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Saturday Morning Reading #7

Here’s your Saturday morning reading… 1) Why expats? J follows up the much-discussed recent post on “The Field” with something even more provocative: “The idea that aid […] is a thing which at some level requires a foreigner, an expat, to leave here and go there to do is one of the Great Unquestioned Assumptions …

Saturday Morning Reading #6

Here’s your Saturday morning reading: 1. 40 maps that explain the world from the Washington Post Maps are cool. I especially liked Number 23 and Number 35 (below). 2. Humanitarian recruit  = elitist? from Aidleap “The professionalisation agenda presents an exciting opportunity for the sector to do something truly radical, especially given the current economic …

Life in Zanzibar: An Introduction

Now you know the most important things about Zanzibar itself, I thought it’s about time to write a little about my life here. Stone Town Firstly, I live in Stone Town (see aerial shot below), a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s a very old town full of narrow winding streets that make it exceedingly easy …

Saturday Morning Reading #5

Here’s your (early) Saturday morning reading (scuba in the morning!) featuring wishes for 2014, drugs, inequality and South Sudan: 1) Nancy Birdsall, President of CGD, gives her crowdsourced top ten wishes for development policy in 2014 including tobacco control, tropical forests and antibiotics 2) Related to the above, Duncan Green highlights the new generation of …

Saturday morning reading #4

Here’s your Saturday morning reading: 1) POSITIVE: Inspiring stories from South Sudan. E.g. ” A Juba suburb has organised community patrols comprising of Nuer and Dinka men tasked with protecting all members of their community.” 2) NEGATIVE: Goodbye to an ominous year “Though certainly depressing, the observation that 2013 was a bad year is fairly …

Saturday Morning Reading #3

Here’s your Saturday morning reading… 1) In the latest Development Drums podcast, Owen Barder talks to Angus Deaton on his new book, The Great Escape, which brings together his research into health, well-being, and economic development. 2) Jay Ulfelder looks at why 2013 saw more new mass killings than any year since the early 1990s. …

Saturday Morning Reading #2

Here’s an early and seasonal edition of Saturday morning reading (because I’ll be on the beach tomorrow!). I’ve put it in order from satire to sentimental. Enjoy! 1) The 12 Days of Christmas – Post-2015 edition! “Three rambling summits, Two dozen speeches, And confusion on in-equal-ityyyyyy…” 2) Santa announces IATI commitment. “Santa notably scored highly …

Introduction

About nine years after my first doomed attempt at blogging and many more since, I think this time I may be ready to commit to this thing on a regular basis. As you can probably tell from my about section, I’m not completely sure where I’m heading with this personal-professional hybrid blog, but figure that …