At last, a sensible suggestion for post2015

February 28, 2013
After my ‘bah humbug’ paper on post2015, I’ve been largely avoiding the subject as a monumental timesuck. However, a combination of Sabina ‘multidimensional’ Alkire and Andy ‘bottom billion’ Sumner is an unstoppable force, so I’m making an exception for their new paper, Multidimensional Poverty and the Post-2015 MDGs, which is worth a skim. What Sabina and Andy do is use
Read more >>

What is the evidence for evidence-based policy making? Pretty thin, actually.

February 27, 2013
A recent conference in Nigeria considered the evidence that evidence-based policy-making actually, you know, exists. The conference report sets out its theory of change in a handy diagram – the major conference sessions are indicated in boxes. Conclusion? ‘There is a shortage of evidence on policy makers’ actual capacity to use research evidence and there is even less evidence on
Read more >>

Beyond Horsegate: comparing the supply chains of the big 10 food companies

February 26, 2013
Erinch Sahan (right), a private sector policy advisor at Oxfam GB, introduces Behind the Brands, a big new report and company scorecard, launched today. So we didn’t know we were eating horses. What else don’t we know about the supply chains delivering our food? 18 months ago, Oxfam posed this question to the Big 10: the world’s 10 largest food
Read more >>

Community-based tourism in Ethiopia – aka where I’ve been for the last two weeks

February 25, 2013
Just got back from something of a busman’s holiday – two weeks in Ethiopia with my wife Cathy. The highlight was some community-based tourism, a magical four-day trek across the highlands near Lalibela. First the community bit. The trek consisted of daily walks, with the next village providing a donkey for the bags (v welcome at 3000 metres), a donkey
Read more >>

Off on holiday. It involves a donkey. Back in a couple of weeks.

February 12, 2013
Exhausted by the ferocity of the evidence debates, I am off for an African holiday. I believe a donkey is involved at some point. Pics may follow.
Read more >>

Aid and the private sector: a love story

February 11, 2013
Oxfam private sector adviser Erinch Sahan (right) summarizes a critical new review of the growing interlinkages between aid and the private sector Donors have a new love: business. And it will end poverty. Aid chiefs across the world have concluded that if we need growth to end poverty and the private sector drives growth, isn’t aid most effective where it
Read more >>

Bad Governance leads to bad land deals – the link between politics and land grabs

February 8, 2013
Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva (right) and Marloes Nicholls (left) crunch the numbers to find that big land investments sniff out countries with ‘weak governance’ – aka no accountability, no regulation, no rule of law, and a green light for corruption. If you had bags full of money and wanted to buy land, where would you go for a good deal? If you’re
Read more >>

So What do I take Away from The Great Evidence Debate? Final thoughts (for now)

February 7, 2013
The trouble with hosting a massive argument, as this blog recently did on the results agenda (the most-read debate ever on this blog) is that I then have to make sense of it all, if only for my own peace of mind. So I’ve spent a happy few hours digesting 10 pages of original posts and 20 pages of top quality
Read more >>

Theory’s fine, but what about practice? Oxfam’s MEL chief on the evidence agenda

February 6, 2013
Two Oxfam responses to the evidence debate. First Jennie Richmond, (right) our results czarina (aka Head of Programme Performance and Accountability) wonders what it all means in for the daily grind of NGO MEL (monitoring, evaluation and learning). Tomorrow I attempt to wrap up. The results wonkwar of last week was compelling intellectual ping-pong. The bloggers were heavy-hitters and the
Read more >>

Why do some (better) alternatives to GDP get picked up, while others sink without trace? Useful new study on political economy of indicators.

February 5, 2013
Took me a while to overcome my reluctance to read a document subtitled ‘Deliverable 1.1’ on the front page (yuk), but I’m glad I did so. The paper ‘Review report on Beyond GDP indicators: categorisation, intentions and impacts’ (cracking title too…..) is published by BRAINPOoL – ‘Bringing Alternative Indicators into Policy’ (is that the sound of teeth grinding?).  The authors
Read more >>

What have we learned about crisis/fragile states? Findings of a 5 year research programme.

February 4, 2013
Cards on the table, confronted with a closely argued 11 page exec sum, I am unlikely to then read the full report. But the short version of Meeting the Challenges of Crisis States, by James Putzel (LSE) and Jonathan Di John (SOAS), is a meal in itself. It summarizes 5 years of DFID-funded research by the Crisis States Research Centre,
Read more >>

‘Technology Justice’ – what does it mean for how NGOs think about new and old tech in development? And would you like a job working on it?

February 1, 2013
I had an interesting exchange with Practical Action’s policy director, Astrid Walker Bourne (right) recently, about one of my (many) hobby horses – technology and its absence from the NGO agenda. Practical Action is trying to fill the gap with a work programme on ‘technology justice’, but a failed recruitment has got her thinking about the wider issues of NGOs
Read more >>