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Syria: a welcome pause in Washington
Welcome news, apparently, in Obama's announcement today to postpone his decision about how to respond to the chemical attack in Damascus. Because there is no sense in firing a barrage of missiles as a response to the use of chemicals. Perhaps Obama's reason was his not wanting to be in Russia next week during or just after a US-led attack on Russia's ally. Perhaps he was given pause by the UK Commons vote on Friday. Or perhaps he is not so stupid after all, and has listened to wise counsel.
Is overseas aid an instrument of soft power?
I was giving evidence to a UK House of Lords select committee on aid as an instrument of soft power yesterday (watch the meeting here), so spent a bit of time researching what “soft power” actually means.
Wanted: EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security
Person specification for the High Representative - Vacant at Christmas 2014
Baroness Ashton will step down as High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security, and First Vice President of the Council – effectively the closest the EU has to a minister of foreign affairs, at the end of 2014.
Why young people are so critical to peace
In conversations last week about youth and peacebuilding, it occurred to me again that we too easily fudge things by referring to "youth". Unless we qualify "youth" with a narrower description, we risk being vague and patronising; and by our imprecision to lose the meaning of what we intend to say. Especially given that more than half the world's population probably fit the category, one way or another.
Is mining a development industry?
In an earlier post I wrote about how mining companies have evolved to take into account the needs of their host communities.
The welcome richness and diversity of debate about the post-2015 goals
Back in mid-2010, in time for the MDGs-plus-10-years summit, International Alert published a review of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which criticised the MDGs for being too narrow and too technical; for confusing ends with means; for being top-down and for being used in statistically illiterate ways; and for creating perverse and unhelpful policy incentives.
Resilience: too accurate to be useful?
Resilience is a wonderful metaphor. It somehow conveys in a single word the qualities of bending without breaking, of healing after an injury, of tensile rather than brittle strength. Oak and palm trees are resilient to the power of strong winds, before which they bend and then straighten again. Resilient people pick themselves up after being knocked down, draw on their reserves of ideas and strength to deal with difficult challenges, or hunker down until the gale has blown itself away.
Kenya elections: good for justice?
To many disinterested observers last week's Kenya elections seem like a victory not only for President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta, for his Jubilee Alliance, and for the Kikuyu and Kalenjin tribes represented by Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto.
Value for money: a very simple idea
There has been a great deal of noise, confusion, and at times sound and fury, over Value for Money (VfM) among overseas development NGOs based in the UK, of late. This is because so many of us depend on UK government funding from DFID, which has been taking VfM more seriously since the last election – and not surprising it has, given the degree of scepticism about overseas aid among UK taxpayers, some MPs, and journalists.
The emergence of political order: how can we foster it?
I recently read volume one of Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order (Profile Books, 2011) in which he explores how different models of governance have emerged and decayed “from prehuman history to the French Revolution”. Volume two is forthcoming, and will bring the story up to the present day. As someone who works in peacebuilding, which is largely about fostering good governance today, I have a keen interest in how different governance regimes have emerged and decayed in history, if they provide us with clues for the present.
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