Featured image for “Don’t start with the issue, start with the people: lessons from a legend of community organising”

Don’t start with the issue, start with the people: lessons from a legend of community organising

May 8, 2025
Duncan Green reviews a new book by a giant in the field of community organising and explores the differences between that approach to driving change and the policy-focused advocacy typically used by NGOs.
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Featured image for “Cities besieged, bakeries bombed, fields set alight: it’s time to end the use of starvation as a weapon of war”

Cities besieged, bakeries bombed, fields set alight: it’s time to end the use of starvation as a weapon of war

May 6, 2025
The blockade of food, water and relief that has brought so much hunger and suffering to Gaza is the latest example of the growing use of starvation as a weapon of war, say Lawrence Robinson and Désirée Ketabchi. That’s why Oxfam has become a founding member of the Coalition Against Conflict and Hunger – a group of civil society organizations set up last year to end the deliberate use of starvation tactics in conflict and promote the protection of civilians and humanitarian space.
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Featured image for “No logframe, no indicators and no workplan: what can we learn from a malnutrition project that is truly community-led?”

No logframe, no indicators and no workplan: what can we learn from a malnutrition project that is truly community-led?

April 25, 2025
What happens when you support communities unconditionally to act as they see fit to tackle malnutrition? You get initiatives that seem, on the face of it, a long way from typical malnutrition interventions, whether that’s making soap, refurbishing a health centre or starting a poultry farm. Stephanie Buell of Action Contre la Faim on the “Boolo Xeex Xibon” project in Senegal – and how it actually put the community at the centre of the fight against malnutrition.
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Featured image for “Leadership in a global aid meltdown – top tips from 25 people who know”

Leadership in a global aid meltdown – top tips from 25 people who know

March 6, 2025
FP2P’s Duncan Green has a shiny new blog about activism, influencing and change, hosted by the LSE, which we’ll be sharing highlights from here. You can also subscribe here. In this post from the new blog, he shares some advice from humanitarian leaders in this bleak time for the sector – including talk more often to staff and partners, “watch the fog closely” and “don’t blabber” – and offers a couple of thoughts of his own.
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Featured image for “How the surge in land seizures and violence by Israel in the West Bank adds up to a brutal new level of oppression”

How the surge in land seizures and violence by Israel in the West Bank adds up to a brutal new level of oppression

February 27, 2025
The incursion of Israeli tanks into the West Bank this week is just the latest step in an intensifying and systematic crackdown. Bushra Khalidi on five repressive tactics the Israeli government has been using, including new laws that will accelerate annexation. The strategy, she says, is now clear: make Palestinian life unlivable.
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Featured image for “‘It feels like a more innocent time for Oxfam and for our belief in progress’: looking back on Make Poverty History ”

‘It feels like a more innocent time for Oxfam and for our belief in progress’: looking back on Make Poverty History 

February 3, 2025
Twenty years after he watched Nelson Mandela’s rousing launch speech in Trafalgar Square, Dominic Vickers reflects on the impact of the landmark Make Poverty History campaign for trade justice, debt relief and better aid – and wonders if a new generation can take up the cause again. 
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Featured image for “Want value for aid money in fragile contexts? Then trust local actors and systems”

Want value for aid money in fragile contexts? Then trust local actors and systems

December 11, 2024
Local actors can deliver programming that is up to 32% more cost-efficient than international ones, one study suggests. Yet, particularly in fragile contexts and conflict zones, international actors still seem reluctant to localise. Economist Sophie Pongracz looks at cash transfers to explain why it’s time for the humanitarian sector to take a proper look at the evidence on cost-effectiveness.
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We don’t want your money: why do NGOs refuse donations?

October 3, 2024
Logan Cochrane and Alexandra Wilson on a fascinating new analysis that identifies four principles that drive NGOs to reject large donations – and if your organisation has turned away money recently, they want to hear from you…
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Featured image for “When inclusion is an illusion: sign language interpreters and the pitfalls for ‘inclusive’ development”

When inclusion is an illusion: sign language interpreters and the pitfalls for ‘inclusive’ development

September 6, 2024
How did a meeting for disabled people in Uganda end up using sign language that local deaf people couldn’t understand? Julia Modern reflects on how that failure is rooted in racialised ideas about who is an expert – and shares six tips for effective deaf inclusion. (And you can also watch a Ugandan Sign Language translation of the blog)
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Featured image for “Responses to ‘Are INGOs ready to give up power?’”

Responses to ‘Are INGOs ready to give up power?’

December 20, 2019
On Wednesday, we republished this timely thought piece by Deborah Doane, which interrogates the power held by large NGOs and calls for a shift of power. The article clearly hit a nerve. Questions around #ShiftingThePower bring up enormous systemic (and existential) considerations that pose direct challenges not only to the structures we operate in, but also to our own behaviors.
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Featured image for “Are INGOs ready to give up power?”

Are INGOs ready to give up power?

December 18, 2019
Deborah Doane opens up a provocative and necessary discussion around the power held by INGOs, and how we can shift it. Deborah Doane is a Partner at Rights CoLab, and a writer and consultant working with civil society and philanthropy. She is steering a project on reimagining the INGO. This piece was originally published on OpenDemocracy’s Transformation series. “Shifting power
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How does an INGO like Oxfam help Africa get a good deal from its Natural Resources?

June 26, 2019
I recently caught up with Gilbert Makore, Oxfam’s Extractive Industries Adviser in East Africa recently. You can listen to the 25m podcast for more nuance, but here are some extracts: The East African moment: ‘The region sits at a very exciting point – it’s one of the emerging oil and gas producers in the world, with significant gas resources in
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