As the title suggests, I'm curious to know whether there are organisations that provide funding for individuals to work as technical advisors, or capacity builders (buzzword alert) for grassroots organisations. I have had the pleasure of working in this position for a disability organisation in Cambodia, but after May this year, funding has run out.

There are lots of volunteer schemes funded by AusAID that do exactly this,…

On the occasion of the United Nations World Development Information Day 2012, Karsten Weitzenegger Consulting has launched the Development Research Crawler at http://research.weitzenegger.de.

This targeted search facility links to the leading development research institutes and libraries world-wide. It shall ease the access…

Burnout is the term used to describe the physical, emotional and mental exhaustion felt by any ‘human service’ professionals – carers, doctors, teachers. There is little written about burnout among development and NGO workers. My aim is to bridge this gap in an accessible way and hopefully generate some discussion around what we as development workers mean by burnout. 

There is much analysis and debate about the development sector – whether it is effective; whether it is actually more…

When people ask me what job I do, I always struggle to find the appropriate response. It tends to differ according to who is asking me, and will range from ‘development/aid/humanitarian/human rights worker’ to ‘advocacy/policy/programmes officer’. This linguistic difficulty is not only due to needing to second guess whether the person I’m talking to will actually understand what any of these terms mean; it’s also because I myself am not sure what I am. Maybe the blanket term is ‘activist’ –…

In the latest WhyDev post, I argue that we need to start listening more to beneficiaries (and hence less to donors), we need to start trusting poor people more, and we need to do more for the most vulnerable.

What do you think?

(AFakeP) In a move that surprised industry leaders,  the United Nations announced on Sunday that they were abolishing all non-UN foreign aid. UN Senior Official Juan von Bonbon made the announcement from the UN headquarters in New York.

Source: United Nations…

How would you make aid better?

We all love to whinge and moan about how bad things are in aid. The big INGOs are bureaucratic money pits. Little LNGOs have low capacity and aren't accountable. Expats ride around disaster zones in white Landcruisers. Too many journalists. Too few journalists. Aid workers are cynical. Aid is an instrument of foreign policy for wealthy Western countries. Aid organizations do not put enough sit-reps up on their websites... and on…

Rich countries delivered $3.2 trillion of aid to poor countries between 1960 and 2008 (World Bank, 2011). Yet only 36% of aid workers think projects achieve their intended impact (McKinsey & Devex, 2011).

Aid recipients agree, calling for a change in aid’s business model—from that of delivery of goods and…

We're overwhelmed by the support we've received in the first week. We've had 27 generous backers get us up over the $1500, but we've still got a-ways to go yet. Our campaign has also generated a lot of discussion and comments, both positive and negative. Here's an example of that right here: http://goo.gl/qyXtJ.

I don't want to beat around the bush, I want to tackle any criticisms head-on. One criticism that has been raised is that our…

I've often said that it was easier for me to move to rural Zimbabwe than to Detroit. When people ask me why this farm-girl-turned-aid-worker devoted myself to placing community-driven development initiatives at the forefront of aid, here’s why:…

“Let go and let God.” It’s a mantra of Alcoholics Anonymous. And after the last week or so, I’m wondering if it’s time for international aid to adopt the same approach to recovery (with more politically correct secular references of course).

Last week I attended the “Summit for Aid Effectiveness in Global…

Back in February, we announced a new initiative of ours – Peer Coaching. In a nutshell, we are partnering with Shana Montesol Johnson of Development Crossroads, to develop a peer coaching matching service. Since…

I decided to go freelance about 5 years ago. Well, not really. I went on maternity leave, and then back to work, and then back on (extended) maternity leave, and then I started getting work while on leave, and then I realized I kind of liked this half way house. I wasn’t happy being in the office and…

(I just joined Aidsource, as well as started blogging, and thought I'd share an entry from a few weeks ago.  I hope you enjoy.)

For Burma watchers, the by-elections earlier this month were a stunning achievement.  Although most observers expected Aung San Suu Kyi to win her seat, and for her opposition party, the National League for Democracy, to pick up several more, the party's landslide…

I sit writing this post at my small desk, in the rapidly changing city of Tamale, northern Ghana (living in this city is like watching development occur). It is a simple room, furnished with both local and foreign amenities. A simple cupboard, a bed with mosquito net unused, a floral bed sheet for a curtain, an air conditioner used sparingly, a tea set, hauled from Beijing, China – my sanity and saving grace. A book on “Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition”. The Second…

Andebo Pax Pascal shares his experience as an aid worker in Africa’s newest country in his second guest post.  By examining beneficiaries’ place (or lack thereof) in two projects, he explores whether the development discourse has drifted into the abstract, beyond those he serves.

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The idea of different categories of people--donors, government representatives,…

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…

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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