By Isabella Jean Achieving development goals in conflict affected and fragile contexts remains one of the biggest challenges for development actors worldwide.  Consider this fact: not a single low income, fragile state will achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.  Weak governance and political instability continue to thwart meaningful progress and cause deeper [...]

By Prashan Thalayasingam In April 2011, Dalia Association, a community foundation in Palestine, produced  a draft report of an extensive study conducted with other civil society organisations on their perspectives and experiences of the aid system.  The report prioritizes our complaints about the international aid system and the way it operates in the occupied Palestinian territory [...]

By Dayna Brown I have been thinking lately about the importance of the people who are involved with international assistance efforts – and their knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors and values.  There is much discussion about the need for “professionalization” of the field, with some suggesting certification should be required for people who want to do [...]

By Sherine Jayawickrama The embrace of foreign aid as an instrument of “soft power” and as a pillar of foreign policy has been notable in the United States – and it is increasingly so in India, Brazil and China as well.  It is a reflection of how the landscape of global development and aid financing [...]

By Dayna Brown Across the places the Listening Project has visited, people have talked a lot about their roles in relief and development efforts – what they have been and what they would like them to be.  They have often talked about “consultations” and “participatory processes” which have been cosmetic or superficial, and they desire [...]

This is the second in a series of blog posts on the work and findings of the Listening Project, which explores the insights of people who live in societies receiving international assistance (humanitarian assistance, development cooperation, peace-building activities, human rights work and environmental conservation).   More than 130 international and local organizations contributed over 400 staff [...]

This is the first in a series of blog posts on the work and findings of the Listening Project, which organized over 20 Listening Exercises in various contexts and regions since late 2005.  The Listening Project is a systematic exploration of the insights of people who live in societies receiving international assistance (humanitarian assistance, development cooperation, [...]

By Steve Feldstein In late April, Sherine Jayawickrama’s post Great Expectations, Rising Impatience: A Watershed Moment for U.S. Foreign Assistance posed several questions. This post responds to her question related to the evident imbalance among the 3Ds (defense, diplomacy and development).   I think there are several different ways to approach this issue.  On the one [...]

The Humanitarian & Development NGOs domain of practice at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations is pleased to host a panel on Seizing Opportunities to Enhance U.S. Aid Effectiveness: The State of Play and Ways Forward. Wednesday, April 21, 4.00 pm – 5.30 pm Weil Town Hall (Belfer L-1), Harvard Kennedy School, 79 John F. [...]

By Jonathan Scanlon I enjoyed reading Sherine Jayawickrama’s post on NGO advocacy at the G-20 a couple of weeks ago.  Her comments point to something that Oxfam America calls “smart development,” which is a key part of our current advocacy work on U.S. government development policy.  We believe that effective foreign aid can make a [...]