid anecdotes bring to live a time when ‘alternative development’ meant more than arguing about the best methods for an RCT or what kind of microcredit is more sustainable. Between Algeria’s competing visions of development, visitors from all across Africa and global connections to various freedom movements a time comes to live that promised so much-a radical shift in world politics and decolonized world long before it became the topic of increased academic interest. There were so many reflections her book triggered when I read it over the course of a weekend: How the develo

Hi all, Welcome to a fresh link review from stormy and rainy Sweden! Development news: Commitment to development (Sweden is #1!); Rwanda's cash transfer program everybody is talking about; Canada's OECD-DAC peer review; UN Women staff sacked over #AidToo; is the UNSG under siege? Citizens United Against Inhumanity; is pessimism a privilege? Positive thinking & poverty; edutainment meets behavioral science; CARE's humanitarian imaginary; Africa is always portrayed as a passive woman; accepting charity with dignity; challenging white drones; the radical history of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Our digital lives: Excuses are like...white male panel edition; Mo' cryptocurrencies, mo' opportunities for tax havens! Publications: Investigative journalism in Africa; ending extreme poverty; medical brain drain? Not so fast! Academia: Caribbean hurricane vulnerability & British colonial plantations. Enjoy! Development news Commitment to Development Index 2018 The

Hi all, Development news: Thailand's slave fishermen; UNEP boss' problematic travel arrangements; UNSG talks about a complicated world; long-term benefits of cash transfers-it's complicated; redefining aid in the 21st century; revisiting the depoliticizing women's empowerment debate; new UNHCR aid worker podcast; long-read on voluntourism-also complicated; Nkruma's legacy in Ghana; the rise of the inequality industry; plus: more #globaldev podcasts, tweets, videos! Publications: Mapping the landscape of foundation support for #globaldev news; cash transfers can have positive impacts on intimate partner violence. Academia: A peer review special: Reviewing trends, radical reforms & a scathing critique of the academic publishing-industrial complex; plus: Ethnography at African borders. Enjoy! Development news Thailand's slave fishermen: What's needed to solve the crisis? Chairat, Patima and the TMFG team have developed a system whereby slave workers