As we start the pivotal year of 2015, we celebrate the completion of the pioneering investment by the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) in building our global community of practice. I invite all of us to reflect on these past two years – what has been achieved by this project – and how we can build…
I’ve just returned from having been invited to speak at a workshop “Local democracy today and tomorrow – Learning from global knowledge and practices” that the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) held at its premises in Stockholm, Sweden, on 5-6 November 2014. The purpose of the trip was to share our approach to participatory local democracy…
The results of the August 2014 Quick poll are in, and people were pretty strongly divided among three choices: Announcements for courses, conferences or awards News and trends on decentralization and local governance Profiles of organizations working on participatory local governance. Our colleagues were not as interested in literature reviews, but did make several recommendations…
This year, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a local systems framework that outlines the agency’s vision to promote development that is “locally owned, locally led and locally sustained.” Through this new approach, USAID seeks to engage in more local partnerships to help local communities be the engines of their own growth. In…
Reprinted from actlocalfirst.org Written by Daniel Balaban on July 3, 2014 The number of projects, NGO’s and international organizations involved with aid is constantly increasing, but effectiveness is still a challenge. Receiving large amounts of foreign aid does not guarantee that the countries will improve their national institutions. Many of them rely almost completely on…
Re-posted from www.100resilientcities.org Is Your City Ready To Become Resilient? The 100 Resilient Cities Challenge seeks to find 100 cities that are ready to build resilience to the social, economic, and physical challenges that cities face in an increasingly urbanized world. We can’t predict the next disruption or catastrophe. But we can control how we respond…
Reprinted from Devex Written by Gregory Adams on June 16, 2014 Existential angst is a common job hazard in our field of work. Few of us from donor countries join the fight against poverty for the pay or the lifestyle. For most of us, the reward is the work. And yet we agonize over the…
