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Paved with Good Intentions–Canada’s development NGOs from idealism to imperialism (book review)

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S trange how reality works in mysterious ways sometimes: While I had started f eeling guilty that I had not started to read and review Nikolas Barry-Shaw and Dru Oja Jay’s book Paved with Good Intentions – Canada’s development NGOs from idealism to imperialism , the current discussions around a potential dissolution of CIDA give the book an even more contemporary relevance as it gets ready for the second printing. The book tells and important – and certainly not just limited to Canada! – story about the changing relationships between the s tate, civil society, NGOs and, depending on your political viewpoint, the professionalization/ depoliticization /selling out of this growing sect or of the global aid industry. The book attempts to, and often successfully manages, to bring together three narratives ab out the history of Canadian NGOs, neoliberal politics and a focus on the situation in Haiti where the authors were involved as a cross-cultural activists. Before I will go into

Links & Contents I Liked 68

Dear all, I have been a bit busy this week - for all the right and good reasons - and fresh & exciting content will be added very soon! In the meantime, enjoy some great reads! Although there are some great reads on techn ology, learnin g and social change featured in this week's review (includin g a great ethnographic piece on ' performing success' in the context of OLPC) you should definitely check out very in teresting reads on new research that suggests that corporations from the unhealthy commodities industry should have no place in policy-making , 'feel-good activis m' and the moral complexities between 'inquiry and insult' when part icipating in an exercise s uch as the 'Two Dollar Per Day Challenge' (i.e. pretending to be poor when you really aren 't...). If yo u are still curious, do check out a good Bono-bashing piece and the inaugural open access issue of the new Peacebuilding journal! Enjoy! Development Lancet Article Highlights

Links & Contents I Liked 67

Hello all! Welcome to another great weekly link review! The 'development' section features some interesting material in cluding whether the mistreatment of children i n conflict zones is a perv erse form of acceptable child abuse, how advocacy campaigns can have an impact an d the role of IR scholars and scholarship and the war in Iraq . There are two excellent pieces on the impac t of voluntourism on children in Ghana and the rituals of UN policy summits (this time it's the Commission on the Status of Women). There 's also a special ' not-really-development-related-but-still-interesting-section' this week to change things a little bit... the p ieces on how to critically engage with 'research', how to deal with advice and how to work in the post-employm ent economy are all worthwhile reads. Finally, in 'Academia' a n anthropology adjunct talks about his profess ional dead-ends and why getting a tenured job feels like becoming a Broadwa y da nce

4 reasons why MOOCs should be discussed in international development

I have been following the debate around Massive Open Onli n e Courses ( MOOCs ) for a while now. In my own imaginary Wordle cloud , the word ‘disruptive’ probably features most prominently, but this post deals with the potential impact on Western educational institutions and higher education only on a side-note. But issues around MOOCs and development (policy) have not been really addressed, yet t here is no d oubt that Online learning and various new providers are responding to a major global development, the massification or universalisation of higher education that is creating huge and unmet demand in the developing world . [ Source ] I n this post , I am more concerned what the rise of MOOCs and the growing interest in/from developing countries may mean for local higher education institutions that are already often underfunded and are struggling to meet the demands for adequate education in the 21 st century . I fully agree with Tony Bates ’ criti cal reflections and

Links & Contents I Liked 66

Hello all, First a rather technical announcement: Since I have r eceived a few messages regarding subscription options I have update d the forms for email subscription and RSS - so you will hopefully never miss a post again ;)! Now back to the contents! This week 's list has a bit of a 'critical journal ism' topic, ranging from crit ique of The Observer's p ortrait of Kony 2012's Jason Russell to (more) critique of Nick Kristof's reporting and new research on Mother Teresa that casts her legacy in a more complex light. A n American war resisters story is well worth the read, followed by a 'link I di sliked': The story of Ernst & You ng's corporate vo lunteering program is an interesting example of elite language and co rporate discourses creeping into th eir 'corporate responsibility' appr oach. 'Reaching those beyond big data' is my Women's Day recommendation as it combines e thnography, critical research on and around bi