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Friday Note: Cheering for the Goals
When the Sustainable Development Goal Declaration is agreed by heads of state at the United Nations next week, there will be cheers—and jeers. The jeers will come from people who see a long list of...
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Friday Note: Will the Data Revolution Live Up to Its Name?
The Industrial Revolution. The Digital Revolution. The French Revolution. The American Revolution. Whether economic or technological in nature, social or political, they all have one thing in common:...
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Friday Note: First, Do No Harm
Take care when taking out that checkbook. (Photo Credit: jridgewayphotography, licensed under CC BY ND 2.0)I usually sleep soundly, but there are nights when work worries keep me up. The number one...
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Friday Note: The Open Government Partnership—A Contemporary Experiment in...
The Open Government Partnership is building a new way for citizens and the people who represent them to work together to solve real-world problems—and what I like best about it is that just about...
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Friday Note: Do Less Research, Get More Impact
In a world where both resources for policy research and the attention spans to take it in are finite—that is, in the real world—less can definitely be more. Less research can mean that there’s more...
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Friday Note: The High Cost of No-Cost Extensions
Now is better than later. (Photo Credit: Samuel Barnes, licesned under CC BY NC ND)One of the most straightforward transactions in the foundation world is the no-cost extension. In our program at the...
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Making Transparency Matter: An Updated Strategy to Engage Citizens in...
For more than a decade, the Hewlett Foundation has supported organizations working on a very big worldwide challenge: how to increase people’s ability to understand where their governments get money,...
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The Gifts We Received in 2015
(Photo Credit: Janet Ramsden, licensed under CC BY 2.0)As people around here headed out the door for a week of vacation filled with family, friends, and yes, Christmas presents, I asked a few of my...
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Friday Note: Our Lionhearted Grantees
If I had to come up with one word to describe what I want to see in a grantee organization, it’s this: courage.Courage comes in many forms. We see it most clearly in the organizations we support to...
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Friday Note: Mind the Gap Map
If you’ve been around the international development business long enough, you’ve probably heard someone ask, “So, what do we know about what works?” Maybe it’s a parliamentarian, a minister, or the...
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Friday Note: The Incredible Shrinking Aid Budgets
Policymakers diverting funds earmarked for long-term investments to pay for immediate political fire-fighting, then using accounting technicalities to conceal their budgetary sleight of hand. NGOs...
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Friday Note: Why Taxes Matter in Africa
(Photo Credit: Ken Teegardin, licensed under CC BY 2.0)Sometime in the next month or so, I’m going to sit down at my dining room table, open up a file folder stuffed with paper, and double-click on...
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RCTs for global development: What’s all the fighting about?
Women learning about health issues in a village in Sahre Bocar, Senegal. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Torgovnik/Reportage by Getty Images) The positions are polarized. The debates are divisive. Arguments...
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Are you sure policy can’t wait for research?
(Photo Credit: sergign/Shutterstock.com) Research follows one rhythm, policy another. Researchers arrive at study questions, design fieldwork, collect and analyze new data, figure out what it means,...
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What does Brexit mean for global development?
(Credit: Donfiore/Shutterstock) In the wake of Britain’s stunning vote to leave the European Union, those of us who work in global development are trying to figure out what a Brexit would mean for the...
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