Links & Contents I Liked 472

Hi all,

Sometimes a picture says more than those proverbial 1000 words and before we delve into the not-so-great news from around the #globaldev & #highered worlds let's think about the beauty of the 'soil of solidarity' for a moment...

My quotes of the week
If humanitarian agencies really want to help as many people as possible in Ukraine, they would make it easier for Ukrainian organisations to access their funding, and trust they know what to do with it, says Tetiana Stawnychy, president of the NGO Caritas Ukraine. “Order and transparency are important,” she says. “But building up the agency of local NGOs is also part of building up resilience in society.”
(One year on, Ukraine exposes the limits of well-funded international aid)

Humanitarian organization do have to address their own colonial legacy. But we should not forget that other colonial legacy that Hannah Arendt called apathy. Consumed by an individualistic way of life and the competition of all against all, the populations of the North take refuge in nihilistic politics, which makes the nothing the centre of its attention, and the everything its periphery. Indifference to the suffering of others is a colonial legacy that still kills today. (White Saviourism is a Colonial Legacy. But White Indifference is the Larger One)

Development news
Counting excess vaccine donations as ODA inflated aid in 2021: Here's why they still shouldn't count

While the DAC secretariat has managed to prevent the worst fears of some commentators, by persuading members not to count more ODA per dose than they originally paid, it’s still true that including excess vaccine donations in ODA inflates the figures. With continuing criticism of the way the DAC operates, the decision to allow members to continue to record excess vaccine donations in 2022 – reneging on reassurances apparently made to some members – is an unnecessary own-goal.

Euan Ritchie for Development Initiatives; just fund ODA properly & stop with the loopholing already!

U.N. to cut food aid for Rohingya refugees, citing fund shortfall

The United Nations plans to slash food aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, blaming a funding shortfall for cuts that agencies warned on Friday would deepen food insecurity and malnutrition in the world’s largest refugee settlement.

Poppy McPherson, Ruma Paul & Sudipto Ganguly for Reuters with a reminder that we will read many more of these notes on underfunded humanitarian crises this year.

Syria’s Earthquake Exposes Broken Aid Machine

What the earthquake has shown is that there is an urgent need to resolve the underlying challenges that the aid operations in Northwest Syria have posed. A new approach is needed. If a political settlement is not currently possible, then at least a new arrangement that allows aid to flow to the region in a sustainable and scalable manner to allow the residents to rebuild and meet their basic needs. It is not sufficient to continue to negotiate cross-border access on a six-month basis; it is not acceptable to ignore the governance crisis presented by Northwest Syria in the hopes that it goes away; it is not sufficient to misrepresent and overplay certain variables that make the operations challenging, while avoiding any mention of the real obstacles that plague it for fear of donor withdrawal.

Sara Kayyali for the Arab Reform Initiative on the politicized nature of the slow earthquake response in Syria.

One year on, Ukraine exposes the limits of well-funded international aid

The seemingly arbitrary lines that divide humanitarian and development funding also prevent NGOs from working at full capacity: More than 100,000 homes need rebuilding across Ukraine, but many humanitarian organisations are only allowed to carry out “light and medium” repairs, such as fixing broken windows or doors, says Anne-Marie Kerrigan-Derriche, senior external relations adviser for Ukraine at the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR. Anything more intensive is typically considered a job for development NGOs – who rarely have access to the billions of dollars raised in humanitarian funds.
(...)
If humanitarian agencies really want to help as many people as possible in Ukraine, they would make it easier for Ukrainian organisations to access their funding, and trust they know what to do with it, says Tetiana Stawnychy, president of the NGO Caritas Ukraine. “Order and transparency are important,” she says. “But building up the agency of local NGOs is also part of building up resilience in society.”

Corinne Redfern for the New Humanitarian on another humanitarian crisis that is defying traditional rules of how the aid system should work...

War for control of Haiti’s capital targets women’s bodies

“They’re running out of tools to control people,” said Renata Segura, deputy director for Latin America and the Caribbean for International Crisis Group. “They extort, but there’s only so much money that can be extorted from people that are really poor. This is the one thing they have they can inflict on the population.”
That fear has rippled across Port-au-Prince. Parents hesitate to send their children to school, worried they could be kidnapped or raped by gangs. By night, the buzzing streets of the city empty.
For women especially, going outside the house is a risk. So is fleeing: Gangs use the threat of rape to stop communities from abandoning the areas they control.

Megan Janetzky & Fernanda Pesce for AP News with harrowing reporting from Port-au-Prince.

🍃 The future of international development lies in localisation and decolonizing.

🌎 The global shift in power is a vital, urgent, and long-overdue discussion that calls for systematic transformation in the development and aid sector. @Oxfam @MedhaviniYadav @maria_fm pic.twitter.com/KhMj5UWuiz

— Vidushi Yadav (@vidushiy) February 17, 2023

Uganda condemned for ‘shameful’ decision to close UN human rights office

The development comes less than three months after the UN’s committee against torture adopted the concluding observations on Uganda, which raised concerns that torture and ill-treatment continued to be frequently practised, and called for investigation and prosecution of security officials accused of excessive use of force, violence and arbitrary detention.
“The closure of the @UNHumanRightsUG office proves that [the] government has lost all sense of shame. It no longer wants any close international scrutiny of its human rights record,” tweeted Adrian Jjuuko, executive director of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum.

Samuel Okiror for the Guardian with bad human rights news from Uganda.

Malpass is standing down. Here is my letter in The Economist from four years ago, arguing that the international community should end the informal agreement that the President of the World Bank should be the candidate nominated by the United States. pic.twitter.com/dXXMk0QfjZ

— Owen Barder (@owenbarder) February 16, 2023

Ten years of Life in Lulu

Our South Sudan radio drama, Life In Lulu, is celebrating 10 years on air. Its storylines have covered beliefs about health, conflict and peaceful co-existence, with its main characters journeying through life’s ups and downs, along with its audience.

For World Radio Day BBC Media Action looked behind the scenes of one of their long-standing programmes in South Sudan.

World Radio Day: How Community Radio Helped Liberate Women’s Voices

Radio, like all other media, remains an ever-changing platform, and the rise of podcasting is also disrupting and changing radio. Although women are still far from gender equal in podcast production, the medium gives women an alternative way to amplify their voice. (...) “For women to have microphones wherever they are campaigning around issues of relevance to them,” Mitchell said, “and for that message to go around via the various ways we have of broadcasting and podcasting is incredibly important in order to be able to hear those women’s voices in all their diversity.”

Chloé Cosson for PassBlue is also contributing to the world of World Radio Day.

Labour's Plans for International Development: Preet Gill at CGD

Gill addressed the issue of the 0.7 percent Official Development Assistance (ODA) target and acknowledged the need to ensure that the budget is being spent effectively on poverty reduction, as well as the need to communicate more effectively with the public. She acknowledged that it may not be possible to immediately return to spending the 0.7 percent, but promised to set a pathway towards that goal. She also expressed her concern about the abuse of ODA and the raiding of funds for other purposes and called for a reform of the DAC rules, highlighting the example of vaccines.

Bernat Camps Adrogué for the Center for Global Development; in typical Labour fashion their commitment to #globaldev is half-assed...

“It would be useless to suggest a non-American”

Welcome to our first issue of Blue Smoke, a new monthly newsletter that will shine a spotlight on senior appointments at the United Nations. This edition’s title is a quote from a senior UN figure in response to a question about who is standing to be the next World Food Programme Executive Director.

'Blue Smoke is a joint project coordinated by the United Nations Association–UK and delivered in media partnership with PassBlue'-great new newsletter!

“We need a successful summit to prepare for another successful summit” is peak UN… pic.twitter.com/LjuV9yOlWX

— Tobias Denskus (@aidnography) February 14, 2023

Is it morally wrong to donate to NGOs? Part one

Reflecting this, at the end of the book he lists alternatives to donating to NGOs working in aid-dependent countries – better ways of helping those in need. We could, he thinks, donate more to NGOs that focus on helping people in wealthier, less aid-dependent countries (Indonesia yes; Liberia no). We should donate to organisations helping poor people in our own countries. We should reform global trade. We should strengthen the international rule of law. We should promote migration from poorer countries.
Bizarrely, pressuring our governments on climate change is missing from his list. And if Temkin wants more doubts, I could find him economists who disagree with his views on trade and migration. Also, while I support an international rules based order, I’m unsure which NGOs I could donate to that are successfully promoting it. Yet he is right to believe we can help people in need in many different ways.

Terence Wood for DevPolicy Blog with a great book review & discussion.

White Saviourism is a Colonial Legacy. But White Indifference is the Larger One.

Humanitarian organization do have to address their own colonial legacy. But we should not forget that other colonial legacy that Hannah Arendt called apathy. Consumed by an individualistic way of life and the competition of all against all, the populations of the North take refuge in nihilistic politics, which makes the nothing the centre of its attention, and the everything its periphery. Indifference to the suffering of others is a colonial legacy that still kills today. Humanitarian action is under attack, not only by authoritarian regimes, but also by European border and security policies that call themselves liberal. (...) Decolonial humanitarianism does not mean less humanitarianism. It means better humantiarianism. And more of it.

Joel Glasman for the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict with a powerful, short post.

In other news

Today's Taste of Cyberpunk:
Hard times for e-thots🥺 pic.twitter.com/iuz1Bi10uZ

— Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 (@RealSexyCyborg) February 11, 2023

Visa discrimination: moving beyond global health

In short, visa discrimination must be seen as an interconnected global policy issue, rather than a siloed view of North against South. This is not to divert blame from the Global North for its discrimination against the Global South, but rather to emphasize the fact that contemporary borders as they have manifested are not natural, and certainly not limited to only one sphere of the world. Even the Global South is not a monolith. Each region and country comes with its own political history which influences its decision-making practices and approach towards border policy.
The hyper focus on migration as an economic or social deal breaker for nations has exacerbated the debate about whether citizens should be allowed to be truly global, or their freedom of movement curtailed based on the individual sovereignty of nations.

Themrise Khan for BMJ Global Health provides a nuanced overview over the traditional problem of visa in a world of changing mobilities.

What 40,000 job adverts say about academic career progression

over the years 2016-2021 we see categories such as Digital Literacy (incl. technical skills like programming, software application, etc.), Teaching and Supervision (incl. curriculum and pedagogical development), Degree and Achievements, Work Experience, and Mobility are listed more frequently. While Research, Interpersonal, Cognitive Skills, Teaching and Supervision gain importance over an academic career lifespan, categories like Digital Skills, Communication, Personal Attributes, and Degree and Achievements lose significance towards the professoriate. Interpersonal Attributes, particularly, include qualities like teamwork, collaboration and partnership, management and leadership, and these are key across the academic career.

Lilia Mantai & Mauricio Marrone for LSE Impact of Social Sciences on their research of looking at academic job ads.

I wanted to write something like, "oh you don't say" but this is *actually* a brutal readhttps://t.co/tk6VwABKET pic.twitter.com/ZYD19d1QLp

— Jelena Brankovic @jelena3121@mastodon.social (@jelena3121) February 16, 2023

Who Counts? Ghanaian Academic Publishing and Global Science

It tells the story of how the Ghanaian academy is being transformed by this bibliometric economy. It offers a rich account of the voices and perspectives of Ghanaian academics and African journal publishers. How, where and when are Ghana’s researchers disseminating their work, and what do these experiences reveal about an unequal global science system? Is there pressure to publish in ‘reputable’ international journals, what role do supervisors, collaborators and mentors play, and how do academics manage in conditions of scarcity? Putting the insights of more than 40 Ghanaian academics into dialogue with journal editors and publishers from across the continent, the book highlights creative responses, along with the emergence of new regional research ecosystems.

David Mills, Patricia Kingori, Abigail Branford, Samuel T. Chatio, Natasha Robinson & Paulina Tindana for African Minds share fascinating insights into glocal perspectives of publishing from Ghana.

What we were reading 5 years ago
(Link review 262, 8 December 2017)

Ed Sheeran means well but this poverty porn has to stop

But what will really effect change is not charity but activism. The problem with adverts of this kind is that, by denying viewers any context as to who “the victims” are, or the structural factors that have contributed to their situation, they give the impression that the suffering is inevitable. It is not. Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, which the UN has called the worst in the world, is being exacerbated by the continuing blockade by Saudi Arabia, one of Britain’s closest allies. Lobbying the government to stop selling arms to the Saudis would have a far greater impact than charity.

Afua Hirsch for the Guardian on a topic that never gets old...

What 10 years of producing podcasts with social scientists has taught me

There has never been a better or more exciting time to be podcasting and to be using podcasts not just to share research findings but to really engage with people interested in getting the hard facts about the many challenges facing the world today. But what’s more important is getting the subject matter, aims and format of your podcast right in the first place, and you do that best by thinking about and engaging with your audience from the outset.
One thing I have learned in ten years of podcasting is that podcasts are more about communities engaging than being a simple a vehicle or tool for communication. Viewed that way, podcasts have the potential to put you right on that pathway to impact.

Christine Garrington for the LSE Impact Blog; I wonder how the growth in podcasts since then has affected this 'community building' vs. communication approach.