Aidnography

Hi all, Our summer break is definitely ending when more than 100 students will commence their studies in our program next week; in the meantime we are looking at humanitarian situations in India, Saudi-Arabia, Myanmar, Hawai'i as well as period poverty across Africa, aid logos & plenty of academic readings on #globaldev's past, present & future! Enjoy! My quotes of the week But let's do that more with telling stories, and give them the voice to tell what happened and have perhaps [donor] visits and so on. The visitor doesn't need to see logos plastered all over. There are other ways of telling donors and volunteers that it is a worthwhile investment. (Why it’s time to stop the aid logo ‘arms race’) Sadly, Sergio’s trust in humanity was to be his tragic undoing in Baghdad. But, as a consequence, have the UN and international humanitarian agencies learnt the wrong lessons? The reality today is that the modern humanitarian enterprise has become more distant from i...

Hi all, I hope many of you are still on or about to leave for Global Northern summer holidays and I hope even more so that you are in a healthy, friendly & safe space... As the Swedish academic break is slowly coming to an end, I prepared a fresh link review with more reflective content from Syria, Italy, Sudan & different spaces from UNRISD to African cultural spaces and New York policy wonkery...- plus an interesting section with new reports & longer-read food for thought! Enjoy! P.S.: A look into the archive reminded me that a certain Nick Kristof used to write about #globaldev-and we didn't like it very much... My quotes of the week So I think we are rightly more sensitive to reductive descriptions, yet these have applied to Africa more than to any other continent on earth. Africa was never hopeless and it will never be perfect. What it is — as I hope this series contributes to showing — is a place of immense history, cultural wealth, and breathtaking creativity, wh...

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...