International development on Twitter, Part 1


Ten people to follow on Twitter if you’re interested in international development. Not the top ten, necessarily – there are too many great people on Twitter for me to make that claim. But ten microbloggers who consistently engage my attention with interesting ideas:

Glenna Gordon
@Scarlettlion
Glenna Gordon is a journalist, photographer, and author of the Scarlett Lion blog, currently living in Uganda. Her writing, and the links she posts, offer beautifully written insight into Uganda, with a solid dose of cynicism and wry humor.

Sample tweet: Supermodel risks TB and Genocide by visitng Rwanda: Monika Schnarre, who considers herself a supermo.. http://tinyurl.com/65aymn

Why you should follow: For links to photos and articles on Uganda, Africa, and development which you wouldn’t have found on your own.

Chris Albon@chrisalbon
Chris Albon is author of the amazing War and Health blog, and posts a great series of links on war and conflict.

Sample tweet: For the past 2 weeks I’ve been writing post on armed groups potentially exploiting Ushahidi. This is what I mean: http://tinyurl.com/56bes7

Why you should follow: For links to a huge range of articles and resources on conflict in general and conflict and health. He’s obsessed with the intersection of war and health, and obsessed people make great reading.

Vasco Pyjama
@vasco_pyjama
Vasco Pyjama
is an aid worker who’s been everywhere, including Somalia and Afghanistan.

Sample tweet: Documenting lessons learnt and writing up methodologies. At first I thought I had indigestion. Now I realise it’s heartache.

Why you should follow: For a self-aware, intelligent, first-person perspective on aid work and its discontents.

Glenn Strachan@glennstrachan
Glenn Strachan travels the planet supporting ICT for development. He blogs as well as using Twitter.

Sample tweet: Right now I am trying to assemble a list of the top 30 organisations worldwide doing work specifically in ICT4D. There is no list.

Maneno @maneno
The twitter account of Maneno.org, which is devoted to making African voices heard.

Sample tweet: Toivo Asheeke’s latest post on his Maneno blog, “A Brief Case Study of A Successful African Country” (Namibia) http://tinyurl.com/6mste4

Why you should follow: To keep your news sources broad and deep.

I’ve got five more profiles coming up in my next post: @maratraingle, @chriswaterguy, @nadodi, @guaravanomics, and @joncamfield. Who am I missing? Tell me in the comments.

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(photo credit: FunnyBiz)
Chosen because I love graphs.

Heading Offline

I am heading North this morning for a week of vacation and my baby brother’s wedding. Wish me luck! Internet access is slow and hard to get at my destination, so it’s unlikely I’ll be updating until my return. If you need reading material in my absence, check out these bloggers:

Glenna Gordon, at Uganda’s Scarlett Lion writes about Uganda, obviously, but also broader issues of Africa and development.

Rupert Simons, a Liberia fellow, writes Adventures in Development.

[My] State Failure Blog offers geopolitcal analysis.

White African writes about Africa and technology.

Should you find yourself pining for my unique perspective, here are some posts I have been especially pleased with (that aren’t on the sidebar):

The ongoing Things I Believe in Series.

April 13 -20 was a good week for me.

Bad Granting

Relief vs. Development

See you all in ten days!