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Showing posts from July, 2020

NGOs scared, Think Tanks puzzled, Opposition silenced-What I learned after reading more than 40 articles on the DfID-FCO merger

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There are now more than 40 entries in my curated collection of news articles as well as opinion or think pieces on the proposed merger of UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to establish a new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO ). The overall tone is clear: It is a bad idea and it will weaken the UK’s development capacities on many levels. But behind this unified view, disproportionately expressed by white Northern men, it becomes clear that large parts of the UK’s international development establishment are really worried about the decision, because it will most likely have negative implications for their future budget and scope of work. My post focuses on NGOs, Think Tanks and the party political establishment, with the question in mind how these inevitable changes may affect organizations and the traditional set-up of how development is conceptualized, discussed, financed and implemented in the future.

Links & Contents I Liked 372

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Hi all, This is going to be the final link review before my summer break until early August. I said that last year as well and a week later I wrote a viral post about an organization that wanted to send used bras to Africa ... I will spend my holidays at home (the Swedish hemester or svemester for staycation), read some nice books & think about #globaldev outside the permanent now of social media! Stay healthy & safe! My quotes of the week The filmmaker has given us a wide lens in which to see China’s current strategy. I only ask that you open the lens a little wider and see how one colonial hand opens the door for another to stand back holding the camera, as the cycle continues. (Buddha in Africa) As we reorganise the ways we live and work, it’s high time to recognise the robots for what they are: a botched hypothesis about what work matters and what can be allowed to disappear. Robots will neither save or destroy us, for they cannot relieve us our own labour of bu