Over the last few months I have attended a number of meetings that focused on the future of development cooperation. Among these were the workshop on the Practice of Civic Driven Change in the Hague, the Netherlands, and the High Level Policy Forum, After 2015: Promoting Pro-poor Policy after the MDGs, held in Brussels, Belgium. Other conferences were aimed at designing a new architecture for ‘international cooperation’, which has been framed as a replacement for ‘development cooperation’. Some of these conferences are reported on briefly in this issue of The Broker, and they are all covered much more extensively in reports, blogs and debates on the magazine’s website.   read more >>

Since the emergence of the web 15 years ago, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become indispensable for most researchers. Email and online access to public or restricted databases have become essential tools, allowing academics to keep in touch with their peers and up to date with the latest developments. Widely dispersed research groups can now easily coordinate their work online by means of Skype conference calls.   read more >>

The starting point for development evaluations should be how the recipients of development assistance experience change, rather than the set perspectives of the evaluators. The participatory development assessment (PDA) methodology is designed to involve recipients in evaluations.   read more >>

Phosphorus, a key component of fertilizers, is crucial for the world’s food supplies. But as reserves of phosphate begin to run out, the impacts are likely to be immense – in terms of rising food prices, growing food insecurity and widening inequalities between rich and poor countries.   read more >>

A Review of Freedom from Want: The Remarkable Success Story of BRAC, the Global Grassroots Organization That’s Winning the Fight Against Poverty, by Ian Smillie. One wonders if a book that has been showered with praise by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, former Irish president and High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and former US president Bill Clinton needs to be reviewed again. Yet this acclaim may well be an expression of relief from a sector that has been the target of much scepticism and is hungry for some positive news. Ian Smillie’s Freedom from Want delivers that and more. Its tone and style inspire hope in the reader.   read more >>

‘No system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other’. — US President Barack Obama, from his address to the Muslim world, Cairo, Egypt, 4 June 2009.   read more >>

In Dubai the scale of building construction is staggering. But progress should not be at the expense of sustainability. Thom Bohlen of the Middle East Centre for Sustainable Development talks about how research can help promote green development practices.   read more >>

The economic, food and climate crises are making it even harder to achieve the MDGs. But they also provide a unique opportunity to formulate a new narrative to guide global development after 2015.   read more >>

The UK’s New Labour government has been a vocal participant in international development debates. The Conservative party, should it come to power in 2010, promises to keep up the efforts.   read more >>

The decisions that are made over the next three months will shape Europe’s international role in the future. The script that drives global policy making is being rewritten, in response to the financial crisis, climate change and global security challenges. Meanwhile, the institutions of the European Union are on the brink of a radical overhaul – whether or not the Irish referendum on 2 October allows the Lisbon Treaty to be ratified. By January 2010, we will have new institutions, new leaders and the outline of a new script. But will we also be optimistic about Europe as a progressive force in the world?   read more >>