Christian Chiza Kashurha is a teaching assistant at the Department of History  of ISP-Idjwi and researcher at  GEC-SH, Bukavu, DRC. This piece is part of the new “Bukavu Series” blog posts by the GIC Network. Throughout the Global South, in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, research projects of researchers in the North are increasingly carried out either by, or with

Guest post and 20m interview with Naila Kabeer on her new paper There’s a buzz abroad in the development community around a new way to tackle extreme poverty. BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP) programme combines asset transfers (usually livestock), cash stipends and intensive mentoring to women and families in extreme poverty in order to help them ‘graduate’ into more

Dr. Mohira Suyarkulova is an associate professor at the Department of International and Comparative Politics at the American University of Central Asia. In this piece, first published by Open Democracy in Dec. 2018, she makes a case for reimagining development research in the ‘global south’ as a collaborative process which can help overturn structures of oppression. In the past couple

Prof. Neissan A. Besharati serves as the Associate Director for Deloitte Development Africa, Strategy & Operations. He holds a Masters in International Social Development and a PhD in Public Policy & Development Management, with a focus on evaluating effectiveness of development interventions. This piece was written as part of a research project for Southern Voice’s Development Effectiveness Programme.  Most people

Guest post from Elizabeth Stuart, executive director of the  Pathways for Prosperity Commission on Technology and Inclusive Development. One of many puzzles in development is that increasing spending on health and education doesn’t necessarily deliver expected results. To turn this on its head: Madagascar, Bangladesh and South Africa all have similar child mortality rates, but South Africa spends 19 times

We had a blog training workshop at the LSE last month where only one person out of 25 expected showed up. No, it wasn’t because they’d heard how boring I am, it was because they were Africans trying to attend the LSE’s Africa Summit and various other events, but they couldn’t get visas. So we (Esther Yei-Mokuwa from Sierra Leone,

As northern Uganda continues gradually to recover from the LRA war, peace/youth interventions using sports are playing a vital role. Former Ugandan soccer star and LSE researcher Francis Aloh (right) is studying the work of a Canadian charity, Athletes for Africa (A4A) and reports back on a recent visit. It has been said that football can heal the social wounds

Dr. Pauline Ngirumpatse is a researcher in international development affiliated to the ‘Réseau d’études des dynamiques transnationales et de l’action collective’ (Université de Montréal). This piece was written as part of a research project for Southern Voice’s Development Effectiveness Programme.  Making aid and development more effective has been a central aim of the development sector in the last two decades. Successive meetings

Ben Ramalingam and Leni Wild share the thinking behind a new initiative to support adaptive management in aid. Adaptive management seems to be everywhere these days – and is one of the most popular topics on this blog. More and more, it is becoming seen as the best way to deal with a wide range of development and humanitarian problems, from

Guest post by Dr Tamsyn Barton, ICAI Chief Commissioner Imagine this: you are in charge of scrutinising all UK aid spending by the government. Of giving public and Parliament assurance about how a perennially controversial £14.5bn budget is spent. You want to ensure your findings are taken seriously by government departments and people with the power to make changes to

Researchers David Mwambari and Arthur Owor question the effect of money in producing knowledge in post-conflict contexts and argue that it restricts independent local research. These insights were developed at a recent workshop at Ghent University, which brought together Ghent-based researchers and a group of researchers, commonly called “research assistants”, from post-conflict and developing regions.  In order to support more informed