In Defence of Donaldson

Jeffrey Donaldson has been getting a bad press for what seems like his eternal dithering over devolution and failure to move the process forward. It is said that the party officers are split and that he can’t carry his Executive with him. Even if he does succeed in persuading a narrow majority to support his deal there is a risk of a hugely damaging party split with the anti-Protocol or Windsor Framework faction defecting to the TUV or some other …

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Push: a warning for Belfast

There’s a scene in ‘Push’ where Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha, visits the home of a woman in Chile. The house sits atop a leafy hill and has the marks of being well lived in for decades. The woman looks despondent as she shows Leilani about, pointing out the window. Behind her, you can hear the roar of building work. It’s so loud that the camera seems to shake. The source of the noise is …

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Soapbox – the loss of priceless built heritage can’t be justified – Save CQ

SOAPBOX – If phase 1b of the Royal Exchange redevelopment proceeds, we will either lose the Arcade or the developer will lose the commercial basis for the scheme. The alternative could be a win-win solution. We are not opposing redevelopment, we simply think arbitrary needs of a hypothetical retailer do not justify the loss of priceless built heritage.

“…allowing organizations to attract support without having to demonstrate superior functionality”

Lant Pritchard writing in Harvard’s Building State Capacity blog draws some useful lessons on how US democratic institutions were forced to prove themselves in a struggle with the independent interests of their people. He offers these insights into why the transfer of institutions in developing countries not only may not work, it might also have profoundly negative consequences: One, organizations could gain legitimacy simply from mimicking the forms of rich country organizations without their function. Sociologists of organizations call this …

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‘#G8 development dividend in the balance’ – 5 issues to watch

This is a guest post from Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Director Kevin Watkins Effective action at the G8 summit could see Africa reap a ‘development dividend’ that boosts poverty reduction and sets the region on a course for more self-reliant growth, according to the Director of the UK’s leading development think tank. The ODI has described Lough Erne as a ‘high stakes’ summit for the world’s poor. ODI Director Kevin Watkins said that more stringent rules on tax evasion could prevent the …

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The Failings of Global Aid- is it Time to Make Charity History?

Walking by a lake you see a child drowning. There is no one else around- what should you do? The clear moral answer is to jump in and pull the child out without sparing a thought for potential inconvenience. It has long been argued that the same moral reasoning applies to world poverty- we must intervene to help the world’s poorest. The widely held view is that this help should be aid.  But does sending aid make the difference it …

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