Facilitator. Convenor. Coach. Consultant.
It has been a very busy but exciting week here in Zanzibar as I’ve been participating in a 10-day “Lab” where we are creating a new tourism master plan. It has been exhausting and challenging but, as is often the case with these things, I’ve learnt more in a few days than I would in …
Here’s your (deep-thinking) Saturday morning reading: 1) Big bloggers asking big questions Part 1) Is ‘the Struggle’ the Baby or the Bathwater? Owen Barder on why “struggle” is a key part of development: “Typically aid aims in some way to diminish the struggle, or ideally to bypass it altogether. But if the struggle is necessary, …
Here’s your Saturday morning reading: 1) UK Floods. After the deluge – can we have a serious debate on aid? Kevin Watkins gives three reasons why the Daily Mail campaign to divert UK aid money to help flood victims in Somerset; 1: Money is not the problem – and raiding aid is not the answer. …
Here’s your (bumper edition of) Saturday morning reading… 1) Why foreign aid fails by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson Ignore the politically convenient (for The Spectator) headline. The article admits that aid can do a lot of good, but suggests that changing extractive institutions takes more than aid, suggesting a great role for diplomacy. One …
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 …
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 …