Citizens and the State: Working Across the Demand and Supply Dichotomy
Citizens are assigned various roles in the development process (service users, project beneficiaries, and consulted stakeholders). But how can citizens move from being just users and choosers of social...
View ArticleQuote of the Week: Paolo Freire
“Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.” Paolo Freire, Educator...
View ArticleFraming Governance on “People, Spaces, Deliberation”
So, what’s governance anyway? No, don’t ask me for a definition. I can, however, tell you how we frame it. People, Spaces, Deliberation has been around for about four years now, and we hope we have...
View ArticleHow Can Aid Agencies Promote Local Governance and Accountability? Lessons...
Oxfam is publishing a fascinating new series of case studies today, describing its programme work on local governance and community action. There are case studies from Nepal (women's rights, see...
View ArticleWeekly Wire: the Global Forum
These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.Trust LawCorruption in water sector increases hunger risk – experts“Stamping out corruption in the...
View ArticleProvocations for Development: Superb New Collection of Robert Chambers’...
This is not an impartial review – Robert Chambers is a hero of mine, part development guru, part therapist to the aid community. His ideas and phrases litter the intellectual landscape. Or ought to:...
View ArticleWhen Participation Works: Increasing CSO Involvement in Annual Meetings
Involving CSO representatives in the planning process for the Civil Society Program has led to increased and more substantive civil society participation at the Annual Meetings over the past few years....
View Article#8 from 2012: How Does Your City Make You Feel?
Our Top Ten Blog Posts by Readership in 2012Originally published on April 4, 2012Cities are often associated with mixed emotions. They can sometimes make us feel insecure, disconnected and lonely, even...
View Article#6 from 2012: Opening Government Data. But Why?
Our Top Ten Blog Posts by Readership in 2012Originally published on July 19, 2012Even as the language of ‘Open Government’ has picked up steam over the past couple of years – driven initially by the...
View Article#4 from 2012: Openness for Whom? and Openness for What?
Our Top Ten Blog Posts by Readership in 2012Originally published on April 9, 2012The emerging concept of “Open Development” has become a topic of keen interest to citizens, policy makers, and...
View Article#3 from 2012: The Stubborn Problem of The "Village Elite"
Our Top Ten Blog Posts by Readership in 2012Originally published on August 28, 2012Donor agency X has had a long history of working in Country A. Since the 1970s, the donor agency adapted its projects...
View ArticleCivil Society, Public Action and Accountability in Africa
An important new paper from some big development names – Shanta Devarajan and Stuti Khemani from the World Bank, and Michael Walton (ex Bank, now at Harvard Kennedy School) – directs a slightly fierce...
View Article'Convening and Brokering' in Practice: Sorting out Tajikistan’s Water Problem
In the corridors of Oxfam and beyond, ‘convening and brokering’ has become a new development fuzzword. I talked about it in my recent review of the Africa Power and Politics Programme, and APPP...
View ArticlePolicy Makers and Network Science: Time to Bridge the Divide
Last week I attended Masters of Networks, an event that analyzed how a greater understanding of networks can be used to make better policies, especially in the digital era. Many questions built in...
View ArticleOpen Data has Little Value if People Can't Use It
This post is one of a 3-month Harvard Business Review series, focused on scaling entrepreneurial solutions and benefitting society through technology and data. The full HBR.org series is available...
View ArticleStrengthening the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in...
The initiation and countrywide implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) represents a milestone in social policy and employment creation with its right...
View ArticleWomen's Leadership Groups in Pakistan – Some Good News and Inspiration
I normally try and keep Oxfam trumpet-blowing to a minimum on this blog, but am happy to make an exception for this piece from Jacky Repila (right) on a new report on our Raising Her Voice programme in...
View ArticlePanels of the Poor: What would Poor People Do if They were in Charge of the...
Many of the attempts to introduce an element of consultation/participation into the post-2015 discussion have been pretty perfunctory ‘clicktivism’. So thanks to Liz Stuart, another...
View ArticleOur World Isn’t Flat: Role of Power Dynamics in Development Communication
Power dynamics set the tone at almost every level of human interaction. They influence your decision to speak up in meetings with supervisors, shape an organization’s approach to engaging its clients,...
View ArticleWeekly Wire: The Global Forum
These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.Accountability, Transparency, Participation, and Inclusion: A New Development Consensus? Carnegie...
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