A new paper by PSJP, Understanding Sustainability puts some substance to the concept of sustainability by talking to a group of diverse organizations from the fields of development and philanthropy about what they mean by it. It’s a worthwhile and timely exercise because, as the paper points out in its introduction, sustainability has become a…
In the last post on leadership, we saw how much importance all the organizations attached to encouraging and developing leadership among their constituencies. How do they apply that precept to themselves? Is it different from encouraging and developing leadership among the communities they serve? And how do they run or guide an organization, yet pay…
‘The happiness and sorrow; hope and despair and sense of fair treatment versus injustice in public life in any society is associated directly in part, if not whole with the culture and quality of public leadership.’ As Martin Macwan’s words indicate, few concepts are so important. But what is it? How is it practised in…
Devolving leadership to partners is an important way to practise a just and equitable approach to grantmaking, but what are the nuts and bolts of such an approach? As part of a short series of articles on the nature and practice of leadership, Eva Rehse of Global Greengrants Fund outlines the organization’s model and identifies…
‘Some people just don’t want to develop.’ During my years of work in international development I’ve heard this view expressed, implicitly or explicitly, by frustrated practitioners. It sounds bizarre, and demonstrates a monumental lack of empathy, but funnily enough it can often be right. Many communities don’t want to ‘develop’ according to someone else’s definition…
‘Leadership for what? Leadership for whom?’ These questions seem to be uppermost in conversations with colleagues. We all seem to be feeling that we have not perhaps done enough, or are not doing enough, in our respective leadership roles to feel like we are making a difference. We are all constantly bombarded with books, articles,…
Our organization, MICAIA, works in different parts of Mozambique to help people achieve local prosperity. PSJP’s recent paper on ‘Dignity and Development’ looked at the concept of dignity in development and philanthropy and this occasioned me to reflect on our own approach to our work. MICAIA has chosen to build its theory of change, and our practices,…
PSJP’s recently published paper on ‘Dignity and Development’ looks at the concept of dignity in development and philanthropy. At the Zambian Governance Foundation for Civil Society (ZGF) this paper provided us with an opportunity to revisit our own journey from a dignity lens. In this blog post we would like to share the practices at…
PSJP’s recently published paper on ‘Dignity and Development’ looks at the idea of ‘dignity’in development and philanthropy. The first point to be made is the need to recognize that development practitioners do not impart dignity to others. We do not ‘empower’ people – a word that carries a taint of colonialism in its definition of…
Is your program respectful? How, exactly, do you know that? Did you ask people? Development is frequently disrespectful. We all want to do better. But right now we don’t have the tools to do so. The Dignity Project creates open access, ready-translated tools to properly measure respect. There is public support for more respectful development.…