I have lived in different cultures for more than half of my life. It has changed me in many ways; see for instance my blogpost about Facilitator Certification. Not only I have changed, my native country, The Netherlands, has changed too. The Dutch politics are beyond me these days, and I also find people much more stressed. When I stand in line in the supermarket to pay for…

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The term “outcome” is probably the most misunderstood term in the International Development field.  Either that or it becomes the most misused term in international development and I would prefer to think it is the former rather than the latter, because the latter would imply an intent that serves no-one at all.

Mind you, the ID field is not alone when it comes to misunderstanding the term outcome.  To put it simply – if you produce something, that is an output.  An outcome occurs as…

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This new Climate Planning site brings together over all sorts of tools for climate change planning. Although it is focused on tools for policy makers, it does include sub-national/community/human rights based tools like CARE's Climate Vulnarability and Capacity Assessment Handbook.



I'm blogging about this site for two reasons:

1. It’s a great example of how to make a large variety of knowledge/toolkits easily…

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I first posted this at The Broker Online - but felt that it was suitable for this site as well.

 

As international development practitioners and organisations, we should be more insistent on incorporating more underlying essential skills development that enables effective institutional development, sustainable capacity building, widespread community involvement and improved human wellbeing.

Are our capacity building models adequate for the task of improving human…

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A literature review by chance2sustain on water governance approaches made me think about my ‘building professional bridges’ quest from the angle of differing perspectives.



I had been exploring two broad perspectives categories so far, that of the conservation/ecosystems (ecosystems based approaches to climate change) and the development/empowerment communities (community based approaches to climate change). Of course such… Continue

The Broker is leading an online discussion on the Bellagio Initiative. In a nutshell this initiative aims to rethink development and phylanthrophy for the 21st century. In this blog, I answer some of the questions:

 

• Should growth end?
• What to make of increasing conflicts, and how to act?
• Why is the Aid Industry…

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