About that Elephant…USAID’s new gender equality policy

About that Elephant…USAID’s new gender equality policy an elephant's eye

As far as it goes, the USAID draft 2020 Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy is a fine document. Unfortunately, being a fine document isn’t enough. Women – and humanity – deserve so much more from this latest iteration of a longstanding development priority. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – the world’s largest […]

Islamophobia – Tearing Down Walls of Prejudice

Islamophobia – Tearing Down Walls of Prejudice an arched doorway in Morocco with children's silhouettes lit up at the end of the hallway

I was in 8th grade when a friend first mentioned “the geopolitical quagmire that is the Middle East”. You’d think that the most confusing part of that phrase was “geopolitical quagmire” but, in all honesty, I wasn’t even sure which countries were considered “the Middle East”. At that time, I never could have guessed that […]

Civil war meets COVID-19: Cameroon as a case study in deterioration and chaos

Civil war meets COVID-19: Cameroon as a case study in deterioration and chaos a yellow single-story building behind green bushes

Just as it is our moral duty to join the global collaborative efforts to eradicate COVID-19, it is also our moral duty to ensure our fellow human beings have access to peace, education, jobs, housing, and the basic requirement for human dignity. That may be our moral duty, yet we all know that millions of […]

The Distant Spring: Philosophy and Social Innovation

The Distant Spring: Philosophy and Social Innovation a wooden door with a window. on the window is taped a rainbow drawn in crayon

Eight variations for thinking about social innovation and sustainability transitions during the coronavirus crisis In response to the harm done to birds by the widespread use of pesticides, Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring (1962). Her account of the “silencing of the birds” helped motivate a flock of social innovation via the emerging environmental movement. Spring 2020 has […]

Pompeo’s new Human Rights Commission is up to no good

Pompeo’s new Human Rights Commission is up to no good Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Human Rights Commission’s Report To our readers, The State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights is about to release its report, and the indications are not positive for anyone concerned about universal human dignity. We therefore thought it would be appropriate to post (with permission) this article by the ACLU from last January. Pompeo’s New […]

What American Cops can learn from the end of South Africa’s Apartheid Policing: From Force to Service

What American Cops can learn from the end of South Africa’s Apartheid Policing: From Force to Service a line of parallel-parked police cars on the street

During South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy, I was directly involved in the transformation of the police force to a police service. Today, as the United States is confronted with the need for changes in police culture and behavior, perhaps some of the lessons learned in those tumultuous times may prove useful.   After Nelson Mandela was released from […]

Authentic Development

Authentic Development a wooden footpath in the woods

…[A]uthentic development must be integral in at least two ways. First, authentic development must be the development of the whole person, not just the narrowly understood development of economic growth or monetary income. …The second way in which integral human development is integral is less discussed yet more radical. It is the idea that authentic […]

Madness

Madness black & white image of Don Quixote on a horse with his sidekick behind

Long before the pandemic, I took my daughter Audrey to a Washington DC production by the Shakespeare Theatre Company of the play Man of La Mancha. It’s one of my favorite plays, and I first saw it when I was her age. It’s based on the famous novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, in which an elderly […]

Quotes

Climate change makes development a global issue and enhances the existing reality of creating a new poor in non-poor countries. Asuncion St. Clair; “Transforming Development Aid”; The Donors Dilemma: Emergence,Convergence and the Future of Foreign Aid (2014) In the last 20-30 years we have inflicted more damage on the earth than in its entire history […]

Quotes

But whereas in 1988 a million dead Africans was a figure that could still shock, today the two million southern Sudanese corpses have been submerged by a tidal wave of death that has washed over Africa in the aftermath of the cold war and the dissolution of the post-colonial states. A million dead in Somalia; […]

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