Aidnography

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)...

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. Ann Danaiya Usher from Development Today writes : For the first time, a party viewed as being far-right on the political spectrum takes over the aid portfolio in a Nordic country. Finland’s new Development and Trade Minister Ville Tavio from the Finns Party is cutting aid and linking assistance to the return of asylum seekers. NightCafe prompt "feminist foreign policy" Even if the Finns Party rejects the “far-right” label, Finland is not the first country in the Nordic region where populist, right-leaning parties and coalitions are dismantling the foundations of their historic development policies. Denmark-a new Nordic UK? Until the beginning of the year Denmark was in the news until the initial plans to process asylum seekers in Rwanda was suspended . But increas...

Hi all, Botched biodiversity projects in Guinea, harmful algorithms in Jordan, tea pickers destroying machines in Kenya, sugar & global health in Barbados, plus stories about UN leadership & localization 'wars' really highlight the global nature of #globaldev in this week's news review... Our academic summer break is around the corner & my weekly #globaldev review will return in the second half of August. As a little summer project I collected a few historical books on, well, you may have guessed it, 'development' & some book reviews should be showing up during the break similar to the one on Lords of Poverty . My quotes of the week “Many people in Jordan are not getting financial support because their hardships don’t fit an algorithm’s rigid model of what poverty should look like,” said Amos Toh, senior technology and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The World Bank should not let the promise of better data and technology distract from...

Hi all, AI & ChatGPT, fast fashion, weaponization of social media, refugee protection & many challenges for humanitarian aid in Ethiopia, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh & Myanmar are so of this week's stories-plus a little Gates foundation skepticism & a leading humanitarian scholar who joins Extinction Rebellion in her home country! My quotes of the week “Fraud is not restricted to aid, and it’s not restricted to cash. The question for me is how, then, agencies deal with it after they uncover it.” (GiveDirectly loses $900,000 in DRC mobile cash fraud) “The world has failed to support the most vulnerable, but this can be reversed. The lives of millions of people suffering in silence can improve, if funding and resources are allocated based on need, not geopolitical interest, and media headlines of the day.” (Burkina Faso is the world’s ‘most neglected crisis’ as focus remains on Ukraine) When he first started working at the market 24 years ago, he remembers bein...

As AI, ChatGPT & broader discussions on the tools & technology behind it enter the digital #globaldev discussion sphere, I started a curated collection of articles & podcasts that have caught my attention so far. Much of the content is about early experiments with ChatGPT with a few writers sharing broader reflections on potential opportunities & problems-often along the lines of what has previously been discussed in the ICT4D field around 'digital divides', 'technology not solving deeper-rooted political issues' & 'we don't know yet'... Not surprisingly, almost all of the authors are based (in organizations) in the Global North, but not as gender-imbalanced as I would have thought, given that (technical) #globaldev writing on the Internet is still dominated by male writers. I will update the collection on a rolling basis-so don't hesitate to point me to stuff I have overlooked so far! P.S.: I asked Nightcafe for an AI-generated image...