AidSource

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Jennifer Lentfer's Blog – June 2012 Archive (4)

It’s all about the layers, Justin!

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,…

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Added by Jennifer Lentfer on June 25, 2012 at 10:46am — No Comments

A new kind of aid donor: Four things they do differently

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…

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Added by Jennifer Lentfer on June 18, 2012 at 5:19am — 10 Comments

The best do-gooder advice I ever received

The best piece of advice I ever received was from a professor in grad school who told us that we as aid workers might never be able to unequivocally determine if we are doing things right. However she assured us that if we weren't questioning ourselves, we most certainly were doing things wrong.

Along with the results frameworks and donor pressures that dictate our daily work, our own personal reflection is also a necessary and vital tool in making our role as…

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Added by Jennifer Lentfer on June 12, 2012 at 3:59am — No Comments

Floating in from upstream

Guest post on how-matters.org by David Peck of SoChange

Somehow I had managed to escape the flesh-eating, frenzied swarm of red fire ants that had been circling in the bottom of the boat as I anticipated our arrival. Size certainly doesn’t matter when it comes to fire ants, an entomological force to be reckoned with.

I stepped out of the small wooden canoe-like craft as…

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Added by Jennifer Lentfer on June 7, 2012 at 3:42am — No Comments