Aidnography

Hello all, There's the factual (elections in Zimbabwe, innovation in Kampala & more new publications), there's the critical (Are Canadian diplomats pampered? Are charity CEOs overpaid? Are RCTs overrated? Is Qatar really a wonderful place for academics?) and there's the uplifting (Why you should be less aid-cynical and why you need to be kind in your life-great graduation speech!) -- in other words: All the things you have come to expect from the weekly link review ;)! Enjoy! Development Zimbabwe’s elections 2013: more confusion, more uncertainty The political uncertainty that these elections have delivered means that, sadly once again, the immediate future is in the balance. Whoever individual Zimbabweans voted for, the final overall outcome may not be what anyone wanted – which was peace and stability. As a friend commented on the phone from Gwanda just now: "It's trouble again". Let's hope that a spirit of accommodation and compromise prevai

When everyone can see how much aid is being spent where, and on what, governments whether giving or receiving aid – can be held accountable by their citizens for spending it well (Karin Christiansen, director of the global campaign for aid transparency, Publish What You Fund) I agree with the importance of more and better aid data as I have expressed already in previous posts . I also think that the International Aid Transparency Initiative is important. But agreeing on standards for aid transparency is only a first and relatively small step and linking transparency to real, new, innovative 21st century accountability and participatory ideas will be the much bigger challenge . How can citizens hold a government accountable over something that has been and will essentially be a political issue that management tools and technocratic fixes can’t ‘solve’? And I don’t mean in the traditional ‘every four years there are elections’ way. And, at least equally important, how ca

Hi all, We welcomed more than 150 new students to our Communication for Development courses this week so I'm equal parts exhausted and thrilled about the forthcoming semester with a great group of global students! My quotes of the week As I shared video footage with friends in Puerto Rico, they remarked, “I know the sound of that wind.” Is this what it means to be intimately connected by horror? Is there a new creolized language and aesthetic we have now become fluent in by default? We are island people. Where do you go? We live on slim margins. ( Hurricane Dorian Makes Bahamians the Latest Climate-Crisis Victims)   Giving charity and doing voluntourism are self-gratifying ways of filling this void that they feel – and are a whole lot easier than doing the work to find the root cause of what is wrong in their own lives. ( “We Aren’t Just Vehicles for your Guilt and Privilege”: A View from Nepal (Part One) Enjoy! New from aidnography Everything you have told me is true (book revi

Hi all, Welcome to an almost Brexit-free link review that focuses on the mundane absurdities, LOLs, but also thoughtful insights that a week in development communication has to offer. Development: A celebrity travels to ‘Africa’-and there are pics and Tweets to prove it; the role of documentaries in development story telling; a new book on orphanages in Cambodia and the power of ‘failure’; managing UN bureaucracy; ‘sophisticated programming’-between complexity and overwhelming local capacity; supporting media innovations in West Africa; poetry and poetic reflections on writing ‘development’. Digital culture: Bengali click farming; @sree lost his job-a contemporary story of self-branding; how L.A. wants to make open data meaningful Academia: Dean Dad listens to new community college students. Enjoy! New from aidnography New research article on ritualized conference spaces & the evolution of peace research professionalism in Germany It is important to engage with community prac