Aidnography

Hi all, This week's not-so-good news from Lebanon, Ethiopia, North Korea & Syria found a positive counterpart with powerful, hopeful stories from women contributing to change-from Vanuatu, Sweden, South Sudan & India. It's also worth scrolling down to the archive section featuring pieces on 'the hut' & early signs of UK's decline in #globaldev leadership. My quotes of the week We often encourage human rights defenders, activists, and independent journalists to be heroes. Yet, we just as often fail to have their backs when they are inevitably pressed against the wall by their abusers in power. (Cameroon, Eswatini, Rwanda: Three devastating days that shook Africa) More than 600,000 people may have been killed. Imagine if Lilongwe disappeared. Millions of people in Tigray and other regions were displaced, their lives upended forever. The destruction of infrastructure, farms, homes, and jobs undid hard-won progress that may take the better part of a decade t...

Hi all, Davos came & went, but there are also other important stories from Afghanistan, Brazil, on faux carbon offsets, value/poverty chains, peace intermediaries & much more! And another brand new post on Aidnography -this time about PhD skills & their limited transferability. My quotes of the week “On the one hand, the stereotypes seem to hold true (...). There are decadent parties, executives spouting vacuous talking points about sustainability, and behind it all the mysterious World Economic Forum. “Still, every global development leader I spoke to was glad they came. The easy access to top-level corporate and government leaders is hard to replicate elsewhere, even at the United Nations. “But the question for journalists and development practitioners alike is whether, by their sheer presence, they are legitimizing a gathering which could not be more removed from the constituencies they’re meant to serve. Each year, it seems they ask themselves the question. And each yea...

Based on another recent conversation on LinkedIn -this time far more productive and polite compared to my previous experience , I want to expand a little on the answer I posted. Ashley Ruba, a UX Researcher @ Meta Reality Labs, wrote about her experience of leaving academia after her PhD to pursue a career in the digital design industry with Meta : Unfortunately, I often hear PhDs lament that they have no transferrable skills. First of all, stop that. You have transferrable skills. You just weren't taught how to identify and market them. This is why academics struggle to write resumes (more on that later this week). Okay, so what are your transferrable skills? For UX Research, my biggest transferrable skills are: 1. Qualitative research methods & analysis 2. Experimental and survey design 3. Statistical analysis (using R) 4. Public speaking 5. Technical writing Do you have these skills too? I bet you do. Experiences, industries and sectors vary widely, but this is not the firs...

Hi all, Welcome to the first link review of 2023! Unfortunately, we start where we left off: The climate crisis, Afghan refugees, toxic UN work cultures & challenges around localization; Bangladesh, Kenya & Uganda make news, but there is also a section on African fiction, science fiction & alternative #globaldev storytelling-and last, but not least, a proper, slightly rant-y blog post on a social entrepreneur & how not to communicate your #globaldev failings... My quotes of the week From January to June, the ward experienced an 800 percent rise in admissions of children under 5 who needed treatment for malnourishment — a surge that aid groups blame mostly on a climate change-fueled drought that has turned the region into a parched barren. ( In Kenya, an Epidemic of Children Hospitalized for Starvation) Climate change shobche darun masala [climate change is the most amazing spice], add climate change, poverty alleviation and gender and you will have a recipe for success ...

Welcome to 2023 and one of the first “proper” blog posts in a while-I hope more will follow this year! A few years ago there was a little bit of a hype in #globaldev and #ICT4D circles around the concept of  “ fail festivals ” and the notion of openly acknowledging and critically engaging with failed projects. A German entrepreneur and sustainability influencer on LinkedIn also shared a story of failure, this time from Chad, but it was more in the spirit of praising persistence, not giving up and better-failing-than-not-trying that you often find with viral posts on LinkedIn . Well, it seems that Torsten Schreiber, the founder & CEO of Africa GreenTec AG and #LinkedInTopVoices #Nachhaltigkeit 2022 influencer blocked me after leaving a critical comment under his recent post on why he had to give up on his dream of electrifying Chad. Both his post and my reply were in German, so you have to trust my translation. How it started : Failure. Retreat. For a social en...