Following the COP21 in December 2015, the Pacific islands have a chance at survival in the face of an increasingly changing climate. Along with other small islands and highly vulnerable states, Pacific island advocacy achieved concessions to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celcius in the outcome document, the Paris Agreement. It is a huge …
Continue reading ‘Governance and the Survival of the Pacific Islands’ »
‘Funding local’ has been a bit of a buzz word the last few years as the global development and humanitarian communities work towards being more inclusive and implement ‘locally-led’ programmes. One of the issues that needs urgent clarity if the debate around what ‘inclusive’ means in practice is to be settled is to understand the …
Continue reading ‘Some Clarity on the ‘Funding Local’ Clash of Opinions’ »
There are a lot of studies doing the rounds that highlight a major problem with development financing – it takes ages to actually spend the money that is donated. This is particularly true for financing that is channelled through government public financial management systems to support public serivce delivery such as health care, education, infrastructure …
I have 1,001 things I want to write about and yet nothing seems to stick. I have deleted so many ideas from my screen and tried to start over but just cannot seem to find the inspiration. I probably know why. There is so much going on in the world of development and humanitarian action …
Continue reading ‘The Super-unsexy Localization of the SDGs’ »
Development assistance has become so political. It can sometimes be difficult to understand why when the main point of aid is to help people; to provide access to good health care, quality education and public safety, to name the most critical. But lately there is so much cynicism around development assistance because it is so …
Continue reading ‘Your Cynicism is Not Helpful – We Have to Play the Long Game to Impact Poverty’ »
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 …
I am lucky – I cannot imagine living on $1.26 a day. My morning latte costs more than that. And I consider my morning latte a basic necessity – with two small children, one who takes hours to get to bed and the other who is up at the crack of dawn, I perceive caffeine …
Continue reading ‘When did achieving ‘survival’ become a development goal?’ »
Hyun Jee[i] The Myanmar development context Since the opening of the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Government of Myanmar) in 2011, and its concurrent launch of four waves of national reform – political, economic, public administration, and private sector reforms – Myanmar has re-emerged as a member of the international community …
Continue reading ‘Sharing Experiences of Effective Development Cooperation in Myanmar’ »
Rajarshi Sen The priority and propensity for action with respect to inequality/social exclusion is a major focus of the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and yet, in poor countries, development programming tends to focus on growth and poverty reduction first, and inequality/social exclusion mitigation later. The question is, why? This essay examines the three paradoxes …
