Links & Contents I Liked 487

Hi all,

Me & the blog are officially on our summer break, but some interesting readings have been piling up so I want to share them as well as a few open access books that should make interesting additions to your summer holiday or autumn course reading lists...

My quotes of the week
The Lankelly Chase chief executive, Julian Corner, said: “Philanthropy is a function of colonial capitalism, it has been shaped by it, is being driven by it, and yet philosophically it tries to position itself as somehow a cure for the ills of colonial capitalism, and that contradiction needs to stop.” (UK charity foundation to abolish itself and give away £130m)

As the Winooski River retreated on Wednesday, it revealed the only climate refuge that remains: neighbors aiding neighbors. “The sense I have gotten,” a friend who lives in Montpelier texted me, “is an overwhelming willingness of people to volunteer, to help in any way they can.” (Even ‘Safe’ Places Are Experiencing Climate Chaos in America)

In an age in which liberalism in Western political cultures seems severely weakened by populisms, integralisms, and deglobalisations, one has to wonder how long the West can keep its global Liberalism 101 going. This endless repetition of liberal desiderata—we have the answer now what’s the question?—now faces a disposition in much of Africa in which the political foundations of the national project are eroding, there is no liberal ‘new normal’ in view. Transnational nexus of violence, resource grab, trafficking, and privatising state patrimony leaves a prospective for Africa that liberalism is ill-equipped to make sense of. (Wagner in Africa – political excess and the African condition)

New on Aidnography
The worrisome shift to the right of Nordic development cooperation

As a new minister for development and trade takes over #globaldev in Finland, it is time to take a closer look at how profoundly the foundations of Nordic global engagement and development cooperation are changing.

Development news
UK charity foundation to abolish itself and give away £130m

The Lankelly Chase chief executive, Julian Corner, said: “Philanthropy is a function of colonial capitalism, it has been shaped by it, is being driven by it, and yet philosophically it tries to position itself as somehow a cure for the ills of colonial capitalism, and that contradiction needs to stop.”
(...)
The foundation said that while its endowment might not appear to have originated in overtly harmful colonising practices, it believed “capital accumulation occurs through ongoing processes of colonial appropriation and exploitation. Our endowment is embedded within the system of what scholars such as Cedric J Robinson have called ‘racial capitalism’.”

Patrick Butler for the Guardian on how a UK charity is 'decolonizing'...

‘Miscarriage? Take sick leave’: global health organisations are failing their female staff

The report highlighted that only 18 organisations provided full maternal health benefits to staff who had suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth. It also said there was a lack of domestic violence policies, with just 21 organisations having policies in place to support their employees.
“As a community, organisations active in global health have a duty to uphold women’s sexual and reproductive rights in all their forms. As a sector, they are fighting for women across the globe to have access to these fundamental human rights, yet do not seem to apply the same standards in their own back yard,” Hawkes said.

Kaamil Ahmed for the Guardian; I think that too many of these organizations are based in the U.S. and have adopted the unhealthy standards of American organizations & workplaces-so time for looking to Europe & elsewhere for better practices!

Stopping the raid on aid is critical to rebuilding the UK’s reputation as an international development superpower

The Home Office’s raid on aid must be halted, and we urge the government to take a different approach so that the UK can both support the settlement of refugees and restore its position as a trusted development partner. The UK’s spending on IDRCs should be additional to the government budget earmarked for development spending, whether that is set at 0.5% or 0.7%. The reforms planned by Minister Mitchell are a welcome first step, but they must only form part of an overhaul to the UK’s approach.

Eden Duggan for Bond summarizes recent developments in the UK's #globaldev budget & the hope for change under the new Secretary for #globaldev.

International Criminal Court investigates war crimes in Sudan

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened a new probe into alleged war crimes in Sudan, its chief prosecutor said Thursday, expressing “great concern” over escalating violence there.
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The UN has also warned of fresh crimes in Darfur, saying Thursday that the bodies of at least 87 people allegedly killed last month by the RSF and their allies had been buried in a mass grave in Darfur.
Khan said the risk of further war crimes was “deepened by the clear and long-standing disregard demonstrated by relevant actors, including the government of Sudan, for their obligations.”

Alarabiya News on the latest developments regarding the ICC & Sudan.

Even ‘Safe’ Places Are Experiencing Climate Chaos in America

I knew what she meant. It’s the uncertainty that gets you, that ties that knot of discomfort in your chest. It’s a sensation familiar to anyone who has stared down raging wildfires in California or Gulf Coast hurricanes and now to Vermonters, too. And for me, it’s laced with something new: the near certainty that this will happen again. And again.
As the Winooski River retreated on Wednesday, it revealed the only climate refuge that remains: neighbors aiding neighbors. “The sense I have gotten,” a friend who lives in Montpelier texted me, “is an overwhelming willingness of people to volunteer, to help in any way they can.”

Jonathan Mingle for the New York Times on the truly global scale & local self-help responses that mark responses to the climate catastrophe everywhere.

Humanitarians and the Climate Emergency

But today, the biggest strategic challenge facing the humanitarian sector is the global climate emergency – the exponential rise in the incidence and intensity of climate-related disasters due to climate change. From now on, the climate emergency will be the dominant context in which all humanitarians work. Climate is not simply one more ​‘issue’ that humanitarians must add to their ever-expanding list of cross-cutting priorities. Now, it is a constant and rapidly emerging global disaster with universal reach. Our sense of intersectionality needs to be reversed. The climate emergency will not intersect with other areas: instead, everything will intersect with climate change. This is a whole new paradigm for humanitarians, and we need to urgently reframe our vision and approach. Climate is the highway. States, the economy, agriculture, water, and cities are the much smaller intersecting roads on which we try to cross the climate highway.

Hugo Slim for the Global Public Policy Institute with a transcript of an excellent lecture on the state of humanitarianism & much more!

"@ManshiAsher said the flash floods in Himachal Pradesh had been evidently triggered by excess rainfall but they had also been “intensified” by muck and debris dumped along streams and rivers." https://t.co/785Vk8RCDz

— Aruna Chandrasekhar (@aruna_sekhar) July 12, 2023

Southasia’s place in contemporary climate fiction

As with the work of other authors of Southasian origin, their depictions of Southasia deepen and complicate the worldwide narrative of what climate change looks like, and for whom it poses the greatest risks. Unlike the depictions of mass death and simple tragedy by Western authors, their work shows people in the region living with climate change, even in the context of catastrophe. As we look to climate fiction for insight and reflection on our shared future, Southasian writers must be given due credit, not only for their contributions to the genre but also for their potential to reshape the global understanding of climate change.

Evan Tims for Himal Southasian shares some fascinating insights from a project across South Asian on how to write about the climate catastrophe, resilience & change.

Wagner in Africa – political excess and the African condition

In an age in which liberalism in Western political cultures seems severely weakened by populisms, integralisms, and deglobalisations, one has to wonder how long the West can keep its global Liberalism 101 going. This endless repetition of liberal desiderata—we have the answer now what’s the question?—now faces a disposition in much of Africa in which the political foundations of the national project are eroding, there is no liberal ‘new normal’ in view. Transnational nexus of violence, resource grab, trafficking, and privatising state patrimony leaves a prospective for Africa that liberalism is ill-equipped to make sense of.
Recognising this and seeking more troubling but more relevant political analysis is the first step that those who are interested might take if they are to respond to the thoroughly modern and sophisticated political of Africa. After all, one cannot assume that Africa might hold in its present some auguries of the West’s own future. It is striking how, after seventy years of expectation that the world economy would converge through economic growth in the Global South, it is global crisis that seems to drive convergence in all nations.

Graham Harrison for the Review of African Political Economy on Wagner-and much, much more.

Understanding 'compassion' in international development

In my experience, compassion enriches long-term relationships. In the context of the technical advisory work that I have undertaken in East Africa or South Asia, my best projects are the ones where we have built a relationship over time based on mutual respect for each other’s values, goals, as well as an understanding of each other’s constraints.
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We need to make others understand the importance of this value — and they will ask for evidence of why they should care about this approach.
Collecting stories and case studies where acting with compassion made a difference and showing where not having compassion damaged relationships or development work could be a place to start.

Suvojit Chattopadhyay talks to Signe Jung about her project on compassion in #globaldev with many excellent interviews on her blog.

On Stewarding Love & Liberation

Through transdisciplinary facilitation, we helped architect a global network to support human rights activists; unite a global anti-corruption movement under a new strategy; launch a pioneering media innovation lab; ensure international agencies could leverage Big Tech to reach vulnerable populations, and seed a new global union for participatory democracy.
As our theory of change evolved, and my own political and spiritual journey progressed, I found myself in diverse fields that don’t usually talk to each other: documentary poetics and global development, media justice and public procurement reform, Buddhist philosophy and deliberative democracy. I soon saw how the limitations of one field were often addressed by the strengths of another, so I started queering how I curated and facilitated gatherings. I had always worked at the intersection of activists and government, folks with power and folks without. But now I started folding in artists with economists, healers with technocrats, psychiatrists with lawyers, helping them challenge and strengthen one another, and find common ground.
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Yet if the last 15 years have taught me anything, it is that global capitalists and white saviours are all too happy to treat disasters as anomalies. And from a place of convenient amnesia, they continue to sacrifice our most vulnerable.

Panthea Lee with Some reflections from 15 years of dreaming & fighting for structural justice-a long-read that deserves your attention, thoughts & incentives to change after the summer break...

Sweden’s researchers outraged at decision to axe development-research funding

On 22 June, the government announced that the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskaprådet; VR), the country’s largest research funder, would no longer offer grants for development research — taking 180 million Swedish kronor (US$16.4 million) off the table with immediate effect.
More than 600 researchers have signed an open letter criticizing the move and calling for its reversal. “The Government’s decision wastes time and energy spent on preparing applications and undermines confidence in the research support system as a whole,” the letter says. “Sweden has been a leading player in development research and research assistance for over 50 years. This position is now seriously undermined.”

Marta Paterlini for Nature summarizes the beginning of 1 of the biggest #globaldev discussions that Nordic #highered has seen for a while...

Decolonizing academia
How ethical is the colonisation of current decolonisation debates in Academia?

While the Global North focuses on the feeding tube, the Global South focuses on the disease. The disease is not exclusive to the Global South; it is often caused by patriarchy, racism, casteism, or capitalism, which have a dominant presence in the Global North. Therefore, decolonisation must be a struggle against these "isms." Furthermore, decolonisation debates emerging from the Global South should also be anti-capitalist, anti-caste, and anti-patriarchy because colonisation, when viewed from below, encompasses systems and structures that perpetuate colonisation.
Third, the Global North tends to search for sanitized terms to describe its peers and their conscious and unconscious perpetuating practices, avoiding calling a spade a spade. Meanwhile, the Global South is provided with sugar-coated terms to evoke sympathy. What is needed is to evoke anger against the system and structures. Suppressing anger does not necessarily create peace; it perpetuates a silent violence characterized by the indignity faced by the vast population of the Global South. Anger is essential and should be acknowledged, explored, and engaged with.

Pradeep Narayanan for Durham University kicks off this special section on decolonization & #highered.

Towards a decolonial ethic for building fair and equitable research partnerships

Therefore, in order to shift power in research and build fair and equitable research partnerships, first, these worldviews (and colonial logics) need to be deconstructed and other ways of knowing the world must be centred. This requires a decolonial research ethic that includes deepening our self-awareness and reflexive practice.
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Secondly, we need to recognise that the current research ecosystem does not lend itself to shifting power in research and building more equitable research partnerships. Consequently, we need an innovative model for decolonising research in international development.

Cathy Bollaert from Christian Aid for the Development Studies Association focuses on #globaldev research (partnerships).

Decolonising International Justice-Unravelling What Decolonising Means for the International Justice Majorat Leiden University College

Barrie Sander, Maria Calomfirescu, Rebecca Hussey, Laura Pereira & Jasmine Velasquez for Leiden University College with a rare & really interesting case study of what 'decolonizing' a Western curriculum could really mean.

Living Decoloniality: Practical experiences of decoloniality throughout the aid sector

Living Decoloniality (...) is a new short podcast series exploring how individuals and groups from around the world are tackling the harmful colonial legacy of the aid and humanitarian sectors.
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Episodes 2-6 feature inspirational interviews with aid and humanitarian professionals on their own journeys to decolonise their practice and that of their organisations, and the wider sector.

The Centre for Humanitarian Leadership just launched a new podcast.

Beyond survival: exploring wellbeing in humanitarian action

Regardless of the difficult circumstances they find themselves in, people strive not just to exist, but to live, in ways that they believe have meaning and value. The focus of humanitarian aid, meanwhile, tends to be largely restricted to meeting the biological requirements of keeping people alive in the most efficient way possible. This can leave substantial chunks of the human experience – such as sex and intimacy, religious observance, or even having a basic sense of agency and control – largely invisible to humanitarian actors, who either sideline them entirely as ‘out of scope’ or engage with them obliquely as problems to be solved or means to other ends.

Oliver Lough, Sarah Phillips, Alexandra Spencer & Megan Daigle for ODI explore the literature on wellbeing in humanitarianism as the starting point of a longer project on how humanitarians can pursue meaningful lives during crises.

Aid Agencies at a watershed. Charities need to show they are fit for purpose: Oxford report

While setting out the challenges, the report calls for Governments and international organisations to examine their role in supporting INGOs to remain relevant and effective. And it concludes, ‘Now is the time for INGO leaders to refocus on the founding purposes of their organisations, to reassert their ideals and update their missions to take account of present realities, so that they can better meet the needs of the world’s most vulnerable people.’

Mike Aaronson & Andrew Thompson's report for Oxford University is not bad per se, but there is a fair bit of plastic #globaldev reform language involved as well as a whiff of 'it's only an important issue when two white male Oxford professors write about it' going on...

Country-level Politics around the SDGs

But there is more to SDG implementation. While studies and commentaries often bemoan the lack of political will to “transform our world”, there is little analysis of country-level politics around the SDGs. This research paper aims to fill that crucial gap. The authors assess the priorities and political interests of governments and local elites, as well as societal interests and related conflicts around the SDGs in eleven countries. The aim is to better understand what the heads of state and government, the rep­resentatives of different ministries, and social or economic actors in each country want to achieve through the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.
The countries covered in the study are Belarus, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Kenya, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, South Africa, State of Palestine and Sudan.

Marianne Beisheim & colleagues at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs with an interesting paper that looks behind the headlines of SGD implementation.

Open access books