Comments on: Pop singer makes two excellent points on development

By: The battle for India’s climate policy | Climate and resource scarcity | Global Dashboard

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:23:12 +0000

[...] But what Ramesh still needs is some kind of proposal for an overall global framework on climate change. Although Subramanian’s an Birdsall’s work on this area is interesting, it’s not clear to me that they have such a proposal. (They should talk to their former CGD colleague Owen Barder. He does.) [...]

By: Even better than the real thing « Swahili Street

Even better than the real thing « Swahili Street — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:52:14 +0000

[...] York Times too often. So when Bono mentions an NGO initiative such as Twaweza and it gets blogged here and there and eventually works its way back to me in Tanzania…. I start to think. The first thing [...]

By: Augusta Dwyer

Augusta Dwyer — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:34:43 +0000

Like Phil, I was also looking for more information on Twaweza after reading the Sunday NYT. I have written a book on how grassroots social movements of the poor hold the answer to poverty alleviation, and also maintain a blog where I write about this (I also wrote a review of Dead Aid for example).

So I am ever on the lookout for new evidence! Grassroots movements that are challenging the status quo politically, promoting both internal and external democracy and defining their own solutions — what a difference from the traditional aid and development picture, no?

I would be very interested in your comments, as well as learning more about Twaweza: how did it begin? Who have joined and how is it run?
Thank you.

By: Phil H

Phil H — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:45:18 +0000

Oh, I will also say I do find Bono incredibly irritating – not because I don’t think pop stars have anything useful to contribute – I just find him quite generally irritating. I’m not quite sure what it is. So I’ve probably been quite snide about him elsewhere, which I probably shouldn’t be. I will try to correct this. I don’t have the same problem with Bob Geldof.

By: Phil H

Phil H — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:36:48 +0000

Ah, I tried to look up stuff about Twaweza when I read Bono’s piece (which has some rather dubious errors/contentious points elsewhere).

I couldn’t find an awful lot apart from what’s on the Hivos website – and a lot of the documentation there I found to be rather jargon-heavy and very flowery in language – particularly the executive summary. The gaps in the information that I could find left me feeling a bit skeptical about it, but it’s slightly reassuring to see you mention it here.

I got the general intentions though and read a bit further and I really hope it succeeds. As someone with an interest in Tanzania I hope I’ll be able to see where it’s up to (I presume it’s all still very early stages, as it’s been going just over a year). I shall have to look at the website when it materialises.