MEL (monitoring, evaluation and learning) is a lot more interesting than it sounds. Done badly, it can amount to little more than bean-counting to satisfy the donor, of little value to the actual programme or people who are supposed to benefit. But done well, it raises all sorts of really important questions about how the programme/project is designed, early enough

The World Bank just released a monster number crunch on the changing face of aid. ‘A Changing Landscape: Trends in official financial flows and the aid architecture’ covers ‘all private and public sector financing to developing countries’ up to the end of 2019 (aka the eve of the pandemic). Here are the main findings, with my attempts at a commentary

Laure-Hélène Piron and Sam Waldock reflect on some of the unexpected lessons of 20 years of UK-funded (total £276.5m) governance programmes in Nigeria. See the summary report and Duncan’s summary of the summary.  ODI/Learning, Evidence and Advocacy Partnership research found sustainable improvements in some dimensions of governance and service delivery in four Northern Nigerian states. We wanted to push a

Guest post from Courtenay Cabot-Venton The world is currently at an inflection point that could enable the transformation of aid for developing countries. The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the withdrawal of most international staff across the globe, has opened up space for more honest conversations around racism and the decolonization

This detailed (113 page main report, plus annexes) ODI study by Laure-Hélène Piron, Clare Cummings, Gareth Williams, Helen Derbyshire and Sierd Hadley digs into one of those celebrity/Potemkin governance programmes that you keep coming across (and which I keep writing about on these pages). In this case a large UK investment in governance reforms in four states in Nigeria (Jigawa,

By Mary A. Kabati, Ronah K. Lubinda, Adela Materu, Kingsley Makuwila, Jones Mwalwanda, Prosper Ndaiga and Moses Zulu If COVID-19 and the recent uprisings for racial justice around the world have made one thing clear, it is this: the global development sector needs to radically rebuild itself from the ground up. As leaders of community-based organizations in Tanzania, Zambia, and

Regular FP2P readers will know by now that I’ve been following Myanmar quite a lot, and some of the conversations have been both interesting and of much broader relevance. Recently I had a call with some researchers who adapted governance diaries work first to the pandemic, and then to the coup. Diaries involve local researchers returning to the same individuals

Amber Parkes, Anam Parvez Butt, Marion Sharples and Vivian Schwarz-Blum talks us through an important new advocacy tool – the Care Policy Scorecard Everything gets a rating these days: apps, hotels, Uber journeys. And everyone wants that five-star rating. But what about government policies that affect people’s lives? What if we could rate them too, according to how impactful and

In their final instalment on Oxfam’s Inspiring Radically Better Futures project, Irene Guijt and Ruth Mayne summarize the main findings. We thank the inspired, courageous and determined people involved in the Inspiring Better Futures case studies who have shown that radically better futures are within reach. Many people around the world have generously given their time and contributed to the

In their second post on Oxfam’s Inspiring Futures project, Irene Guijt and Ruth Mayne nerd out on the methodology. If hope is stronger when anchored in evidence, what does it take to create that evidence base? There were plenty of head scratching moments involved in answering our main question: What evidence exists that transformative and inclusive change at scale is

Irene Guijt and Ruth Mayne introduce ‘Inspiring Radically Better Futures’, a new Oxfam research programme. With COP26 looming, everyone is hoping again. We hope that world leaders will make the bold decisions needed to reduce the scale of inevitable climate change. But what Sarah Palin once memorably called ‘that hopey changey stuff’ has gotten a hard rap recently. Take Greta

My Oxfam colleague and regular FP2P contributor Max Lawson (right) sends out a weekly summary of his reading on inequality (he leads Oxfam’s advocacy work on it). They’re great, and Max has opened his mailing list up to the anyone who’s interested – just email max.lawson@oxfam.org, with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line. Here’s his latest effort (and thanks to Rakesh Rajani for suggesting the