Aidnography

Hi all,  I will keep the intro short after a busy week with lots of inspiring discussions, a great panel at the DW conference, plus teaching, grading & student mentoring-very grateful I have the paid job that I have :) My quotes of the week You forced your civilisation upon us and now look where we are: global pandemic, climate crisis, species extinction and, driving it all, widespread spiritual poverty. In all these years of taking, taking, taking from our lands, you have not had the courage, or the curiosity, or the respect to get to know us. To understand how we see, and think, and feel, and what we know about life on this Earth. (This is my message to the western world – your civilisation is killing life on Earth) “I see it as a bit of a missed opportunity because I think organizations like the World Food Programme are fairly well known. They have large budgets. They have ample means to get out their own message,” Bosco said. “The Nobel has the opportunity to highlight organiza

Hi all, Happy Friday! I don't want to pad myself too much on the back, but I like this week's mixture of content-serious #globaldev industry news, including long-form journalism from DRC, seemingly small stories about Uganda's construction sector that tell a much bigger story, research findings on cash-based aid + nudging the right way, culture & decolonization, podcast recommendations, open access academic readings & much more! Enjoy! My quotes of the week Not only did those who received the money spend fewer days homeless than those in the control group, they had also moved into stable housing after an average of three months, compared to those in the control group, who took an average of five months. Those who received the money also managed it well over the course of a year. (A B.C. research project gave homeless people $7,500 each — the results were 'beautifully surprising') To what extent has social media exacerbated ethno-regional tensions? How much

Hi all, It has been a busy week with quite a few bad news story from inside the #globaldev industry-ranging from WFP, to UNICEF UK, Amnesty & Tearfund-but on a brighter note there's a nice 'culture & development' section at the end of the first part that combines beauty with food for thought, eyes & ears. Enjoy! My quotes of the week Today, many NGOs have full-time proposal-production teams whose jobs depend on “win rates” - the number of successful bids they secure. They don’t need specialized technical expertise or experience because there’s the internet. Skilled writers read between the lines of each “Request for Proposals” to feed back winning language in a process some derisively characterize as “isomorphic mimicry.” That’s biological term for when a butterfly, for example, ends up looking like a moth so it doesn’t get eaten. You want gender? We do gender! You don’t want gender? Forget about it. As a gifted proposal writer once wrote to me about her work:“I