Aidnography

I just had a first look at the World Bank's latest Development Oureach Magazine on The Contours and Possibilities of Open Development and then came across an interesting post by Ian Thorpe on Open data-experience needed . Ian makes an excellent point about the value of knowledge and expertise, but I really started to wonder how this expertise is going to be paid for. I can understand that 'civil society' in developing countries may be able to provide the expertise, knowledge and comunication tools to engage with aid transparency in their country, but as more and more momentum seems to be generated around aid transparency, I wonder who will do this in donor countries or for international organisations.   The Bank's assumption may be that ' everybody with a laptop ' could do this, but the key point for me is time. I may be able to visualise, check and criticise data, but who is going to pay me for the hours, days and weeks I may have to spent in front of that...

Hi all, It is Friday and time for some week-end reading recommendations: Development news: Microloans don't solve poverty; accountability reforms are complicated; a new project on leaving the aid industry behind after 30 years; how to improve M&E for mobile services; UNU-WIDERs digital communication reform; men leaving Nepal; the political marketplace for (non-) violence; the future of Think Tank researchers. Digital lives: Open data & the criminal justice system; PhD thesis on Spain's 15M movement. New publications on Media and Information Literacy and openness in education. Academia: The value of the 'ivory tower' & and review of the open access publishing debate. Enjoy! New from aidnography Why I prefer Academia_edu over Academia_eu I use Academia_edu a lot, I find it very useful and with low opportunity cost and I am not keen on an alternative ‘Academia_eu’ platform that has huge risks of becoming a white elephant-an expensive, laborious, elite-ins...

I enjoyed reading the summary of David Eaves’ presentation on aidinfo. Especially the concluding remarks seem to be a good summary of why the discourse on open data seems to gain some momentum, they sound right and they are also right in many ways: With a good set of examples, patterns and common practices, the use of data will become embedded in development practice. Better information will make aid more effective : data portals improve data literacy, an open culture promotes learning, and using information to add value in the aid sector will ensure data remains open and will promote the release of more [my emphasis]. But then I read ‘ Story project aims to put people back at the heart of development ’ and it confirmed some of the discomfort I have with the rising popularity of aid data: Concern that an obsession with numbers is leading to development donors distancing themselves from those they seek to help has led to the creation of a new initiative which seeks to brin...

Hi all, Another week completed-great online teaching seminar with a fantastic group of colleagues from all around Europe, delivered my second newsletter with '3 mid-week links' & I'm enjoying daylight again when I leave the office in the afternoon! Enjoy! My quotes of the week White people, who make up the biggest part of the global development sector, tend to be very sensitive when a rural poor African like me has anything to make of poverty in Africa, e.g. what needs to be done to accelerate the end of poverty, and will therefore try to ensure that people like me aren’t heard anywhere. (...) On the other hand, Africa’s own kinsmen and kinswomen, i.e. black people both in Africa and in the African Diaspora, tend to be very defensive, and very dismissive, upon any mention of the need for the black community to work together and help our motherland, Africa, end poverty. (It is very hard to end poverty in Africa because of white people, and black people) The word “famin...

Hi all, After a busy week of teaching, blogging and ranting about #allmalepanels let's enjoy the new week with fresh food for thought! Development news features a great think-piece on how empowerment became a product for women to buy; more input for the World Humanitarian Summit; special ICT4D section feat open data challenges, hashtag fails, challenging platform capitalism & the story behind hacking Hacking Team; Our digital lives with a new Twitter tracking app; Etsy's struggle to be a perfect marketplace; how Instagram is ruining vacations (and soon development communication?). New readings including new open access book on Africa; handbook for modern development data peeps; using useful evidence & the bottom of the data pyramid. Finally, in Academia a look at a new MOOC study on job skills and MOOC users in developing countries. Enjoy! New from aidnography Keep uploading papers to ResearchGate so its founder can pursue his beach volleyball ambitions There i...

Hi all, The busy end-of-term weeks are approaching fast, so I sort of skipped one link review and focused on other content instead (see below). But it also means that there are lots of interesting reads for being inspired over the weekend! Development News features an overview of the reflexivity turn in aid work; persistent problems with the Global NGO ranking ; the challenges for educated women in the Middle East, the ‘university in a box’ in Rwanda, pharmaceuticalization of global health, why design for development is rather a band aid; lots of new social media and open data readings; the neoliberal political economy of Oprah , researching facebook’s filter bubble ; and Academia features a bibliometrics manifesto , a study on the impact of Academia.edu . how to build your brand as an (academic) writer and the question whether we should ban PowerPoints form lectures (spoiler alert: I disagree…). Enjoy! New from aidnography New research on International Development TED Talks ...