On World AIDS day, Ian Hodgson and Marina Schkot introduce a new study by Frontline AIDS. For the estimated 38 million people living with HIV, COVID-19 has meant one pandemic overlaid on another. The interaction between the two pandemics, and how the HIV community has responded, provide important lessons for the future. Sex workers, people who use drugs, adolescent girls

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

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

Women, Voice and Power, Oxfam’s new paper on ‘transformative feminist leadership’ exemplifies why I love working for NGOs, but also why it can get a bit irksome, especially if you’re a wordsmith. Let’s start with the good stuff. The 7 page Exec Sum (the full report weighs in at 45 pages) is stuffed full with great literature summaries, case studies,

I’ve come to recognize a certain format for ‘inspirational books for activists’: big sweeping statement about What Needs to Happen, then what I call ‘thousand points of light’ – breathless accounts of some activist-led efforts to achieve those goals. On to the call to arms, invoking political will. Job Done. I must be getting (even more) jaded. What’s wrong with

Guest post by a friend working on Myanmar, who for obvious reasons would prefer to remain anonymous In a fast-moving violent crisis like the one in Myanmar, a lot of the most interesting analysis goes unpublished for obvious reasons – the safety of individuals or organizations. I’ve been working with a (suitably anonymous) national and international team on a series

The British NGO network BOND recently published a report on ‘catalysing locally-led development in the UK aid system’, which summarizes a six month project involving dozens of people from different aid organizations. I have to confess that I started reading with low expectations – there are a lot of pious exhortations on localization, which all too often ignore crucial issues

As part of writing a paper with the overall findings from our ‘Emergent Agency in a Time of Covid’ project, I’ve been catching up with some fascinating recent work from the Philippines, where Oxfam and the Philippine Sociological Society are publishing a fascinating series of case studies of civic responses to Covid. They include the Community Pantry Movement, supporting cycling

Another intense couple of days hearing back from the 30 or so researchers in the Action for Empowerment and Accountability research consortium, as it approaches the end of its programme. I was returning after a couple of years’ absence (I did some work on adaptive management in an earlier phase) and it was great to hear where people had got

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Guest post by Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Multiple studies of the effects of the pandemic on civil society, including a major IDS report released last week, paint a discouraging picture. Civil society has come under assault from many directions at once, including executive overreach, securitisation of public life, the constriction of online freedoms, sharpened social divisions, and

Civicus publishes its annual ‘State of Civil Society Report’ today. It’s great, with a v cool website and the report is beautifully written too (thanks for that – I have to read a lot of plodding devspeak, so it makes a real difference!). I recommend the overview if you’re looking for a succinct, accessible summary on the state of civic