Do you know what you know? As researchers we are faced with a great challenge: the more knowledge we acquire the more difficult it becomes to manage and learn from it. Knowledge management tools and techniques exist to help us solve this problem. Most importantly, they can they can help us share with others what we have learned and learn from other's research and experiences.

For an institution, knowledge management is crucial. High turnover of staff often leads to a loss of more than just labour: know-how. Knowing how to learn from others and share what we know is critical ...   more »

2005 was the year of the Africa Commission, the G9 conference, the Live8 concert and the Make Poverty History campaign. Demands were made, promises were made. Now it is time to fulfill those promises, satisfy those demands. DFID has published an update of the commitments: future milestones to keep an eye for.

If completed, DFID expects that by the end of the year we would have:

1. An effective mechanism to ensure delivery of African and donor commitments, with first Africa Partnership Forum Annual Progress Report published in October 2006.
2. Increased aid in 2006 and plans in place to ...   more »

This year, 12 election will change the political face (and soul?) of Latin America. the ODI is launching a meeting series (in partnership with the Oxford University Latin American Society) to "discuss what the effects of these elections will be on the region as a whole, and on particular countries, with a focus on Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. It will serve as a discussion session for larger issues on the quality of democracy, governance, institutions and economics in Latin America, and the comparative lessons that might be drawn from the democratisation process the region is experiencing. "

Some recent ...   more »

Often we find that in participatory processes, robust statistical analysis finds little support. No wonder econometricians are rarely seen in a workshop drawing on flip charts or assigning values to people and things with coloured pebbles. However, new work on how statistical methods and participatory approaches can be integrated is increasingly available. Barahona and Levy's paper is based on participatory surveys used to evaluate free agricultural inputs to smallholder farmers in Malawi. The paper describes a methodology that integrated statistical principles into the design of the participatory tools to be used in the workshops at the village level.

In a ...   more »

Decentralisation is opening up new opportunities for better policy implementation. New research in Kenya suggests that the decentralisation of agricultural extension improves access. Most importantly, service also improved in quality and farmers reported to be more satisfied with them.

A similar result is observed from a better use of evidence when allocating health funds in a decentralised manner. The TEHIP case study is an example of how small changes in the process or the use of (sometimes very simple) evidence, in this case child mortality, can have significant effects on access and the quality of basic public services.

The 4th WWF is underway in Mexico. Alan Nichol from ODI is reporting live from the event -catch it all at the ODI Blog. This year, the Forum is focusing on local actions for a global challenge. As in most international events such as this one, civil soceity has been present both at the workshops and presentations as well as on the streets.

On a related issue, tomorow, March 22 is World Day for Water and UNESCO is leading this year's theme: Water and Culture. Its "draws attention to the fact that there are as many ways of viewing, ...   more »

Ok. I am going to give this another go. I've changed the format of the blog and I'll add new links to other development blogs. And I'll try to post something everyday. About anything liked to development research. I do hear and get emails about it pretty much every day, so I should be able to put something out here to make it worth your while reading a bit about development research.

Today, for example, I received the latest CIVICUS newsletter. They have a pretty good blog. That I just realized uses the same colours as this one; so ...   more »