I use my How Matters YouTube channel to highlight portrayals of international assistance that inspire more nuanced conversations about the politics of global development and international aid. Frankly though, there’s not enough content to keep that page very active. Very few video-based products show people grappling with the realities of programming on the ground and the stories of grassroots change-makers too often remain…

I’m quickly writing this post before the 100-mile wide Hurricane Sandy, which has already killed 65 people in the Caribbean, takes the power out in Washington D.C. where I live.…

“Excuse me. What’s that you’re reading?” the woman wedged next to me in the busy restaurant asked.

Sitting on the table in front me yesterday was Tori Hogan’s new book, Beyond Good Intentions: A Journey Into the Realities of International Aid. (Now available …

“For all of us who are in the ‘change the world’ business, we seldom reflect on our own attitudes and behaviours as donors, facilitators, managers, experts, technocrats. Yet we want to see change in the attitudes and behaviours of those we serve?! We do not want to change the power status quo within organisations and amongst ourselves, yet we are telling ‘communities’ to do so?!” ~from a …

We are celebrating Labor Day today in the United States, a day dedicated to the social and economic achievements of the everyday efforts of American workers. What better day to share my thoughts on a book I’ve been reading on the lives of us, the development laborers?

Inside the Everyday Lives of Development…

A guest post on how-matters.org by Mary Fifield

The power of learning is not just a slogan for many of us working in the non-profit sector. It's the value that undergirds the programs that we help deliver—programs designed to support people in discovering their own talents and skills to better their well-being, their environment, and their society. It's a value that supports our own…

People have been playing more games these days in Washington D.C. And I don’t mean the strategies of the Obama and Romney spin teams.

Two recent events suggest games’ growing popularity in D.C. aid circles: this one I attended at the World Wildlife Fund earlier this month and this Tuesday’s upcoming …

Aidspeak called for three changes to make aid better by August 1^st. Oops – instead they’re getting one by August 3^rd.

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Give every aid worker (local and international, cleaner to country director) a social change investment fund of US$1,000, over which they have total personal discretion.

Task each…

This post on behalf of REPSSI originally appeared on A View from the Cave.

The first and most challenging exercise of the day when I took a seminar from The OpEd Project required me to fill in the following blanks and share with the group:

Hello, my name…

Long-haul international flights are a great opportunity to catch up on action adventure movies I’d never bother seeing in the U.S. On my flight from Johannesburg on Friday night, I watched In Time, a Justin Timberlake as Robin Hood sci-fi film in which time replaces money as the world’s currency and presents just as many challenges to the have and have-nots.

This got me thinking about the currencies of international aid. On this trip,…

We all know there are aid donors and international funding partners out there that want to change “business as usual” in development (or at least people inside those institutions that do). We also all know that for various reasons, they’re not moving quick enough for those working on the ground.

New donors could come in and fill the gaps. But more importantly, we need a new kind of donor, whether they are recent to the scene or not.

The organizations that I see doing…

I’ve been enjoying inProgress’ new manual, “Integrated Monitoring: A Practical Manual for Organizations That Want to Achieve Results," on the metro over the last couple of days. (Thanks to the recommendation from @txtpablo.) The blog, Development That Works, recently discussed the same issue in its…

After working in global health for over 30 years, Ruth Stark wrote a book to guide her daughter, Taryn, also an aid professional. To celebrate Mother’s Day, I’m sharing a chapter from it, which Ruth graciously agreed to have appear on how-matters.org. (You can see my March review of How to Work in Someone Else's Country …