Posts

Links & Contents I Liked 480

Image
Hi all, Can Andrew Mitchell save UK #globaldev? Can we engage with the Taliban? Can AI empower marginalized people? Can economic development deliver in the future? And what about Sollywood?!? Answers to these questions & much more in this week's curated link review! My quotes of the week In light of the Taliban’s behavior and actions, it is unclear why western leaders would want to risk engaging with the Taliban when they could be excoriated by their own domestic opponents for doing so. Similarly, why would western governments commit scarce aid resources to Afghanistan – funds that the Taliban might be in a position to exploit ­– when they could much more safely provide assistance to vulnerable or needy people in other parts of the world? The lesson here is stark. It is the very nature and character of the Taliban that currently condemns the people of Afghanistan to suffer, and the situation is not going to improve in any meaningful way as long as the Taliban remain in charge.

Links & Contents I Liked 479

Image
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

17 (bad) things you should know before choosing a humanitarian career

Image
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

Links & Contents I Liked 478

Image
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

Links & Contents I Liked 477

Image
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