Featured image for “Does development have a problem with racism?”

Does development have a problem with racism?

June 16, 2020
Given recent events in the United States that have sparked mass protests around the banner of #BlackLivesMatter not only there, but across the world, we ought to talk about this right here. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us to rethink solidarity, and these protests calling for racial justice force us to ask questions also of the aid and development sectors.
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Links I Liked

June 15, 2020
Covid first, then BLM ‘Do you believe that a foreign power or other force is deliberately spreading coronavirus?’ This is so absent from the rationalist bubble of political analysis of the pandemic. And what’s with The Netherlands? 12 ways this global pandemic could transform humanitarianism forever. V good from Heba Aly. “Google searches predict Covid case volumes up to 14
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell: 15m round-up of FP2P posts, w/b 8th June”

Development Nutshell: 15m round-up of FP2P posts, w/b 8th June

June 13, 2020
No excerpt
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Featured image for “Looking for a way out of aid’s pre-pandemic mess? A model based on cake”

Looking for a way out of aid’s pre-pandemic mess? A model based on cake

June 12, 2020
Arbie Baguios, (a former student, bio below) has been doing some serious thinking about aid. See what you think. Imagine you’re ill and need to be taken to a hospital. Would you rather go to one where the clinical outcomes seem good, but the way they treat patients is horrible? Or one where they treat patients excellently, but the clinical
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Will Patents stop Covid drugs from saving lives?

June 11, 2020
Guest post by Ken Shadlen of the LSE The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a global race of public- and private-led research to develop vaccines and treatments. Will patents hinder access to the products it generates? My summary? With regard to treatments (the dynamics around vaccines may differ), access problems will mainly affect middle-income countries. While low-income countries will likely receive
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Working 100% Online is Weakening my grip on reality – how about you?

June 10, 2020
Following on from yesterday’s post, I wanted to write something more personal than usual, about the below-the-surface effects of moving to a 100% online working life. I think I may be suffering from something I’ve named ‘attenuating reality syndrome’. I know this is an experience mainly relevant to the minority of us who have virtual jobs, but let me explain.
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Featured image for “The drawbacks of Online Activism + Is Opportunism such a bad thing? A conversation with Advocacy Leaders”

The drawbacks of Online Activism + Is Opportunism such a bad thing? A conversation with Advocacy Leaders

June 9, 2020
Spent an hour last week zooming with a dozen senior advocacy types from a variety of international NGOs, who were on a webinar hosted by the International Civil Society Centre. Really smart, interesting people, and here are two subjects that caught my attention after I had talked a bit about my Covid as critical juncture paper (powerpoint here – please
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Links I Liked

June 8, 2020
No explanation needed for this, tweeted by the Martin Luther King Jr Centre More Africa-specific thinking on Covid: Epidemics and Social Observation: Why Africa Needs a Different Approach to Covid-19. Brilliant from ebol-anthropologist Paul Richards.  africanarguments.org/2020/06/01/epi This 5 point plan by Clement Sefa-nyarko for how to design a more suitable Covid response in different African countries makes a lot of sense.
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell: audio round-up (11 mins) of FP2P posts, w/b 1 June”

Development Nutshell: audio round-up (11 mins) of FP2P posts, w/b 1 June

June 6, 2020
No excerpt
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Featured image for “Thinking and working politically with technology: State of the art meets art of the state”

Thinking and working politically with technology: State of the art meets art of the state

June 5, 2020
Guest post by Gopa Thampi and Nicola Nixon of The Asia Foundation Why is the much-heralded promise of the data revolution not accelerating development in the way we expected? Why is the incredibly rapid rise of new data sources and methods of analysis paradoxically out of sync with its broader social impacts? No easy answers, but some of the reasons,
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How can Covid-19 be the catalyst to decolonise development research?

June 4, 2020
Guest post by Melanie Pinet and Carmen Leon-Himmelstine of the ODI Covid-19 is an unprecedented moment, halting life as we know it. For the global development community, the effects have been profound. Several NGOs have had to scale back or completely stop their operations overseas, while local actors and civil society are rapidly organising to respond to the crisis through their own
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Featured image for “Beyond the Western Gaze: How should we talk about Covid and Africa?”

Beyond the Western Gaze: How should we talk about Covid and Africa?

June 3, 2020
This brilliant post by George Kibala Bauer was first published on the Africa is a Country blog We all know the feeling—we read an article by a Western pundit, or listen to a broad-brushing intervention on everything that is wrong with Africa, and we feel the need to put the Westerner and their underlying worldview in their place. We have
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