By Steven Lawry Paul Farmer’s compelling new book, “Haiti: After the Earthquake,” suggests that international aid to Haiti, while providing relief from suffering during the worst of times, including in the aftermath of the January 12, 2010, earthquake, has for the most part failed to help Haiti build capacity in its own public institutions, including [...]

By Steven Lawry Egypt’s civil society is small, though hardly ineffective.  Civil society organizations have been working bravely for decades on severe problems of poverty, human rights, and social disempowerment.  Official policies toward independent social action have been consistently hostile.  Laws governing nonprofit organizations impede the registration of organizations dedicated to charitable activity, especially where [...]

By Steven Lawry This is the second of two posts by Steven Lawry exploring why and how developing country governments should set a strong, clear frame for development efforts, and why and how donors and INGOs should work within that frame. In my last post, I argued that INGOs tend not to work as closely [...]

By Steven Lawry This is the first of two posts by Steven Lawry exploring why and how developing country governments should set a strong, clear frame for development efforts, and why and how donors and INGOs should work within that frame. As a young man starting out in international development work in the 1970s, I [...]

By Steven Lawry Several powerful donors have concluded that nonprofits make inadequate use of impact assessment tools.  They are backing up their arguments with an implicit threat: measure in particular ways or you don’t get the money.  Wise nonprofit leaders know that the problems they work on are not susceptible to simple measurement.  They know [...]

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 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 [...]