By Rahul Daswani The reason there are 9 “Major Groups” of stakeholders as part of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development is because these groups are the ones who are pushy and vocal. Felix Dodds (Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum), shared his tips during a talk at the Harvard Kennedy School on November 10 2011: [...]

The next session of the NGOs & Development study group, organized by the Humanitarian & Development NGOs Domain of the Hauser Center, will be held on Thursday, April 8th from 4:00-5:00pm in Weil Town Hall (Belfer L1) at the Harvard Kennedy School.  The session will be lead by Shalaka Joshi, Vice President of Global Strategies, CSO Partners, and Salimah Samji, who was [...]

by Tony Pipa Over 2,000 pages, 500 contributors, and 20 reports: The Center for U.S. Global Engagement recently released a “report of reports” summarizing the various calls to elevate global development in U.S. foreign policy and modernize U.S. foreign assistance.  Given the activity over the past two years, it is clear that the changes instituted [...]

Philanthropic bloggers have been abuzz with Kjerstin Erickson’s decision to post the details a few weeks back about a funding crisis that could put her NGO, FORGE, out of business.  After Sean Stannard-Stockton described this as an experiment in “radical transparency” on his Tactical Philanthropy blog, many folks have jumped to Kjerstin’s aid, with the [...]

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 [...]

Michael Edwards, who recently stepped down as director of the Governance and Civil Society Program at the Ford Foundation, explores similar issues in “Have NGOs Made a Difference?”* He finds that development NGOs have been influential in getting the mainstream to address the negative aspects of globalization, commit to participation and human rights as basic [...]

Princeton recently announced plans to send a tenth or more of its incoming students abroad to do social service for a year, before they enter as freshmen (Princeton Plans for an Early Year Abroad). While much of the nonprofit sector is worried about a looming leadership crisis (see Bridespan’s seminal report The Nonprofit Sector’s Leadership [...]