‘The MDGs were about milestones, not about transformation.’ Interview with David Jackson

This installment of our interview series saw us ‘sitting down’ with David Jackson, the Director of Local Development Finance at the UN Capital Development Fund, which focuses on strengthening public finance for local development. He started his career in the 1980s in London local government in the United Kingdom. In the 1990s he worked in …

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You must always ask, ‘Capacity development for what?’ – Interview with Dipa Bagai

The first in our series of interviews with practitioners, we chatted with Dipa Bagai, a capacity development specialist who has more than 15 years of experience across a number of UN agencies and the Indian Civil Service. She is currently a Capacity Development Specialist with UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Asia-Pacific Region. TiP:       …

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‘The Humanitarian System is Making an Effort to Understand the Changes that Need to be Made” – an Interview with Oliver Lacey-Hall

The fourth in our series of interviews finds us chatting with Oliver Lacey-Hall, the current head of the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). With over 25 years experience in humanitarian work, Oliver previously acted as Deputy Director of OCHA’s Communications and Information …

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‘Lasting peace between warring parties will be achieved only when stalemate occurs, not when checkmate happens’ – An interview with Irwandi Yusuf

The third in our series of practitioner interviews was with the popular Irwandi Yusuf, a former senior representative of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) during the conflict in Aceh, Indonesia, which was settled in 2005, and later became the first elected Governor of the province of Aceh in 2007. A pragmatist through and through, he …

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“Peace agreements, of course, have the central weakness that they accept the logic of those waging the wars” – An Interview with Florian Bieber

The second in our series of practitioner interviews was with the very in-demand Florian Bieber, a specialist in inter-ethnic relations, ethnic conflict and nationalism, focusing on Southeastern Europe. His work includes expert advice on minorities and minority rights for the European Commission, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe as well as providing advice to …

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“It Will Always be Important to Rely on the Insight of the People You Are Working With” – An Interview with Frode Mauring

In keeping with TiP’s mandate to ensure that this is a ‘Practitioner’s Journal’ we periodically chat with well-known ‘practitioners’ to get their views and feedback on topics close to their hearts. We ‘sat down’ (via Skype) with Frode Mauring, the Special Representative of the Administrator for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the occupied …

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