My eight year old niece says that Peru is a disorganized country:

"it's very disorganized, some houses are really beautiful, and others really ugly. Some cars are really nice, and others are falling apart"

It took her a whole two days to figure this out. yep, someone forgot to "organize" the wealth according to need.

This is something that aid workers' families have to deal with early on. When we lived in Cambodia my kids were still too small to…

This is a crosspost from whydev, where the original can be found here. It is co-written by my new colleague, Allison Smith.

Weh: Brendan and I have a very exciting announcement to make. We’ve been on the whydev journey for 2 years now, and the time has come to expand the team. When whydev was started in May 2010, we weren’t really sure…

Pay a look to EvalPartners!!

The International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE)¹ and UNICEF, in partnership with several major organizations, launched an innovative partnership to enhance the capacities of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) to influence policy…

When I was a girl, I wanted a horse, sooooo bad. Every Christmas, every birthday, I had but one request.

“Please, Dad, I just want a horse.”

“There are no horses on pig farms,” my father would flatly respond.

But maybe my cowgirl dreams have finally come true. Because now…this farmer’s daughter is working for the cowboys.…

"It is the how that creates impact." ~Daniela Papi of PEPY Tours

I couldn't have explained it better myself.

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Related…

Originally posted here, on UpLook.

I've been a little lax on the blogging front this week. I have two excuses for this: the first is that I spent most of the weekend looking for somewhere to live next year (with success), the other is that I've been completing an assignment for my…

In Niger now...where is everyone? The usual and notorious scramble for a piece of the pie is notably absent. 

Solome Lemma (@InnovateAfrica) and I hosted a live discussion today to reflect together on the issues that came up from our posts on #StopKony. Sharing an excerpt below. Photo below by Joop…

You are invited to pay a look to my post about #kony2012. In Spanish (sorry!) with a translate button... 

Cheers,

Pablo  

I'm LIVE!  And I am putting it out there...I am writing because I’m very excited to share something new and good that is happening in my life.  It’s new and exciting but to be honest, also a bit scary (ok, MORE than a bit) to be putting myself out there like this.  I’m doing it because I DO think it’s important and something missing in our sector.



I’m enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I am learning to become a Health and Lifestyle Coach.  I am now officially…

I won’t share the video that many of my fellow bloggers reacted to today. Because of its slick production value, Invisible Children’s Kony2012 campaign will get plenty of attention without a link from me.

I did attempt to watch the whole video, but I have to confess that I stopped when Invisible Children’s founder asks his 3-year-old to explain who the “bad guys” are and what daddy does, i.e. he goes after them. The simplistic narrative of heroes and villains – this, among other…

At the start of 2012, there was lots of pieces on how we live life in the digital age.  There are obvious advantages to this with new technologies and how we can use them to reach out to people and help populations however, there is a disadvantage as well.  I came across the term ITSO, or the inability to switch off from this New York Times article called A Time to Tune Out by Roger Cohen.

The…

Originally posted on UpLook

I recently had the pleasure of attending a casual drink with some NGO types from an organisation around the corner from my office. The evening began with a brief presentation from one of their field workers who had recently returned from South Sudan, which was interesting to see, before turning into a nice chance to have a chat and a pint with some other young…

Do you have a colleague that just won’t shut up about the fight he’s having with his sibling over their family's vacation home? Or one who dressed way too provocatively when you were on that field visit last week? What about the person who constantly blames everything that doesn’t go their way on the incapacity or corruption of “the locals”?

We have all worked with these people. Perhaps we have even been these people at times. We didn’t know any better…until we did.…

interesting article for people in development

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/editorial/op-ed/happy-aid-caravan-476

Recently, I learnt something about myself that I had never known. I truly have a face made for radio. Last week, I was featured on Sydney’s 2SER Radio Station, as part of their Aidworks program. This program runs every Wednesday night at 7pm (AEDT) and can be found at 107.3FM locally or streamed livehere. Aidworks discusses the finer points of aid and development in a way that mainstream media doesn’t. We’re really proud to…