Aidnography

Hi all, Another good week for #globaldev debates! Development news: Special section on the aid industry in contemporary America kicks of this review; sweatshops & industrialization in Ethiopia; Turkey’s crackdown on NGOs; Should World Bank staff visit the field? IKEA is upgrading its refugee shelters; Nepal earthquake anniversary; the complexities of social change in ‘mini-Indias’; local aid workers in the Philippines; the gig economy in the South; ICT4D for girls & women; bad schools may not always be bad ideas; can the UN system do innovation? #allmalepanel? There’s an app for/against it! Our digital lives: Facebook admits government exploitations; Silicon valley won’t be fixing health systems in the global South; rich charities are getting richer; thought leaders & plutocrats.   Publication: Blockchains for development. Academia: New UnPaywall extension . Enjoy! New from aidnography Electing Saudi-Arabia to the UN Commission on the Status of Women is not a bad ...

You read about the references to The Onion , saw the outraged tweets and global disbelief as Saudi Arabia was elected into the UN Commission on the Status of Women . Secret vote (likely incl UK) gives world's most misogynistic state SaudiArabia seat on UN Women's Rights Commission https://t.co/UC1VivVtkD — Charles Shoebridge (@ShoebridgeC) April 24, 2017 ‘ Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief. It’s absurd. ’ Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch is quoted by The Independent . But as justified as critique of Saudi-Arabia is, it is important to look beyond the headlines and re-affirm a few core working principles of the UN system (some of which you can and should be critical about-but that’s another blog post, perhaps). Saudi-Arabia is a normal member state of the UN Saudi-Arabia is a regular member state of the UN. The UN system does not judge, there are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ members-there are just members. Ac...

Hi all, Welcome to a jam-packed link review! Development news: #BringBackOurGirls-All they got was a hashtag?; pepsi-fication of resistance; Kathmandu is building back unsafe; mo’ #globaldev money, but less for poor people; the right way to give; has the aid industry lost its humanity to jargon and numbers? A new WFP graphic novel in South Sudan; should we treat refugee camps as long-term urban spaces? Outdated election observing; developing countries and digital start-ups; how to avoid stealing stories; the danger of a single story; Communication with communities in Haiti; Follow the car! Peacebuilding & material objects; one of those girls Our digital lives: How will comms teams look like in 5 years’ time? Crowdfunding is reshaping giving; inside the bleak world of content moderation. Publication: Academics on Twitter. Academia: The deadly sins of statistical misinterpretation; how detailed should grading scales and matrices be? Reflections on an academic career...

This has become a pit of a pet peeve of mine, but I am getting increasing annoyed when colleagues announce new publications and only include a direct link to the (mostly) paywalled source. Especially on social media I often roll my eyes when links start with ‘ sciencedirect.com ’, ‘ tandfonline.com ’ or ‘ cambridge.org ’. Your exciting new product deserves better! For the majority of ‘members of the public’, i.e. ‘normal’ people on social media this will almost inevitably lead to the frustrating experience of being faced with a paywall; if they are lucky they can still read the abstract, but it still feels like missing out. I doubt that anybody would share your article further. I am, in fact, an academic with access to many journal databases-and I still find the experience of following a link to the publisher ’ s website frustrating! Most of the time I use social media on a mobile device-usually not connected to the university network which often enables direct access to the ...

Hi all, If you are celebrating Easter you are probably looking for some good readings for the long weekend! Development news: AP investigates UN peacekeeping troubles in Haiti; do we need less humanitarian crises appeals? The complexities around outsourcing surrogacy; extreme poverty to rise in Southern Africa; Skoll World Forum between innovation & buzzword bingo; ICT4D failings around Syrian refugees; how to protect staff who have to watch digital atrocities? Aid worker lives in the Philippines; Is ‘beg-packing’ a thing in Asia? Finding a good M&E guide; #allmalepanel. Our digital lives: Who benefits from ‘fake news’? How Al Jazeera grew its video audience . Publication: C4D Network Mapping study. Academia: A syllabus for the refugee crisis; #OER17 was a good conference; gendered academi a & women’s service load; the extinct species of the dangerous academic. Enjoy! Development news AP Exclusive: UN child sex ring left victims but no arrests U.N. officials ...