It’s hard for some of us to remember a time before email. Email has actually been around for a long time, but in the early days it was not generally based on the internet standards. Each dial-up network (AOL, MCIMail, Compuserve, ATTMail, Envoy100 and individual Unix computer networks) had its own system of addressing, and…
Fiscal Decentralization and Development Countries around the world are increasingly recognizing the impact fiscal decentralization can have on both national and community level development. Fiscal decentralization is characterized by a shift in financial responsibility from a central government to a local municipal government. Decentralization is a key element for development because it puts power back into…
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were conceived as a vision for the post-2015 agenda. They are an action plan to continue the work the Millennium Development Goals started. We are six months into the SDGs. Do we know what’s been accomplished thus far? How are we doing? You can see for yourself how well the world’s…
Last week, the Access to Nutrition Foundation Executive Director Inge Kauer presented the most recent Access to Nutrition Index (ATNI) for 2016 at the InterAction office in Washington, DC. The Access to Nutrition Foundation is an independent nonprofit based in the Netherlands, with the objective of assessing and contributing to the improvement of the private…
Let the work begin! The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a Global Initiative of the United Nations, has released a guidebook “Getting Started with the Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) to help all stakeholders understand and implement the Post-2015 development agenda. The year 2016 marks the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the official launch of…
The UN recently released its final MDG Report 2015, which documents the fifteen-year effort to achieve the aspirational goals set out in the millennium declaration. Mr. Wu Hongbo, Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, claimed the findings have “produced the most successful anti-poverty movement in history,” but was careful to acknowledge the gaps that still remain.…
(This piece was largely informed by today’s MFAN/Brookings event – many thanks to the organizers for a very useful discussion!) Washington DC, June 15, 2015: Last month, the organizers of the upcoming Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) in Addis Ababa released a revised draft outcome document, which they are redrafting this week.…
By the 1990s, economic failure and rural neglect in many countries were attributed to excessive centralization and top-down approaches. While Community-driven Development (CDD) emerged as a response to this concern, it is not panacea nor a one-size fits all and many factors contribute to its success or failure. The centralization-decentralization dilemma remains a struggle about…
FHI360 has conducted the first phase of a program to gather the evidence on the pros-and-cons of integrated approaches to development. In this first phase, they published a report that reviews existing studies. Of the 25 program types, 13 produced mostly positive findings; 9 produced mostly mixed findings; and 3 suggest a neutral or unknown…
Background: Nutrition is a huge and difficult challenge, requiring convergent action on many fronts: agriculture, health, WASH, education and – most importantly – gender equality and female empowerment. Those championing this action have been held back by the lack of timely data — until now. In the aftermath of the the 2013 Nutrition for Growth summit in…