Development Nutshell: audio round-up (15m) of FP2P posts, w/b 25th April

April 30, 2022
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Invisible women: a story and podcast of Emergent Agency

April 28, 2022
Guest Post by Filippo Artuso and Barbara van Paassen, introducing a new episode on the People v Inequality podcast While many of us were living through the pandemic on interminable Zoom calls or watching Netflix, activists and changemakers around the world were finding new and innovative ways to respond to the pandemic. The curiosity to learn how these responses were
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How do NGO staff and partners experience Adaptive Programming? Some impressive (and positive) new research

April 27, 2022
Still trying to recover from my minor dark night of the soul (more like a dark evening, really) on Adaptive Management, I was heartened by a new study from Christian Aid Ireland (CAI). The Difference Learning Makes: Factors that enable or inhibit adaptive programming is excellent,: well-written, encouraging, and probably warrants several posts. But attention spans being what they are,
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A Great Overview of the past, present and future of War and the Humanitarian System

April 26, 2022
It feels a bit odd to be reviewing a book when you’ve just had breakfast with the author, but I finished reading Hugo Slim’s overview of the Humanitarian system and its future on the way to a workshop we are both delivering in Nairobi, so good to write it up while it’s still fresh. First, the weird title: Solferino 21:
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Links I Liked

April 25, 2022
The academic roller coaster. ht Jay van Bavel Two interesting posts on the slow demise of personal blogging. Tobias Denskus on Are personal #globaldev blogs a thing of the past? Mark Carrigan on ‘Are personal academic blogs a thing of the past? I’m starting to feel like the last of the Mohicans on this one…. The Ukraine: ‘The most obvious
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Development Nutshell: round-up (18m) of FP2P posts, w/b 18th April

April 23, 2022
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How do new Aid Initiatives pan out on the ground? A study of 4 new USAID approaches

April 22, 2022
Depressed by the zombification of Britain’s official aid system, I am looking further afield for inspiration/new thinking and came across this recent paper on a series of innovations at USAID. Larry Garber, Gretchen King and Karen Hirschfeld looked at 4 initiatives: co-creation; engaging new and non-traditional actors via the New Partnerships Initiative (NPI); convening power; and integrated programming (apologies for
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The Shameful Implosion of UK Aid

April 21, 2022
I’ve been catching up on the news after a week away in Amman running the first pilot training session in our ‘Influencing for Senior Leaders’ course (huge fun, blogs to follow). Among the less enjoyable updates was the latest evidence for the wanton vandalism being inflicted on the UK’s aid programme. Two sets of contrasting provisional stats for 2021 were
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21st century food riots

April 20, 2022
Guest post by Naomi Hossain & Patta Scott-Villiers In March FAO’s global food price index jumped by 17% to a level unprecedented in its 30-year history. The food riots predicted by the head of the World Trade Organization have already kicked off in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Deadly fuel riots in Peru, rising discontent in Kenya and the rising price
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Development Nutshell: audio round-up (18m) of FP2P posts, w/b 11th April

April 16, 2022
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Review: Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro, by Richard Lapper

April 14, 2022
One lesson of recent times is that countries’ global reputations often have little to do with their underlying realities. The Netherlands is not all a happy liberal paradise of coffee houses and cyclists. And Brazil is not all sex, carnival and footballing genius. In the case of Brazil, the world has woken up to this through the rise and chaotic
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Localisation: an opportunity for thinking and working politically to deliver?

April 13, 2022
Lisa Denney tries to restore a little cautious optimism to last week’s Eeyore-ish takes (by me and The Asia Foundation) on the nature and impact of TWP Is thinking and working politically (TWP) on life support? Duncan suggested as much in a recent post.  But a webinar on localisation convened by the TWP Community of Practice offers an alternative, in
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