Some of the big hits and misses from 16 years of blogging on FP2P

As part of its preparations for the post-Dexit blog, Oxfam is asking readers to give us their thoughts via this survey. Here’s the blurb: ‘There are changes coming to the From Poverty to Power blog and Oxfam’s other channels for sharing ideas and evidence with those who work in, research, fund and have an interest in this sector. We would like to find out your views; how you access news from across the sector, what you think of the channels offered, and what you would like to see.’ Spare a few minutes of yr time?

Back to the blog. As part of processing my impending departure from Oxfam, I have gone back to read the early posts on FP2P. I managed 2008-10 before slumping into a coma (there are 3,500 of them….), but that was enough to prompt a few thoughts.

I started off wondering if I could identify where posts or series of posts have had impact, and where they haven’t, but of course, attributing any given change to a few blogs is impossible, with a couple of exceptions (see below). What was more interesting was to see where the blog aligned with the zeitgeist – the endless churn of ideas and practice in the development sector, and where I was (apologies) pissing in the wind.

There’s also a distinction between successfully changing the debate and seeing that translate into changing practice on the ground (looking at you, IMF).

So here’s ten hits and ten misses, with links to the earliest/best post I could find on each – I imagine people will disagree with where I’ve put them (a lot of the ‘misses’ may merely be work in progress), feel free to have one last go in comments!

Hits

• Complexity and Systems Thinking
• The rise of influencing/advocacy on the practitioner agenda
• How to build or reform effective states
• Growing doubts on aid, e.g. compliance culture
• Understanding the mechanics of how change happens
• Criticisms of microfinance hype
• Cash Transfers
• Inequality v growth
• Research for Impact
• The potential of diaries as a research tool

The two things I think I can claim some level of attribution for on is getting people to think about diaries as a research tool, and triggering a big Cash Transfer NGO, namely GiveDirectly, by talking about Oxfam’s Cash for Coffins programme in Vietnam to a group of Harvard students that who included Paul Niehaus, who thought ‘why not give this a go?’ If I had extended my reading beyond 2010, I would also have hit the early discussions on Doing Development Differently/Thinking and Working Politically/Adaptive Management (see Heather Marquette‘s great piece on the similarities and differences between them all), where I think the blog has been part of a useful insurgency movement within the aid sector.

Pretty thin pickings for 15 years of blogging, so if you know of any other signs of impact, please say!

Misses

• Limits to Growth
• Happiness/well being as an alternative metric to GDP
• The Tobin Tax/Financial Transactions Tax
• The need for more longitudinal research
• The importance of faith in development
• Cash on delivery
• Road Traffic Safety as a ‘cinderella’ development issue (ditto Obesity and Ageing)
• Turgid writing in the sector (and terrible conferences)
• The (lack of) impact of the MDGs and SDGs
• Grey Panthers as a campaigning model

Finally, a few random blogs that I had forgotten but really enjoyed rediscovering:

• Are Dogs the real problem on Climate Change?
• Why I hate the term ‘political will’
• Are poor people the best judge of poverty?
• Fidel quotes Oxfam
• How to write the recommendations for an NGO report on almost anything.
• Seeing my in-laws as peasants (got into a bit of trouble on this one ☹)

Overall impressions? It feels like the world (politics, tech) has evolved much faster than the aid sector hivemind – I was surprised to find so many current debates already surfacing 15 years ago. And there was more room for humour back then – things feel more careful these days.

Over to you guys – any other threads or posts you want to remind me/us of?