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Links & Contents 1 Liked 282

Hi all,

Welcome to this week's link review!

Development news: Crack-down on war-zone kid abuse; MSF & #AidToo; how tin assist sector communicate ethical dilemmas? AI hacks humanitarian jargon; how evolution graduate teaching should change; value for coin inwards Great Britain aid; Germany's colonial past times inwards Namibia; police, violence & vengeance inwards Africa; tin assist organizations back upward social movements? Memory, violence & peacebuilding inwards Sri Lanka; the liminal infinite for foreigners inwards Vietnam.

Our digital lives: UK's growth of the 'digital compassionate industry'; clay jocks are a thing on Insta; digital PTSD is real.

Publications: The limits of participatory M&E; the limits of for-profit initiatives inwards the humanitarian sector; the limits of crowdsourcing accountability inwards Uganda.

Academia: Small ways to back upward your woman somebody colleagues.

Enjoy!

New on aidnography
Of lofty ideals, dual careers & long-distance maternity - invitee postal service past times Milasoa Chérel-Robson
I am really excited to host some other nifty invitee post!
Milasoa Chérel-Robson industrial plant for UNCTAD as well as her reflections on the challenges as well as trade-offs of combining her international career with theatre unit of measurement duties highlight many personal insights into bigger debates inwards gender as well as development.
This is a perfect long-read for the weekend afterwards Mother's Day that spans a historical trajectory from Republic of Madagascar as well as the socialist aspirations of the 1970s to the limits of “leaning in” inwards Geneva as well as contemporary Rwanda where Africa is celebrating a vivid economical future.
Development news
Aid sector urged to fissure downwards on state of war zone kid abusers
Sex offenders as well as paedophiles are travelling to the world’s conflict zones to prey on vulnerable children, the National Crime Agency has warned.
Robert Jones, deputy manager of the NCA’s kid exploitation as well as online protection command, said offenders were exploiting the chaos of state of war as well as areas hitting past times natural disaster. He urged the assist sector to assist create it every bit hard every bit possible for individuals to commit crimes abroad.
Mark Townsend for the Guardian almost a novel first to protect children inwards state of war zones from abuse. Somehow, I felt a flake uneasy almost the framing of the article. United Nations peacekeepers, generally soldiers, operate inwards a really dissimilar context than assist agencies. Any investigation into wrong-doings past times soldiers has ever been difficult. And piece I absolutely don't uncertainty that disturbing crimes receive got been committed against children, I wonder what the evidence or examples are from, say, Republic of Haiti or the Philippines when predators go far correct afterwards a natural disaster, permit lone conflict zone. And lastly, I experience that the emphasize on 'aid sector' ignores of import aspects, such every bit religious missionaries, ordinary criminals who are non linked to evolution or local institutional set-ups exterior the influence of United Nations agencies or assist organizations. The assist sector tin create better, of course, as well as should live a leader inwards protecting children as well as having best institutional policies as well as practices inwards place, but they are non the only actors on the ground. Addressing masculinity as well as the military, local structures to protect children as well as decent funding for peacekeeping all play an of import portion inwards making whatever evolution endeavor safer for children.

“Holier than thou” MSF needs its ain #MeToo moment
All this led me to believe that I understood sexism as well as indifference, intimidation as well as abuse. And I thought that MSF with its storied Nobel Prize winning history of temoignage as well as speaking out on behalf of the to the lowest degree powerful inwards the world was the obvious selection for me to displace forrard inwards my fighting to back upward vulnerable women as well as girls roughly the world.
I thought I knew almost toxic cultures, but I did not.
Sarah Martin for Cassandra Complexity on MSF inwards the Netherlands as well as the #AidToo movement.

Aid agencies should live clearer almost their ethical dilemmas
One contributing ingredient powerfulness live the fearfulness that acknowledging our ethical problems powerfulness position off potential supporters.
(...)
But it’s fourth dimension to modify that. In my experience ethical guidance is most useful when it is explicit almost the ethical risks, as well as when it recognises uncertainty as well as greyness areas every bit good every bit blood-red lines; when it encourages debate. After all, medical students don’t precisely larn the Hippocratic Oath, they are taught why it matters inwards situations of unequal information as well as power, as well as how it has been applied. International assist organisations – from donors through to international NGOs as well as the consulting firms who deliver donors’ projects – all demand create surely that every staff fellow member carries out her piece of work reflectively, with an appreciation of its ethical dimensions, as well as inwards the noesis that she is expected to position whatever projection on grip until whatever ethical inquiry has been answered satisfactorily, fifty-fifty if this goes against the perceived brusk term interests of her employer. That seems at to the lowest degree every bit of import every bit making surely she understands the procurement as well as whistleblowing policies, or knows which detail listing of abstract nouns her organisation has decided to position on its website.
I grip with Phil Vernon really much, but the work is people/taxpayers/donors abhor aught to a greater extent than than uncertainty-in pretty much whatever policy field...But every bit the illustration of MSF shows, why non give it a try? Why non live to a greater extent than opened upward almost 'grey areas' if yous are an established global player, say, Oxfam, ICRC or Plan? Maybe some donors would live driven away, but this may live offset past times gains inwards legitimacy, attracting nifty people to piece of work for your organisation etc.?

(How) should scholars say what humanitarians can’t? past times Roanne van Voorst as well as Isabelle Desportes
Four broad arguments tin motivate scholars to engage inwards the humanitarianism-conflict debate. First, every bit independent researchers inwards the field, scholars receive got to a greater extent than liberty to speak up. Second, many volition debate that ‘speaking the truth’ is a scholarly duty. Third, scholars’ phonation powerfulness acquit differently than that of human rights organisations or journalists, every bit scholars are supposed to adhere to rigorous scientific as well as ethical standards that grant their inquiry some credibility. Last, academics increasingly vary their channels to seek ‘societal impact’. Newspaper articles, debate evenings, social media as well as blogs such every bit this 1 tin assist bring to a wider audience what would otherwise remain obscured.
Roanne van Voorst & Isabelle Desportes for blISS with an indirect response to Phil Vernon's post: Engage to a greater extent than with academics as well as hash out the 'grey areas'!

When Artificial Intelligence meets humanitarian jargon
IRIN rolled upward its information scientific discipline sleeves as well as deployed a bot on an of import novel challenge: making upward names of assist agencies as well as assist task titles.
(...)
Humanitarian task titles invented past times AI

Senior!

Chief of Party (Sex)

Sneak Specialist

South Changes Manager

Chef of Finances as well as Grant & Manager

Regional Leader (Interant) Livelihood as well as Consultant

Multiple International Director

Nation demonic Manager
Ben Parker for IRIN on how AI volition disrupt humanitarian task titles as well as more...

Opinion: Graduate teaching must conform to solve the world's problems
In our classrooms, nosotros must mimic the settings I encountered inwards my fourth dimension at USAID: Opportunities to experience as well as negotiate the tensions — as well as confusion — that arise when people from dissimilar professional person as well as intellectual backgrounds commencement piece of work together toward a shared goal. We demand to a greater extent than curricula that position environmental scientists, economists, anthropologists, as well as engineers inwards the same classroom, wrestling together with the same challenges.
There volition live barriers to designing as well as executing such curricula, non least, the inherent difficulty of teaching transdisciplinary cloth to students with various intellectual backgrounds. It is non piece of cake to walk a social scientist through ecological theories of resilience, or an environmental scientist through post-structural critiques of development.
Edward Carr for DevEx. Interesting nutrient for thought. I'm non surely I fully grip with the transdisciplinary vision-or whether large assist organisation are genuinely working on 'wicked problems' inwards the mundane bureaucratic realities of beingness large organization. I guess nosotros should receive got a verbalize almost it :) !

Value for coin inwards Great Britain aid: the good, the bad as well as the ugly
Within programmes, the value for coin focus tends to live on economic scheme as well as efficiency inwards delivery, with effectiveness analysis proving highly erratic. The only convincing story of a value for coin declaration increasing terms effectiveness cited past times ICAI relates to a programme inwards Uganda, where DFID staff drew on global evidence as well as encouraged implementing partners to utilization cash transfers rather than nutrient aid. Failing to focus on effectiveness across the board undercuts the hope of value for money: what’s the dot of doing things cheaply as well as rapidly without demonstrable evidence that they are having sustainable impacts?
What’s more, the value for coin approach of DFID is a flake also Mystic Meg: that is, it assumes DFID tin create fiscal as well as social predictions when it can’t; DFID often industrial plant inwards complicated contexts, on complex problems. But ICAI found few cases of programme managers or participants monitoring the costs as well as outcomes of ‘small bets’ with a view to evaluating as well as learning what worked best as well as and so adapting their approach. Instead they found that what powerfulness best live described every bit DFID’s designing planning approach is inwards tension with its commitment to learning as well as adaptation, emphasised inwards the Smart Rules.
Cathy Shutt as well as Phil Valters for From Poverty to Power review a novel study almost DFID’s approach to value for coin inwards programme as well as portfolio management. Didn't nosotros receive got really similar debates 5, seven or xi years agone ?!?

Why The Herero Of Namibia Are Suing Federal Republic of Federal Republic of Germany For Reparations
The Herero desire preferential access to the Earth that was taken from them. But their numbers — less than 10 pct of the population — are also depression to give them sway inwards the Namibian government, Veii said.
The 2d is reparations. In recent years, Federal Republic of Federal Republic of Germany has started to receive got responsibleness for colonial genocide as well as has offered evolution assist to Namibia. But many Herero as well as Nama receive got called for straight reparations, of the form paid to Holocaust survivors afterwards World War II. They say the descendants of victims, non the state of Namibia, should Pb negotiations with Germany.
"Development inwards the regions nosotros live inwards is deadening as well as almost nonexistent," Veii said. "This poverty is generational, as well as unless nosotros interruption the chain through reparations from the High German government, the status quo volition remain."
That battle has moved to the U.S. thank yous to a 2017 lawsuit. Under the Alien Tort Statute, an unusual law that has allowed foreigners to sue perpetrators of human rights violations, the Herero are challenging Federal Republic of Federal Republic of Germany inwards U.S. federal court.
The 3rd number powerfulness live described every bit truth as well as reconciliation. When apartheid ended inwards the early on 1990s, South Africa empowered victims to publicly challenge their perpetrators. But Namibia did not.
Daniel A. Gross for NPR Goats & Soda with an of import reminder as well as update almost Germany's colonial past times as well as electrical current efforts to address the genocide inwards Namibia.

Peacebuilders: Militarization of Solutions (Podcast)
The militarization of policing as well as counterterrorism operations inwards East as well as West Africa has chiefly multiplied the numbers of people seeking vengeance against the state, struggle regional experts Nanjala Nyabola as well as Obi Anyadike inwards the 3rd episode of Peacebuilders, a Carnegie Corporation podcast series. Hosts Aaron Stanley as well as Scott Malcomson speak with experts from the part inwards this 2d episode of the Peacebuilders series.
(...)
I think portion of the number is that African security forces demand to create their job. I'm non a consummate pacifist. You demand to receive got security forces that are professional person as well as able to fulfill their functions. More importantly, yous demand to receive got a police pull service that is able to perform its basic functions. Which nosotros don't have. Our police pull forces are underfunded, undermanned, understaffed. They don't receive got fifty-fifty the most basic of forensic skills. This is a policing number earlier it's a state of war machine issue. It's a policing issue. You should live able to position people early on as well as non receive got them to a police pull station as well as torture them. Because every bit we've seen fourth dimension as well as fourth dimension again, that's precisely creating yet to a greater extent than radicalism. What we're seeing inwards Northeast Nigeria is a state of war machine that blunders around, burns downwards villages, rounds upward immature men as well as brutalizes them in that location as well as and so or throws them into detention where they're kept for God knows how long. And in that location is no intelligence value whatsoever, but yous are creating the conditions. Vengeance is a really powerful motivating forcefulness with immature radical men as well as women.
Obi Anyadike & Nanjala Nyabola with an interesting give-and-take for the Carnegie Corporation.

This Ungoverned Haitian City Is Fighting to Stay Alive
“They may non receive got the academic skills to computer program their neighborhood, but the Haitian people receive got a vision,” says Clement Belizaire, who heads Haiti’s regime agency that’s theoretically responsible for overseeing the planning as well as evolution of Canaan but that hasn’t been allocated the funds to create so. “They desire to receive got populace spaces, they desire to receive got the life of a normal family. So they essay to computer program on a really micro level.”
But if neither the fundamental nor local governments invest inwards developing Canaan as well as it remains informal for also long, it may go impossible to plough this rapidly expanding metropolis into a legal as well as fully functioning municipality, suggests Belizaire. “If yous permit the informal invade the area, yous won’t receive got room for the formal. And it volition live a really long physical care for to rehabilitate as well as receive got a nifty Canaan,” he says.
There’s to a greater extent than at stake than precisely Canaan’s ain future. If the metropolis does go viable, it may offering lessons for other poorly governed cities beyond Haiti’s borders. After all, Canaan may live the world’s newest ungoverned city, but it isn’t the first.
Jacob Kushner & Allison Shelley for Ozy.com with a nifty characteristic on how to (un)plan cities as well as life afterwards a natural disasters...lots of nutrient for thought for discussions roughly temporary shelters, camps, informal settlements as well as decolonizing urban planning!

Opinion: Can assist organizations genuinely live portion of social movements?
The global evolution sector’s electrical current policies, procedures, as well as day-to-day practices are genuinely inwards conflict with movements’ life cycles. Supporting movements agency non determining goals or timetables, recognizing that these are ever-shifting within movements to view the challenges as well as opportunities of the day.
If activists are already marginalized, extracted from, as well as demotivated past times the assist sector’s newspaper pushing as well as internal belly clitoris gazing, how tin nosotros peradventure presume to back upward entire movements?
Perhaps supporting movements is a sectoral tendency that volition fade away every bit many do. Or, nosotros are approaching a unsafe precipice that could farther harm people’s efforts to determine their futures.
Jennifer Lentfer for DevEx. The discussions reminds me a flake of issues that came upward 20-25 years agone when 'civil society' turned into 'NGOs' as well as the 'professionalization' sometimes slowed downwards existent social transformation.

The Insistence of Memory
In the aftermath of atrocities, the refusal to render jurist motivates the suppression of memory. Over time, the enforced forgetting becomes synonymous with injustice, until eventually, remembrance itself passes for justice.
And sometimes, jurist passes for memory. In transitional contexts, trials as well as truth commissions are oftentimes seen every bit a agency of forging collective memory, a shared narrative of the past times on which to base of operations a novel political order. But every bit Rieff argues, an exhaustive reckoning with the past times is beyond the ambit of jurist mechanisms. And rather than edifice consensus, the assignment of blame tin sow the seeds for farther discord. The vexed human relationship betwixt retentivity as well as jurist is never clearer than inwards the presence of the disinterred victims of violence.
Kate Cronin-Furman for the LA Review of Books on Sri Lanka, war, peace, retentivity & so much more!

Expats, Tourists as well as “Matter out of Place”
The task that I held inwards Vietnam at that dot was 1 that had been designated (in a dissimilar directive past times a dissimilar ministry) every bit foreigner-only – so I knew I was non taking a Vietnamese person’s job. I paid my taxes (which were higher than for most Vietnamese nationals actually), took Vietnamese linguistic communication as well as civilization classes, participated inwards community events, as well as tried to live a goodness citizen, fifty-fifty though formal citizenship was something that was unavailable to me inwards Vietnam. But truthful assimilation, or fifty-fifty integration, was elusive. Most of my non-Vietnamese colleagues as well as I lived inwards a province of liminality; non unfamiliar inwards the country, but eternally “foreign” nonetheless. And I hadn’t genuinely minded this, until the connotation of “foreign” changed, from beingness precisely “different” to beingness “unwelcome”. Tourists, on the other hand, seemed to live almost universally adored past times the Vietnamese, fifty-fifty though they barely scratched the surface of Vietnamese culture.
Jodie-Lee Trembath for the Familiar Strange on the liminal spaces that foreigners occupy inwards Vietnam.

Our digital lives
UK 'leading world' inwards compassionate technology
The Great Britain has to a greater extent than investments inwards compassionate engineering scientific discipline companies than the balance of Europe position together, information from Public - which supports manufacture start-ups - suggests.
These companies are portion of a sector estimated to live worth almost £7bn, to a greater extent than than the fiscal tech sector - the novel services such every bit electrical current occupation organisation human relationship apps disrupting traditional banking.
And the Great Britain engineering scientific discipline manufacture every bit a whole grew past times 4.5% betwixt 2016 as well as 2017, according to a Tech Nation study released today.
Rick Kelsey for BBC News. No mentioning of rootage causes, aught on how austerity, neoliberalism, Brexit etc. paved the way for the pity manufacture that promises to create coin with techno-solutionism off people as well as groups that the Great Britain province tends to create, stigmatize as well as leave of absence alone. This article genuinely made me quite angry...

Rise of the Clay Jock
More than his pots or body, his lifestyle is what attracts. Eric travels to dainty places, takes surfboard selfies as well as the type of pleasing, generic photos of landscapes found inwards tourism brochures. He appears to live a version of the four-hour workweek. Tortus implies that, with a flake of skill, practice, as well as an active Instagram account, nosotros also could live a globe-trotting life of leisure. Like whatever number of TV shows such every bit Chef’s Table that emphasize the craftsman ideal, Tortus presents a highly especial instance every bit an icon of what nosotros tin aspire to inwards a world that does non back upward it. Instead of the daily resignation as well as despair felt past times most people at their jobs, the create presents a world inwards which yous tin “Do what yous love, as well as never piece of work a solar daytime inwards your life.”
Ben Koditschek for Jacobin with the latest iteration of how consumer capitalism wants us to live uncritically happy as well as live our lives for Insta success...

Digital PTSD is real
I was diagnosed with PTSD 2 days afterwards I got dorsum from Virginia. In the weeks as well as months that followed, I experienced flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, dissociation, chronic trunk pain, as well as severe depression as well as anxiety — symptoms that interfered with my piece of work reporting on fascists, but that were triggered past times it, too. Every fourth dimension I looked upward photos of protesters clashing with neo-Nazis inwards Charlottesville, or videos of the machine attack, it was similar I was dorsum on that street corner.
(...)
Speaking with The Outline, he recalled that going through the tearing logs was stressful — fifty-fifty though, every bit a white man, he knew he wasn’t a target of these groups. “I think my powerfulness to live cool as well as go along doing it is a marking of privilege,” Schiano said. Still, he said that he avoided tearing content of the nighttime of the torch march, where he was concerned for his safety. “I’ve had to re-watch it at other points inwards my ain work,” he said.
Erin Corbett for The Outline on how engaging with abusive content online tin receive got a lasting touching on your mental health.

Publications
What's inwards a name? Unpacking “participatory” environmental monitoring
Our findings betoken that inwards most PEM projects published inwards scientific journals, participation is generally functional inwards the feel that local peoples’ involvement is framed so that they contribute to the gathering of information inwards a cost-effective way, piece their potential interests inwards shaping the purpose as well as format of the projection as well as utilization of the information appear overlooked. Overall, the actual exercise of most PEM projects analyzed appears to foster participation inwards a really express feel of the word.
Nerea Turreira-García , Jens F. Lund , Pablo Domínguez, Elena Carrillo-Anglés, Mathias C. Brummer, Priya Duenn & Victoria Reyes-García with an open-access article inwards Ecology as well as Society on how participatory monitoring often comes downwards to 'add participation as well as stir' efforts.

Introducing 'for profit' initiatives as well as actors inwards humanitarian response
In sum, piece the engagement with the private sector powerfulness offering a surely number of advantages, the mindset inwards which it occurs, however, is displace for concern. On 1 hand, it seems that humanitarian organisations, piece recognising the demand for
better capacity as well as diversified skills inwards the sector, tend to over-rely on the private sector every bit a solution. On the other hand, donors’ subcontracting as well as transfer of adventure of humanitarian responses to the private sector play into the underlying dynamics that drive the gap inwards the emergency response past times humanitarian organisations.
All of this feeds into an ever-growing vicious circle at the expense of increased capability as well as skills of the humanitarian sector for the emergency response, where the immediate needs of the most vulnerable populations are non beingness met: humanitarian organisations shy away from timely as well as effective responses as well as create
not invest sufficiently inwards technical capacities (thus giving way for the private sector to intervene). In addition, piece the private sector gains legitimacy inwards a novel field, this powerfulness acquit the adventure for humanitarian principles to live easily dismissed as well as considered dated as well as simplistic.
Elena Lucchi with a novel study for MSF Spain.

Crowdsourcing Accountability: ICT for Service Delivery
We detect suggestive evidence of a short-term
improvement inwards some teaching services, but these effects deteriorate past times yr 2 of the program, as well as nosotros detect trivial or no evidence of an lawsuit on wellness as well as H2O services at whatever period. Despite relatively high levels of scheme uptake, enthusiasm of district officials, as well as anecdotal success stories, nosotros detect that relatively few messages from citizens provided specific, actionable information almost service provision within the purview
and resources constraints of district officials, as well as users were often discouraged past times officials’ responses. Our findings advise that for crowd-sourced ICT programs to displace from isolated success stories to long-term accountability enhancement, the character as well as specific content of reports as well as responses provided past times users as well as officials is centrally important.
Guy Grossman, Melina Platas & Jonathan Rodden with a novel open-access paper.

Academia
#metoo inwards the Meantime
Folks often error my small-steps approach to large problems every bit naiveté or misplaced optimism. Do I for fifty-fifty a 2d think that doing these things lone volition modify the systemic barriers as well as obstacles that women inwards the university face? No, I create not. But create I think that the accumulation of such things powerfulness improve the experience of women inwards the university as well as live portion of the leverage for systemic change? I absolutely do.
Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt for Inside HigherEd introduces some small, immediate steps to improve the piece of work environs for woman somebody colleagues.

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