Show, don’t tell
Using a headline I borrowed from a smart colleague in DFID, there is an article by me in the current edition of the Public Service Review, which focuses on on international development. You can...
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The war on knowledge
I really believe that this is how some organisations and government departments view knowledge sharing: (h/t Ian Thorpe)…
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Form a posse?
On Friday the World Bank London office had a meeting on ‘the Future of Aid’. The meeting was, according to the tortuous language of the invitation, “conducted in an informal manner with interested...
View ArticleWhat happens when donors fail to meet their commitments?
This joint post with Rita Perakis first appeared on the CGD blog. Has the aid industry introduced the reforms it agreed in 2005 to make aid more effective? No, according to the survey published last...
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What would Google do? (Aid effectiveness edition)
This post first appeared on the CGD Rethinking US Foreign Assistance blog. Information, not coordination, is the key to aid effectiveness. Some donors such as USAID are becoming interested in a more...
View ArticleWarming to the Open Government Partnership
This joint post with Stephanie Majerowicz first appeared on the Views from the Center blog at the Center for Global Development “The defining division these days is increasingly: open or closed? Are we...
View ArticleWhat are the results agenda?
The development world talks a lot about ‘the results agenda’. Of course everyone is in favour of results, but this superficial consensus may disguise important differences of opinion. I was reminded...
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Choosing a new President of the World Bank
Nominations for the head of the World Bank have now closed, and there are three candidates: Jim Kim, nominated by the United States; President of Dartmouth College, former head of HIV at the World...
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Could ‘Development Impact Bonds’ work?
This blog post first appeared on Views from the Center at the Center for Global Development. Last week, CGD and Social Finance launched a new high-level Working Group to consider Development Impact...
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Complexity and development [presentation and podcast]
People working in development don’t need to be told that it complicated, in the sense that there are lots of problems to try to solve. But there is growing interest in the idea that economic systems...
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What is development?
This the first of three blog posts exploring the implications of complexity for development. It first appeared on Views from the Center at the Center for Global Development. The Nobel-prize winning...
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All that glisters: the golden thread and complexity
David Cameron co-chairs the UN Panel on the future of the development agenda, so his ‘golden thread’ view of development could be of global significance. This blog post, the second of three looking at...
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If development is complex, is the results agenda bunk?
This is the last of a series of three blog posts on Views from the Center looking at the implications of complexity theory for development. In this joint post, Owen Barder and Ben Ramalingam look at...
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Malaria vaccine setback: what can we learn?
This post first appeared on the Global Health Policy blog. There has been bad news published in the New England Journal of Medicine about the effectiveness of what had seemed to be the best prospect...
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Development policy at the fin de siècle
This article first appeared on Wednesday 28 November in the Guardian’s (new) Global Development Professionals Network. Development policy: time to look beyond simply managing aid Powerful nations need...
View ArticleNext steps in aid transparency a game changer?
I’m quoted in a blog post at the Economist today about aid transparency: Ms Greening’s strategy is the requirement that any organisation receiving DfID funds publish clear information about where the...
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Accountability and open government [podcast]
In the latest edition of Development Drums, Rakesh Rajani and Martin Tisné discuss accountability, open government and development. The episode explores the idea of openness – meaning more than just...
View ArticleWill CIDA’s demise hurt the world’s poor?
There is an article by me and Lucas Robinson in the Globe and Mail today: The risk is that development becomes a secondary goal in a department with bigger fish to fry. The opportunity is that by...
View ArticleDevelopment Impact Bonds: what do YOU think?
This blog post first appeared on Views from the Center. On the eve of the Social Impact Investment summit in London this Thursday, 6th June, I am excited that CGD and Social Finance are releasing a...
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Dogfood and disruption
The new “Development Tracker” website launched in beta by DFID is disruptive in two important ways: one which will appeal especially to open data geeks, and one which will appeal to development geeks....
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Development Impact Bonds – a new business model for development?
On June 5th we published for consultation a draft of our report on Development Impact Bonds, a new way of bringing together the public and private sector to invest in development. The New York Times...
View ArticleShould the UK set up a development bank?
On Tuesday the House of Commons International Development Committee continued their hearings into the future of UK international development cooperation. In the first session, the witnesses were Andrew...
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Show your working (international aid edition)
In maths and science exams at school there were as many marks for showing your working as there were for coming up with the right answer. We learned to set out the steps we used to reach our answer,...
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Science to Deliver, but no ‘Science of Delivery’
This post first appeared on Views from the Center at the Center for Global Development. If you have comments, please join the discussion there. The World Bank President Jim Kim has said that the next...
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Learning By Measuring in Practice
This blog post first appeared on Views from the Center. At the heart of our work on Development Impact Bonds is the idea that to solve complex social problems it is necessary to test interventions,...
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Coordination doesn’t happen by magic
A letter in today’s Financial Times by Caroline Fiennes, David Hall Matthews, Fran Perrin, Vij Ramachandran and me argues that relief efforts could be more effective if humanitarian aid agencies...
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Let’s help the Philippines — but not like we helped Haiti
There is an article in the Washington Post about humanitarian relief in the Philippines by Vij Ramachandran and me. (For those who quaintly enjoy their news etched on to dead trees, this will appear in...
View ArticleTen broad brushstrokes about development cooperation
I am discussing the the future of development cooperation, and the role of Northern NGOs, with the policy, advocacy and campaigns team at ActionAid UK this morning. Powerpoint is forbidden. Here are...
View ArticleIs ‘the struggle’ the baby or the bathwater?
This blog post was first published on Views from the Center One of the first things we all learn as development rookies is that you cannot simply transplant institutions, systems or ideas from...
View ArticleEvidence and scaling up
I spoke at a dinner of the Board of the Childrens’ Investment Fund Foundation on Friday. Rather bravely, I thought, I opened by saying that I am not a great fan of philanthropic foundations. In my...
View ArticleWhy “beyond aid” matters
This blog post by Owen Barder and Theo Talbot first appeared on Views from the Center. The UK House of Commons International Development Committee is undertaking a very interesting inquiry which...
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No smoking gun – DFID and the surge in spending
This blog post first appeared on Views from the Center. The UK development agency, DFID, was mauled by the famously easy-going British press this weekend after an apparently critical National Audit...
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Can aid agencies help systems fix themselves?
This essay first appeared on Duncan Green’s blog, From Poverty to Power. It was a follow up to a lecture on complexity and development which I gave to Duncan’s international development course at the...
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How should donors work with the private sector?
This blog post, jointly written with Theo Talbot, first appeared on the CGD website. Spot the odd one out: Tanzania’s Morogoro Shoe Factory: Underwritten by the World Bank in the 1970s to supply the...
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On World Humanitarian Day: Could We Do Better with Cash?
This blog post first appeared on Views from the Center. This week we mark a poignant anniversary. August 19th was named World Humanitarian Day in memory of the bombing twelve years ago of the UN...
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Innovative financing for development: as if social returns, incentives, and...
There is an article by Theo Talbot and me in the latest edition of ECDPM’s Great Insights Private Sector Matters. We argue that rather than subsidising inputs or reducing risk to leverage private...
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Transforming Humanitarian Aid with Cash Transfers: High Level Panel Report
This blog post first appeared on Views from the Center. The High Level Panel on Humanitarian Cash Transfers, which I chaired, published our report this week. We concluded that the international system...
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Global goals can deliver 2C and new development finance – here’s how
This article by Alex Evans, Alice Lépissier and Owen Barder first appeared in The Guardian on 25 September 2015. It summarises this new CGD Policy Paper by the same authors. What if there were an...
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Humanitarian Cash Transfers
The Free Exchange column in this week’s Economist discusses the work of the High Level Panel on Humanitarian Cash Transfers. Here is the conclusion: Cash does have its problems: in times of emergency,...
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Give us the courage to change the things we can – the serenity prayer for...
This blog post first appeared on Views from the Center. As my friends know, I’m not religious – indeed, I fall into the ‘militant atheist’ category – but as my day job is trying to promote peace and...
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