Which countries are the happiest?
GOOD's World Database of Happiness has tracked down how happy people over the past 30 years.
Check out the interesting infographic on the state of happiness in the different countries, over the past years.
Multi Millionaire, several times a day.
[i-slumdog limousine]
Man, this is a good day. A great day! I won't have to work anymore, for the rest of my life!
Your winning Price of One Million Five hundred usd.($1.500,000USD) has been forwarded to Western Union Department for immediate transfer to you as soon as possible.
Contact: Customer Care Department Tel: 00 233 543 49 6991
Email: (customerservice.dept@qatar.io )
My name is Mrs.Beatriz Yusi, The wife of Albert Yusi who was coordinator of Bayan Muna for Misamis Oriental and Chairman of MOFA. He was gunned down and killed in our home in the Philippine on July 20th, 2008. Before my late husband was killed, I inherited from his estate a total sum of ($ 9.5 Million Dollars) Nine Million five Hundred Thousand Dollars (..) I made up my mind to give you 15 % of the total money for your help after the money has been transfer to your account.
Je voudrais solliciter votre accord à recevoir le transfert de 13.850.000 dollars,en tant que proche parent d'un de mes clients qui est décédé dont le compte est actuellement en veille, pour reclammation. Si vous voulez traiter cette affaire avec moi contactez moi immediatement. +2285249574
Picture discovered via GeoGum Read the full post...
I Am an Aid Worker. And a Woman. Help!
This is a post I wrote three years ago. It seems the subject is still ever so close to the hearts of many, so I brought it onto the foreground again.
There are several excellent insights people posted in the comments. I'm interested to hear your point of view.
link[i-link]In the previous post, Shylock explored, in a ironical, cynical, self-criticizing way, what personal future we, aid workers have. We wonder the earth, gradually getting used to travel all the time, often in harsh places, and very often in search of a thrill. Gradually we get addicted to it all.
But is there life after this.. after this life of a gypsy? Do we become gypsy disasters after years of behaving like a disaster gypsy, roaming from one emergency to the next?
No matter how much we chuckle reading the previous post, in the end, it is not funny. Far from it. Many humanitarian workers have a problem to find 'a life after this'.. But it is even more sad to realize how few actually "have a life even now"... Even now, many forget, or at least compromise, their personal life because of their addiction. The addiction to the horizon, to the adrenaline.
And now I want to you stop for a moment, no matter what you are doing. What I am going to tell you, is very close to my heart...
link[i-link]No matter how you twist and turn it. The professional world is still a man's world. This world in general is still a man's world. It has been for hundreds of centuries. From the time men dragged women into their cages by their hair, we have come a long way, but we are not there yet. "There" being "offering equal chances, and equal opportunities to women".
Here is how I see it. (and don't forget I am a man, and no matter how hard I try, I will always be a man, even if I try to look at things from a woman's perspective):
link[i-link]I look around me, and see people -men and women- alike, with loads of personal challenges through the work they do... But then I look again, and see that in most management functions in this business - the humanitarian world -, men hold the key functions (and most of them come from the first world, but let's leave that aside for a moment). I look once more, and see most administrative support positions are filled by women. Many women in this business are strong, well educated, hard working people. Many of them are young, full of energy, inspiration and aspirations. The new generation of women have been encouraged (and enabled) by their parents to get a good education. They are ambitious to develop themselves personally and professionally. Many of these young women whizz through their twenties like a breeze, and some climb up (if all goes well), the professional ladder.
All of a sudden they find themselves in their mid thirties, somewhere in the professional chain and ask "hey where is my personal life gone to?". And that is where the challenges start.
link[i-link]If all goes well, they find a partner. If all goes well. As we - men - are not always too happy to live with a partner who has a demanding career. Even fewer like it when that career takes 'our woman' away on duty travel. Heaven forbids that 'her career' would even have her live far away from us, in some dark and remote humanitarian crisis area.
"If all goes well" they find a partner, as too often at their mid thirties, what men are "available" on the "partner market"? Those coming out of their first long relationship, and not looking for something long term. The 'celibataires eternelles' or 'commito-fobes'. Those who have not made up their mind what the hell they want. The 'players'. And those already in a relationship. Or those who have failed in relationships so far.. (and all of that is a whole different discussion which I would love to have over a glass of Prosecco).
link[i-link]So "if all goes well", a partner is found. And then? "A career" you say? In this world where, no matter what, a woman is still supposed to not only bare the children, but also spend most of her time raising them? Where a woman is still supposed to do most of the household stuff? [if you are a man, think about it... If you don't agree with me, think again... Who spends most of the time with the kids, working for/in the house? You or your partner?].
So, what then? Most women are the ones making the compromise then.. Either give up their career, or work part time, etc...
If they don't, the juggle of kids, house, husband and career becomes a full time challenge.
The other evening, I went with E. over all the women we knew. And we tried to flag those we thought had found a good balance between kids, house, husband and career. And are successful in all. We found one. One woman out of the dozens of women we know, we found one.
That is a sad observation. And even more sad, when we realized that lady does not work in the humanitarian "business".
link[i-link]So, all you ladies out there. And specifically those of you in the humanitarian world! In my "The Dudettes" short story I tried (in my cynical and ironical way) pay a tribute to you all. But come and have your say too. Am I seeing things in a too dark, negative way? Am I seeing things too much from a "male" perspective? You tell me.
You've been an aidworker for too long (Part 12)
[i-aidworker in Pakistan]
...if you are convinced "KFC" stands for Karachi Fried Chicken and that "Parasonic" or "Somy" are the real thing.
The comprehensive state of the world - Part 1
[i-Ship's Bridge]
Last night, I realized it was only two months since I left Santo Domingo. It seems like ages ago. Time to check what happened in the world, where I am, and where I should be going in the next month. Under the generic gest of "I'm BAAAACK"!
Lemme see. What happened with me?
Coming back from the Haiti emergency early June, I had one week at work in Rome, followed by the first week of my sabbatical during which I picked up work on my blogs.
Then I flew home for two weeks. Kids ended school, and we transitioned into the holiday. I reinstalled Windows XP on Lana's laptop three times. It is a challenge to re-install a laptop which randomly shuts down because of the heat. It was sizzling hot in Belgium. And curses were uttered.
Then we drove to Rome. The car broke down just after the Brenner pass, and miraculously rose from its ashes the next day, as if nothing had happened... Only to break down again in a major rainstorm just past Florence, where I had to push the car uphill to an emergency lane, avoiding people crashing into us from the back. Reminded me crossing a street in Basrah while people were shooting around us.
The garage's verdict: fuel lead contained metallic splinters, which broke the low pressure pump, which damaged the high pressure pump, which blocked the injectors. We picked up a replacement rental car to finish the last 200 km to Rome. Eight days and 2,000 euros later, the car was repaired. So they said.
Was sizzling hot in Rome. I reinstalled Lana's laptop once. The breeze at the beach was really soothing, the food was great. Tine, the kids and "H" loved it all.
Then we moved to an agriturismo in Le Marche, on Italy's east coast. Superb setting. Sizzling hot. Reinstalled Lana's laptop once. The food, the people and the wine was great. The vistas even more greater. Highly recommended.
Whoosh, then back to Rome for a week. Relaxing at the beach, strolling in town. It was less hot, and I did not touch Lana's computer. Bought an iPad, though, in an impulsive reaction to a dream I had. About buying an iPad.
I also had a dream about buying a Landrover 90. But will keep that idea ashore for a while.
Drove back to Belgium last Thursday morning. Left Rome at 8 am. Got into a horrible storm as we entered Tuscany, and an endless traffic jam around Florence. The car broke down at 3 pm, and we got to a hotel by 9 pm. Which was run by an Indian crew, so we had the best Chicken Tikka Massala in years.
Car was deemed as needing another week of repair - same problem, contaminated fuel line. So decided to have the travel insurance get the car to Belgium, while we got a replacement car. Meanwhile it was the start of the 'Black Weekend' - the horrible event where the end of July and beginning of August falls on a weekend. Half of Europe travelled South on holiday. And the other half drives back North ending their holiday. They collectively decided to use the same road as we did, resulting in many many many many many hours of traffic jams. We only arrived home in Belgium on Friday.
Time to repair Lana's computer for the last time, fill in all the claim forms for the travel insurance (1,100 euros without the repair costs), put two Tshirts in a bag and fly back to Rome.
Spent one night here, travelled in Italy for several excellent meetings in different places, and arrived back in Rome last night.
I will be here until end August.
And no, it is not sizzling hot anymore. And I can see Lana on Skype which means her computer is still working...
Honey?
PS: I loooove Italy.
PPS: And yes, my car is still somewhere in North Italy waiting to be picked up by the towing service.
I hope.
Blogging: source crowded knowledge management
[i-writer]
You know what I like about blogging? You can leave a trace for others. It is really like "crowdsourced knowledge management". You can write something, and others can find what you write about, simply by googling the topic.
Meaning: once you blog about something, it remains there, in the public domain, for years to come. For others to find... Crowdsourcing: information fed by the masses. Or call it "Power to the People" if you like.
I will take two examples. Two things that made my life miserable in the past months.
So I will contribute to humanity here. I will blog about the solutions to the two earth shattering problems. And Google will do the rest. Maybe, I will solve someone's problem too. (and I trick Google by putting the subjects as <h2> headers, so it increases the probability of people finding it through search results)
A problem because for the past months, I worked in an environment where the ambient temperature would easily get over 25 dgrs C. My laptop would barely startup, then detect it got too hot, and subsequently shut down. Annoying to say the least. I searched the web, but did not find a solution.
Your laptop shuts down because of heating problems? Two solutions!
Speedfan is a free utility that monitors the temperature of core elements in your computer and forces your computer fan to remain on, all the time.
Speedfan by itself, did not do the trick for me. Every year or so, especially when working in dusty environments, dirt particles would settle on my motherboard and on my fan fins. The only thing that helps is disassembling the laptop (taking the cover off the harddisk, keyboard and motherboard) and spraying off the dirt with a can of pressurized air.
PS: disassembling a laptop is not for the faint of heart. Ask your computer shop to do it for you. But the trouble is worth it: spraying off the dirt is the only thing that solves my laptop's heating problem.The problem with AdAxxx.tmp files filling up your harddisk
I diagnosed the problem of my harddisk filling up, with the free cleanup utility called CCleaner. CCleaner not only cleans up all temporary files, but also cleans up your system registry of orphaned traces of de-installed programs.
CCleaner showed I had thousands of files in my /Temp directory, all labeled AdAxxxx.tmp (where xxxx was a sequential number).
The problem was simple: a conflict between Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and AdAware, a free utility to protect against malware hidden in websites.
Installing AdAware automatically also enabled an add-in in Outlook to scan for malware.
My earth shattering problem for AdA.tmp files filling up my harddisk was solved by disabling the AdAware add-in:
Go to : Tools > Trust Center > Add-ins and disable the AdAware plug in.
Voila, those were the two contributions to humanity I had today. Google: go and do your thing now!
If you come across this post, through Google, and it solves one of those two problems you had, leave a comment. It will be nice to see I was right about crowdsourcing and blogging. ;-)
Update:
You might think I am kidding, but I assure you, I am not. Here is the proof: One hour after I published this blogpost, guess what appeared on the top of the Google search list for "adaxxx.tmp problem":
[i-adaxxx.tmp problem]
Picture courtesy Starts with a Bang
Do you have passion?
The ancient Greeks did not write obituaries,
instead they asked only one question of a person:
"Did he have passion?"
It is much easier to go through life all protected and not letting anything through. To do your job 9 to 5 as... a job from 9 to 5. To see a walk by the sea as only a physical motion on sand near to a pond of water rather than a mass of energy floating through you.
It is more courageous to let it all in. To do every thing you do with passion, to let it in, play with it, in your mind, ponder over it, question it, question one's own abilities and judgement. Constantly. Reading the signs and act on them.
Just as it gives relentless joy, it also takes a lot of energy to keep a balance in a rational world. Where not everything can be done based on hunches. Where some tasks just have to be done, even if the joy might not be in there. Read the full post...
Vintage: Looking forward
[i-seafood]
Can't help it. I love vintage pictures. Found a nice collection on Livejournal.
Merry Xmas, y'all !
[i-Christmas cartoon ]
To all fellow lunatics out there: Merry Xmas!
Cartoon courtesy Jeff Swenson and Frenetic Funnies
The concept of "service" these days
[i-telephone operators]
Belgian economy minister Van Quickenborne wants to counter the flood of complaints about the country's telecom operators. He proposes a new law setting "two and a half minutes" as the maximum time before you get a "human person" on the hotlines. If the operators would be too busy, the customer can hang up, and should be called back within 24 hours.
Government owned Belgacom, the largest Belgian telecom operator, called this proposal totally unrealistic. There are already 1,400 people working at the Belgacom's call centre.
Maybe it's the Belgian way to reduce the unemployment rate without efforts to improve the core service: just put more people in the complaints department. ;-)
This morning, I spent 18 minutes on hold, when I wanted to verify why €300 of service cheques we ordered three weeks ago, had not arrived. On December 3rd, we got an email confirmation the cheques would arrive within 3 working days. But until today, nothing. No response on Email neither.
Eighteen minutes of hold time later, I was informed that "We are very sorry, but there is a general delay in the delivery of service cheques. Everybody has the same problem. You will have to wait. Probably you will get the cheques this week." Punto.
So what right of appeal does one have? Nothing. This service has no competition. All I can do, is whine about it on my blog. :-))
The nuissances of a comfortable life. I wonder how Mats is doing in Bor, South Sudan. And Jalal in Islamabad. I hope they are safe.
Picture courtesy The Tribune News
"Honey, look what I bought you for Xmas!" or "There are digital pictures... and then there are digital pictures..."
[i-Nikon D90]
I love to take pictures. It feels as if I can experience the things around me much more intensively when I take pictures of it. It is only then I discover details I would have overlooked otherwise. Even when I review a picture, months or years later, I can revive the feeling I had when I took it. And I love a good picture.
Since my 15 year old analog (that's right: using film!) Minolta reflex camera died ("Sorry sir, we don't repair cameras older than five years"), I have not had a decent camera. Most of the pictures on my blog are shot using a nine year old Fujipix digital camera, Tine's small Sony Cypershot, Lana's newer compact Nikon Coolpix P80 or my cellphone (recently upgraded to an iPhone).
But I lacked something of my own, where I could take real high quality pictures. With the help of my friends Diego and Scott, I finally made up my mind and bought a Nikon D90 (above) with a 22-200mm lens. I can tell you: after all these years, I had simply forgotten what a decent camera feels like, and what a serious quality picture looks like.
Like a small kid sitting by the Christmas tree, I opened up the boxes, put the lens on the camera, switched it on, zoomed at something randomly, pointed, focused and shot... My first picture with my new camera was a bottle on a table in an ill-lit room. I just pointed and shot with the built-in flash.
The picture looked like this (I converted the picture to low resolution for this blog):
[i-bottle neck]
It was not until I looked at the picture in the actual resolution that I saw the real detail, and the real quality. Look at the play of the light and colours on the bottle neck:
[i-bottle neck]
Look at the condense droplets inside the bottle (this is the actual resolution):
[i-bottle neck]
Here is the original picture (3 Mb, though!)...
So, in short.. expect more pictures on this blog ;-)
Picture camera courtesy Gear Patrol
Song of the day: Wait it out (Imogen Heap)
[Loband: Object Removed -]
Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond these questions...
Clambering for the scraps in the shatter of us collapsed
that cuts me with every could-have-been
Pain on pain on play repeating
with the backup, makeshift life in waiting
Everybody says time heals everything
but what of the wretched hollow?
The endless in between
are we just going to wait it out?
There's nothing to see here now,
turning the sign around
We're closed to the earth 'til further notice
A stumbling cliched case,
crumpled and puffy faced
Dead in the stare of a thousand miles
All I want, only one, street level miracle
I'll be an out and out, born again, from none more
cynical
And sit here cold, we will be long gone by then
In lackluster, in dust we layer on old magazines,
fluorescent lighting sets the scene
in the one life that we've got
And sit here
Just going to wait it out
And sit here cold
Just going to sweat it out
Wait it out
This song should be played at the opening of the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Summit meeting.
Video courtesy TED Read the full post...
Song of the day: Run Away (The Corrs)
[Loband: Object Removed -]
Say it's true, there's nothing like me and you
Not alone, tell me you feel it too
And I would runaway
I would runaway, yeah
I would runaway
I would runaway with you
Cause I have fallen in love
With you, no never have
I'm never gonna stop falling in love, with you
Close the door, lay down upon the floor
And by candlelight, make love to me through the night
Cause I have runaway
I have runaway, yeah
If you are in for a magical life version of this song, try this.
More music on The Road. Read the full post...
Kicking people until they have a conscience
[i-Louis Paul Boon]
When I was seventeen, as part of the tests to graduate secondary school, we had to read three books from one author, and make short summary. I choose Louis-Paul ("Lowie") Boon, a Flemish writer, columnist, socialist and anarchist. He was not really educated. He was a house painter. But he was a born artist and story teller.
He lived in poverty while he wrote his first book. After 400 pages of it, he discarded the relevance, and hung it from a string on his bathroom wall, so he could save on toilet paper. His wife took the manuscript, read it, took the last page and wrote on it: "Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera". She wrapped everything together in brown paper and sent it off to a publisher. It won the Leo J. Krijn Prize for literature.
I did not read three books from Louis-Paul Boon. I got fascinated by him and read all of his books, about 30 or 40 by then. Some of the books had the size of an encyclopedia. And I did not write a summary, I wrote a 100 page thesis. My teachers collectively declared me a nut case and I graduated (almost failing my maths exam, though, but that is a different story).
No surprise Louis-Paul Boon left a lasting impression on the teenager I was, and still am. Not only in his writing style and approach to life, but also in some of his basic principles. One of them was "You have to kick people until they have a conscience": You have to repeat ethical values to people, slam their face with it, until they understand. Head-on. That sentence remained within me, lingering.
Being young, you want to prove yourself, so I got into the commercial world, into the business. And not just any business. After some adventures at a hitech research company, I joined a company -at that time- at the heart of the world's financial world. I worked at their headquarters, in a building designed by Ricardo Bofill and set on an old castle estate near Brussels.
[i-swift]
If you thought banks were the summon of "prestige", think again. This was a step beyond that... Everything, even the cafeteria furniture was custom designed. You can imagine what was at the center of the business. Money.
[i-swift%20cafetaria]
Gradually, Louis-Paul Boon started to creep back into my mind. My commercial instincts got into a battle with my ethic values, which had remained dormant during the first years in my career. Then came the evening that changed the rest of my life. I could no longer work for a commercial company. The lust for life, for adventure, for the horizon, but mainly the drive to 'make a positive change in this world', got stronger.
My conscience won the battle. I gave up my management career, went to the Antarctic, wrote a book, and started my professional life from scratch as a technician for the Red Cross.
Gradually, once more, my commercial and competitive instincts got the upper hand. While I continued to work in the humanitarian world, I gradually got sucked into the hard core "business" aspect of it: concentrating on my core work, I would do the stuff I did well, and do it head-on. I would not always put it all in a humanitarian context.
As the years went on, my team grew. I hired hundreds of people over the years. Many left a trace in my mind and heart. It was not until the midst of the 2003 Iraq crisis, we hired Larisa.
Larisa started the Pink Revolution in our team. She would question all and everything. She was a pain. She would be the one saying "you can not kill to feed the hungry". Not meant literally (thank God!), but rather: "you can not run over your ethics while doing your humanitarian work".
She triggered my conscience back into a ferocious battle with my competitive instincts. And this time, the conscience would get the upper hand. It has ever since, I'd love to believe.
My conscience is a big as a 30 story flat now. It dominates everything I do. Every time I raise my voice (a lot), piss off people (a lot), hurt someone (luckily rarely I would think), I can not sleep at night. I am trying to lead a life where my ethics determine what and how I do it. It dominates.
That makes me a pain to work with. That makes it impossible to manage me. Many see me as a loose canon. I simply can not keep quiet. I feel guilty if I have something on my mind, and do not speak up, or question. I fight battles, often loosing battles. I bang my head against the wall continuously. But I do not give up. This blog, The Road, is part of that dynamic, by the way.
The "conscience" is one of the reasons I continue to work in the humanitarian world. Not only because it is "humanitarian", but maybe, maybe, I can work on "change from within". The UN is criticised a lot. But it is easy doing that from the sidelines. I want to do it while being in the midst of it. Trying to make a change from within.
And maybe, maybe, I can instill a change in people. Even if it was in a small part, I want to change the world. And remind people of their conscience. Every day is a battle to continue doing that. It is so easy to get sucked into your daily job, without loosing sight of the wider, the humanitarian, the human context.
Every day, I have to remind myself. Every day, I have to weigh the conscience part, with the work I have to deliver. Not loosing sight of either. Every day. Every day, I want to kick people until they have a conscience. "Lowie" in me has not died. Is he still alive within you?
Pictures courtesy Ricardo Bofill, Klara
Summer is over. Snif.
[i-Rome weather forecast]
We hardly had a single drop of rain in July and August. Two weeks ago, it was that hot, I had to buy a fan.
A week ago, almost at the flip of a switch, the weather turned around. Thunder, lightning, rain... I had to close the windows at night.
And according to the weather forecast, it looks like the summer is over. In the next 10 days, we will have one day of sunshine.
Time to go for a winter sleep.. See you all in 8 months. Bye!! ;-)
The dream of OLPC and the aid bubble
[i-OLPC - One Laptop Per Child]
Fellow aidworker Alanna wrote a provocative post on UNDispatch about the "end of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) dream".
OLPC set out a couple of years ago, designing, manufacturing and distributing a simple laptop (or call it a "Netbook") geared towards kids, specifically in developing countries. Their mission was formulated as:
To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.
From the beginning, the plan was ambitious, innovative,.. and controversial. "Tall trees catch a lot of wind" is surely applicable. The more as it was such an easy target for cheap sarcasm: "How will a laptop feed a hungry child"? You can imagine...
[i-OLPC cartoon]
Alanna's post is creating a bit of a sturr in the ICT4D (ICT For Development), and in the development blogosphere as such (Check out the latest posts via a Humanitarian News search). I might disagree with Alanna on the OLPC, I surely appreciate provocative posts to stir up discussions. ;-)
Here are my views:
- Anyone trying to make a difference, and is not afraid to put words into deeds, especially if it is innovative, provocative and controversial, deserves my respect. Especially if it is well thought through. OLPC has my respect.
- Proper education is one of the principal ways to eradicate poverty. There are different means to boost education in the developing world. Rendering technology more affordable and accessible is one.
- ...But it is not the only solution. Cheap laptops can not feed hungry children, that is for sure. But neither can "feeding children teach them how to read". Boosting education in the developing world has many challenges. Starting at the basics:
- How do we get the kids to come to school, if they have to work in the fields helping their parents to grow enough food?
- Once they come to school, how do we keep them in school up to the point their education becomes applicable to their lives?
- How do we train teachers, and keep them into education. How do we avoid poaching of teachers by the commercial world?
- How do we ensure kids have enough nutritional food, are they properly de-wormed (and are healthy enough), so they can capitalize to the max on the efforts brought? (there is a whole series of studies illustrating how proper nutrition boosts a child's capacity to learn)
- How do we make sure there is a proper school infrastructure, proper teaching material, proper latrines?
- How do we make sure the educational programme is institutionalized and self-sustainable (I need to write something on sustainability as this is one of my sore points at the moment).
- Attacking OLPC because they triggered only one part of the solution, is unfair, I think. However triggering debates to ensure OLPC is properly integrated in a wholesome solution, is constructive.
- However, as the cynical aidworker I sometimes am, I have to say that wholesome solutions to complex development goals are virtually non-existent. It is simply not built into the humanitarian system. It is very very very difficult to have different organisations work together for a common goal. Even if it would be as simple as "address the problems of this ONE school in all of its aspects". Leave alone all schools in a country. Beh.. Different organisations have different means and goals. But most of all, they compete. They compete for the same donor-dollar. In the end, why would I, as organisation X, work with organisation Y, if I know that in the end, we will be approaching the same donors for the same money? X and Y are competitors in a competitive world. And that will remain forever (unless at a certain point, there is a more even balance between the world's needs and the world's capacity to give. Dream on!).
- And finally: OLPC is an easy target. I will challenge anyone to bring up examples of aid projects which are the right bang for buck, with wholesome approaches, lasting and self-sustainable projects. There are not many. There is a lot of "make believe", but there are not many good examples. If the aid organisations would be commercial enterprises, the "aid business bubble" would have burst decennia ago. And would have burst every five years.
- Better and stronger oversight of the aid spending, both by the organisations themselves, governments and independent bodies. Make the audits public. Make the impact data public.
- Work out better criteria to measure impact, sustainability and integration in wholesome solutions.
- Ensure outcomes are measured by impact, and not by amount of money spent. (You think I am kidding? I am not! No donor is ever happy if at the end of the project, you return the balance of unspent money. Ever!)
- Entice cooperation between organisations, while recognizing that healthy competition is good.
- Transparency, transparency, transparency, transparency.
Pictures courtesy OLPC, Wulffmorgenthaler.com Read the full post...
The heart is what counts
In what seems to become an ongoing series about humanitarian advocacy ;-)... Here is another video which spoke to my heart.
Compare this piece of (he)art with the MSF video we discussed earlier, and you will see what I mean when I say "you don't have to fake stories to move a public"
[Loband: Object Removed -]
Added to inspirational video collection.
Video courtesy the Strongheart Fellowship Programme
Sunset this evening
[i-sunset in Italy]
Miracle Beach at Fregene tonight. No words needed.
Warning! Swine Flu flu prevention leaves white spot on your face
[i-A(H1N1) Swine flu prevention leaves white spots on your face - funny]
Picture courtesy of my colleague aidworker Paul, blogging at Head Down, Eyes Open. Even though Paul was much more serious about H1N1 in his post. (Sorry Paul...!)
Picture of the Day: MSF in a message
[i-link]
I previously posted how a UNICEF ad gave a clear, simple and hard message. This -almost blank- ad for Medecins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without borders beats anything on simplicity.
More Pictures of the Day on The Road
Picture courtesy La Cocina Creativa and Agencia McCann-Erickson.