Related Content

Now that inequality has become one of the key SDG issues, all those who have advocated for its inclusion should take note of the drawbacks of this victory.

The SDGs have brought a surge of hope that is being translated into policies and procedures for ‘doing’, it is important that this hope does not disappear in the practices of politics and administration or post-development critiques.

Political economy analysis lays bare the flaws in technocratic, aid centric approaches to development that have long characterised mainstream practice.

How to really achieve development’s latest buzzword.

When rethinking public aid as a catalyst for development-oriented private investment, several elements need to be taken into account.

If we want the new global development agenda to be manageable, it is perhaps better to design a small set of end goals similar to the original MDGs, instead of a new wish list.

Africa is gaining increasing global economic importance, but it has to address logistical and policy impediments to fully benefit from it.

As a ‘post-Busan’ donor, Spain could act as a strategic channel, providing know-how for collaboration with MICs in development.

Criticism of East Asia’s alleged self-interest-led development aid can also be applied to Western donors.

Norway’s recent international cooperation white paper, Sharing for Prosperity, seems stubbornly non-conformist. For it recommits Norway to some fundamental, if today unfashionable, purposes: for low-income lands, pursuit of growth-with-r…

The expulsion of USAID by Bolivia’s president Evo Morales should should come as no surprise to those following political change in Bolivia.

There are two critical issues in this inequality debate: there is no global benchmark for inequality and no global goals in absolute terms; and the instruments for tackling inequality lie outside traditional aid intervention models.

For many decades development aid of western donors has been pretty well shielded from probing questions by the public opinion and politicians. Development aid was, and to some extend still is, essentially seen as “helping poor people”, a charitabl…

As many of those gathered here in Busan, I feel very excited about the chance we have to collectively shape the way in which development is practiced.

We’ll start with a close-up of a woman on her knees. She seems to be scrubbing some tiles. We track back and see that in fact she’s scrubbing the tyre tracks off a forecourt.

What should the European Union, the world’s biggest aid donor, aim to achieve at Busan?

Just 2 weeks before the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, the global campaign for aid transparency, Publish What You Fund, has released a ranking of the transparency of aid donors.

Recently released OECD DAC data from the Paris Declaration Survey shows improvements in the ways the international community and partner countries deliver Official Development Assistance (ODA), but this progress has been highly variable. Only one…

The future of international aid does not look bright. Development aid has always been surrounded by questions and controversy, but in recent years the tone of the debate has hardened. Sweeping changes are needed if efforts to help the world’s poor…

Can traditional and new donors agree on best development practices, should they, and if so how will they overcome the many challenges to alignment?

The 4th High Level Forum on aid effectiveness takes place in Busan, Korea in November. What is the meeting about and how did we get here?

The Broker is proud to have contributed to the Bellagio Initiative by hosting a lively online debate about human wellbeing and inclusive economics. 

Neither within the EU nor within ACP countries, the ACP-EU partnership is something that lives in the hearts and minds of citizens.

The ACP Group needs to strengthen itself politically while the EU must be prepared to renew its partnership with ACP countries on equal terms.

The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) is exploring new relationships in order to claim its rightful position in global institutions and act as a spokesperson for the world’s poor and less powerful nations.

The ACP has emerged out of a unique relationship with the European Union (EU). However, while the EU needs the ACP’s backing to get support in international governance, and needs its raw materials and markets, the EU is indecisive about continuing…

Aid workers are a beautiful subject for anthropology: they mediate ideas about aid and development and they are the frontline folks that translate programmes into reality. Two books were recently published about them. Anne Meike Fechter and Heathe…

I do not consider myself to be an expert on development assistance, but perhaps I am something of an expert on international security.The current Dutch government, consisting as it does of a centre-right coalition supported by Geert Wilders’ anti-…

Humanitarianism today is faced with many challenges. On 2-5 June 2011, the Second World Conference on Humanitarian Studies (WCHS) brought together the best of thinkers and researchers to discuss urgent questions about the changing nature of curren…

I welcome Andy Sumner’s lucid article on the fact that most of the world’s poor now live in middle-income countries and what that means for development.I agree with Sumner that this brings microeconomic issues, inequality in particular, to the for…

I am a sociologist and the director of Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Economica y Social (CERES), a small Bolivian policy research institute. Like most such organizations, CERES has always been heavily dependent on aid. I have experienced and r…

The foreign policy chapter in the Rutte-Verhagen coalition agreement (Dutch/English) stresses the importance of preserving Dutch interests internationally, while emphasizing the significance of international solidarity in underpinning development…

UN summits follow a more or less predetermined route. Heads of state and government and heads of major international organizations all come and make their declarations. In most of them, there is nothing really new or interesting. Now and then, how…

A new institutional architecture for global development is sorely needed.

We need to expand our knowledge and use it in more context-specific analyses. The question is at what scale: national, regional or global? And how should we best develop a ‘diagnostics’ that can serve as a basis for specified (country or regional)…

Our increasingly interdependent world requires development policies that acknowledge the global context and address a new reality where a variety of actors as well as the state play a role. 

The energetic online debate about global development is a starting point for reformulating development policies. In response to the report written by the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), contributors to The Broker’s blog on the repo…

One possible view of this story is that it is just ‘gossip’, what development aid officials chat about after office hours over a beer. Shouldn’t a serious magazine like The Broker focus on the real challenges of the Paris Declaration and not distr…

The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, by Deborah Brautigam. Oxford University Press, 2009, 397 pp.A review by Daniel Large

We are all starters in the sector and fear that the development community has become an inward looking culture that has hardly any interaction with outsiders. How we think the sector is evolving?

On 18 January 2010, the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) presented its report ‘Less pretension, more ambition: development aid that makes a difference’ to the Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, Mr Bert Koenders

Complexity approaches have a lot to offer the aid business, if it is not already too late. We asked Nils Boesen to comment on the blog postings from a recent conference.

Is aid in crisis? Probably it is, but only in its current form. Because there will always be people who want to care for others in our interconnected world, whether for reasons of solidarity or ‘enlightened self-interest’. But, for the sake of arg…

This blog discusses the new turn in Germany after the latest elections in September 2009.

Through his illustrations and cartoons, Quique will explore a number of development issues and debates. He will share his impressions on new research, events and report from around the world through matter-of-fact illustrations, irony, sarcasm and…

The Development Studies Association , which works to connect and promote the development research community in UK and Ireland, will hold it’s annual conference at the University of Ulster in Belfast from 2 – 4th September.

Before looking at a post-2015 MDG debate, we must remind ourselves that the MDGs never made a great deal of sense in development terms – they aren’t for the most part even goals but indicators of other activities. They are a muddle of good intenti…

Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World, by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green. Bloomsbury Press, 2008.A review by William Dowell.

Belgian development aid was initially once driven by self-interest. Over the last fifteen years it has made a more resolute effort to genuinely contribute to development.

Over the last four months, two events have changed global prospects profoundly. The financial crisis has done more than just shake the seemingly most powerful and inviolable countries, companies and institutions in the world. It has definitely KO’…

In January and May, a group of eight intellectuals, critical scientists and practitioners – each from a different country and background – examined the main elements of a new approach to development in a brainstorming session. The group members fo…