Note: This blog post originally appeared on the EvalCommunity website at this link. With many thanks to the EvalCommunity team for choosing my blog for publication! I loved their formatting and how they highlighted pieces of the post. Objectivity is a mirage: when...
What is measured is changed. Some attribute this statement to Einstein, others to Peter Drucker or Karl Pearson, but whoever said it, it makes intuitive sense. Just by observing something, your presence affects that thing. Say a parent monitors their child’s grades....
This post on language in international development evaluation is one way I’m trying to stay sane and productive since the end of USAID. (Still hurts to type that. The end of USAID. Painful and surreal.) Anyway, it’s not as long as my last post (sorry, not...
If you’re reading a lot of LinkedIn right now, as I am, you might think a rethink is in order. You’d be in good company. Lauren Kaplan’s LinkedIn post titled “Rethinking Foreign Aid in Africa: Between Dependency and Development” asks a pressing question:...
“Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.” (Benoit Mandelbrot, November 20, 1924–October 14, 2010) Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash Prior to the...
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need a break from the destruction of USAID in real time. It’s been a very long few weeks since the new U.S. administration decided to stop all aid work. Like many of you, I am out of work and scrambling to find...
