Aidnography

Hi all, A new post on humanitarian career challenges, news from Sudan & on reduced ODA spending, stories on migration, limited spaces for journalists, the complexities of transactional sex-plus personal reflections on global health, work with refugee women & SDG leadership challenges; last not least we have to deal with question of abuse of power in the UN system & academia and take a look at UN history...past, present & future in this week in #globaldev review! My quotes of the week Artistic, literary, and cultural productions are sources of knowledge. They are types of knowledge that can be used, deconstructed, reformed and reused. This knowledge suggests the emancipation of paradigms; conjectures towards the moment when our imagined worlds live up to their speculative capacity and theorize liberation as the full expression of the richness of the people’s potential. While African knowledge has been thought to look back, scientists are now using knowledge to look forwa

Marielys Padua Soto originally posted a list of “10 things you should know” in a post on LinkedIn and she kindly expanded the list and allowed me to repost it on the blog. I think her list is a good primer for discussions about the humanitarian industry in classrooms, but also at home with your family or inside humanitarian organizations. Marielys' list also shows the frustration that many well-qualified professionals, with the right qualifications and mindset the sector needs, have and that we need to continue to address throughout the institutions that shape humanitarian practices. 1. You will get paid poorly . Peanuts, for lack of a better word. Humanitarian work is poorly remunerated despite the important work we do. We can barely cover our living expenses, but the CEOs make millions . 2. You will never have job security . Because of funding, what you get is a six to ten months contract subject to renewal at best. You will notice that many professionals in this field are in

Hi all, As many Easter breaks are wrapping up, I'm happy to share the usual eclectic mix of food for thought, discussion & re-discovery - from the Peace Studies department in Bradford to the gardens of Lebanon, from Canadian ODA to Central African Republic's strategic engagement with Wagner...a new #globaldev bank, migrant suicides in Nepal, ICRC's budget cuts & 10 bad things about a humanitarian career wrap up this week's post! My quotes of the week Sure, meeting the FIAP commitment to allocate 15% of bilateral ODA to gender equality-targeted programs is important, as is investing 0.7% of Canada’s gross national income on ODA. However, if we insist on the fiction that achieving these targets alone will solve our planetary threats, then we have to question our complicity in upholding the status quo. Progress towards gender equality, as an emancipatory feminist objective, is entirely reliant upon the broader agenda of global justice. GAC should improve its report

Hi all, Any weekly review post that features a link to Robert Chambers' work is a good post ;).  More seriously, lots of new research, reflections & reporting from humanitarian crises,  well-being of humanitarians & classic topics such as feminist foreign policy, expat salaries, #globaldev blogging + a really good doggo :) My quotes of the week Should we wish to see the troubling trend of aid worker violence reversed, we need a careful and pragmatic investigation into how the engines of foreign aid have evolved. We need to look more closely at the varying forms of securitized aid and understand their relation to aid worker violence. We must also suppress the tendency to absolve aid workers from any blame associated with their work, and look at their role objectively, with the goal of improving security for all. (What is behind increasing violence against aid workers?) There also needs to be a far clearer sense of where humanitarian organisations’ added value lies. For exam

Hi all, Back from short trips to Austria & Germany-as a proud co-supervisor of a freshly minted doctor & inspired board member of an alumni association of the German Academic Exchange Service . In some ways, this week's review contains all the elements that make curating the blog so rewarding: Great investigative journalism, critical #globaldev commentary, important new research + the gems, critical insights from unusual places & positions. Enjoy! My quotes of the week Two Harvard Grads Saw Big Profits in African Education. Children Paid the Price. (A Is For Abuse) As a blind person, I knew that running or getting away to safety would be difficult. But I have found other ways to protest, through my social media: spreading information, talking with my friends and recording videos on Tiktok demanding that human rights be respected. To think that the protest only occurs in the streets is ableist. There are those of us who will not be able to be present for our safety. We c