sdclan

Participatory Video has been around for almost 50 years, and is resurfacing as an area of interest for development practitioners. This is partly fuelled by increased accessibility of technologies for self-made videos. In this Blog, Riff Fullan from Helvetas shows what PV does have to offer those who are interested in promoting greater engagement of people whose lives are most affected by emerging global economic, environmental, political and social realities. Let’s have a look… (more…)

By Patrick Kalas
Rare snowflakes covered the Victorian rooftops of Royal Halloway College just outside of London, where over 580 international researchers and practitioners in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development met during the impeccably organized 3rd ICTD conference. Development relevant, because ICTs are enabling tools, which can catalyze social, economic and political change processes through providing timely access to information and knowledge, facilitate knowledge-sharing and learning while amplifying voices of the voiceless. The following is a personal reflection about my perceived heartbeat of the ICT4D community at ICTD in London expanding on the previous blog post “Simple but Not Easy- Why Strategic Integration of ICTs Is Simply Not Easy”. (more…)

By Adrian Gnägi 
There is growing international frustration with the way the MfDR (managing for development results) agenda developed. In this post, I reflect on a widely read article by Andrew Natsios, former head of USAID.

A few weeks ago IDS organized an event entitled “the big push back meeting”. The aim of the meeting was to galvanize a movement against the “current trend for funding organisations to support only those programmes designed to deliver easily measurable results”. During the event, a recent essay by Andrew Natsios on what has gone bad with the results agenda in aid was frequently referred to. Natsios message is that “Obsessive Measurement Disorder” (OMD, “… an intellectual dysfunction rooted in the notion that counting everything in government programs will produce better policy choices and improved management”, p.4 ) has spread in development agencies to a degree that it nowadays prevents transformational development. He claims that the drive for transparency and accountability has become the major enemy of good development practice, the main obstacle for developmental impact. Natsios is careful in pointing out that the results agenda was well intended and produced some desirable change in aid. His focus is on the loss of balance, though, on the sickening consequences of taking into account what is measured only. (more…)