Wednesdays are for jargon – Budget words
NICRA – Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement. An agreement with the USG government identifying the amount an organization spends on indirect costs. It has to be developed annually according to documented spending and approved by whatever USG agency an organization is working with. USAID’s NICRA guidance from 2013 LOE – Level of Effort. The number of… Read More »
Wednesdays are for jargon
I’m bringing back a feature from years ago. Every Wednesday I’ll unpack some development jargon for you. HIV jargon PEPFAR – President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, an anti-AIDS program started by George W. Bush. Key Populations (KPs) – people who are at a higher risk for getting AIDS. PEPFAR considers these populations to be people… Read More »
Things I don’t believe in – handicraft projects
I don’t like handicraft projects. They seem to be very popular with private donors and small NGOs, but they’re mostly a bad idea. Here’s why: It always seems to be women who are targeted with these efforts. Do you really empower a woman by sitting her in a room to knit all day? Not every… Read More »
What’s Killing Us
People ask me – a lot – how to start learning about global health. I never have a good answer. Usually I send them to Karen Grepin’s blog and suggest they take a look at the various textbooks on Amazon. It’s not a satisfactory answer. Karen Grepin is fantastic, but a blog’s a very… Read More »
Book Review: Damned Nations, by Samantha Nutt
I didn’t mean to read this book. I am in the middle of another book I’m reading for review – Ed Carr’s Delivering Development (which I am really enjoying, but it’s new enough to me that I am also carefully taking my time). But I picked Damned Nations off my to-read pile the other day… Read More »
The Challenge of Being a Donor
I recently got an email from a reader frustrasted by how little he has learned after 30 years of being a donor to international developement causes. With his permission, I am posting our email exchange here: The letter I have been giving to aid organizations such as Oxfam America and Trickle Up for over… Read More »
Jargon of the Whatever
It’s been a long time since I did a jargon of the day post. Years, maybe. Today, though, I offer you a list of useful geographic slang for international development concepts. That doesn’t really make sense, I know. Just skip to the list; you’ll see what I mean: Geneva Conventions: Govern international law on the… Read More »