...That could be the title of a new 3-part BBC podcast, "The Truth About NGOs". This documentary explores whether and how should NGOs be politically involved, as well as the consequences of having a large international NGO sector in a developing country. The first episode begins with a focus on Malawi, and how the LGBT rights movement has been buoyed by NGOs and their foreign donors.
April 20, 2011
Earlier today, as I was scrolling through Twitter on my Blackberry while waiting for the elevator at my office (seriously – I spend inordinate amounts of time doing this), I saw a tweet that Tim Hetherington had been killed in Libya. As I’m sure you do, I read tons of horrible, sad news on a… [Read more…]
April 6, 2011
This is my contribution to Saundra Schimmelpfennig’s “A Day Without Dignity” campaign. Dave Bidini is a Canadian musician and writer. In 2007, he traveled to a refugee camp in Ghana, home to tens of thousands of mostly Liberian refugees, Buduburam. (That camp happens to be a place where I spent many months working between 2007… [Read more…]
April 4, 2011
I don’t want to draw the parallel too much, but as I wrote for UN Dispatch yesterday, I think there might be a useful historical comparison between the current events in Cote d’Ivoire and the siege of Monrovia, which precipitated the end of the second civil war in Liberia in 2003. Of course, things were… [Read more…]
March 3, 2010
- On Monday March 1st, reports surfaced about violent incidents occurring in Liberia near the border with Guinea, allegedly pitting Mandingo (primarily Muslim) against Loma (primarily Christian) people. It’s absolutely impossible to understand what actually happened, as every single news story contradicts the other, and often are peppered with inaccuracies (as a side note, this… [Read more…]
What I’m writing – UN Dispatch What I’m reading
December 22, 2011
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