I’m going to keep this short. Collectively, most of 2016 was spent talking about how 2017 will be better. But if we learned anything, it was that how things have normally worked (ie. elections, sigh) seem to not be working quite like they should; like we have come to expect them too. The world is changing and our understanding of how it should work and how much actual work it will take to make it work is not keeping pace.

This doesn’t mean that we should throw our understandings and beliefs out the window, but we do have to adjust ourselves to our new reality where things just aren’t quite right. In theory, January is a time for optimism and hope, but this year we’re all feeling a little unbalanced. Which is why I propose that we move past what we think should be happening and deal with what is, in fact, happening. Talk-shop is over. Planning is over. It’s time for doing – and doing the really difficult stuff that’s going to help inform us of the next steps, and those after that.

This year, Theory in Practice is going to go beyond discussing the gaps between development and humanitarian theories and their implementation – we want to identify how to make the theories we have relied on for so long, and which still have value, keep pace with the whip-lash speed of international relations and politics which influence the work that we do on a daily basis.

Join us. The more ideas, the more insights, the more experiences to be shared, the better.