by Sherine Jayawickrama   Steven Lawry’s five-part series on U.S. Philanthropy’s Shrinking Amibition has provided a lot of interesting food for thought.  His analysis and arguments have caused me to reflect on how this set of issues intersects with the experience of international NGOs fighting poverty and social injustice.  Three main reflections emerge.   First, [...]

By Steven Lawry In Part IV of this series I argued that large, conventional foundations, staffed by highly-qualified and increasingly specialized professional staff, are over-specifying the solutions to poverty in-house and, in the process, are increasing the possibility that potentially breakthrough ideas coming from outside of foundations get over-looked and go unfunded. New philanthropies, founded [...]

by Steven Lawry I argued in Part II of this series that foundations as private organizations are freer than public funders to get behind new and untested ideas for reducing poverty that show promise. Foundations are less subject to the political, economic and bureaucratic orthodoxies that channel public funds and for-profit investments to tried and [...]

by Steven Lawry One of the principal criticisms proponents of so-called new philanthropy direct toward old, or traditional large philanthropies is that old philanthropies, in assessing the merits of grant proposals, don’t require prospective grantees to provide sufficiently rigorous estimates of the likely impact of their proposed work.  For instance, Paul Brest, Hal Harvey and [...]

By Steven Lawry I am arguing in this four-part series that US foundations working internationally are not making full use of their freedom to support innovation and help people claim new rights—and that progress toward reducing poverty and extending essential rights and liberties may be casualties.  In my post of March 25, I offered three [...]

Dambisa Moyo made a stop at the Harvard Kennedy School on Monday to talk about her book Dead Aid. The book is creating a lot of buzz. I now understand why. Moyo’s message is simple, sharp and compelling – and it is not weighed down by a lot of nuance or evidence. Full disclosure: I [...]

by Steven Lawry Independent US foundations working internationally have advantages that other kinds of donors, such as the World Bank and USAID, generally don’t. As private funders, foundations are better able to bear risk on behalf of innovative approaches to social change and poverty reduction than are public sector funders. Where foundation-funded work yields promising [...]

  About a week ago, I was on a panel on “Bridging the Gap: Researchers and Practitioners in International Development” at the Social Enterprise Conference held at Harvard Business School.  It was a lively exchange that covered a lot of ground – both panelists and audience members drew from a breadth of experience.   I [...]

Great post and conversation over at Blood and Milk for those thinking about starting their own international development NGO:  Can you share some of your experiences in which inexperienced nonprofits did more harm than good?

Today the Hauser Center hosted Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam GB, to discuss his new book, From Poverty to Power.  Lant Pritchett, professor of the practice of international development, offered a response. Some quick reflections: Duncan’s thesis is that development is best achieved through (1) active citizenship and (2) effective states.  While instinctively [...]