How do you actually do action research?

By Caitlin Finlayson, PhD Candidate with the Institute for Human Security and Social Change, gives us an insight into her first few months working in an action research collaboration with Oxfam NZ. Academic researchers and international non-government organisations (iNGOs) working together is already a widely debated topic. Developing effective collaborations are possible but requires both actors to think and work in different ways. My research looks … Continue reading How do you actually do action research?

Trade unions as platforms for social change

The latest work by Caitlin Finlayson, now a PhD candidate at La Trobe University, was recently published by the Development in Practice journal. Her work explores if and how trade unions are a platform for social change in Zambia, Africa. In Zambia, the privatisation of state-owned companies is challenging job security, working conditions and workers’ rights. It has also weakened the role of government as a … Continue reading Trade unions as platforms for social change

Overcoming Premature Evaluation

This post by Institue of Human Security and Social Change Director Chris Roche originally appeared on Duncan Green’s From Poverty To Power blog.  Chris Roche (the koala – I’m [Duncan Green] the kangaroo, right) is a friend and a brilliant development thinker, even if he has an alarming tendency to be able to reference development jargon like a machine gun. If you can get past the … Continue reading Overcoming Premature Evaluation

Identifying rebels with a cause (and effect)

By Chris Roche The Developmental Leadership Program will host its 2016 Annual Conference at La Trobe University in Melbourne on 8 February. Its theme is ‘Power, Politics and Positive Deviance’. It is pretty obvious why a DLP conference would focus on power and politics, but why positive deviance? And what is it anyway? Perhaps the best known text on this topic is The Power of … Continue reading Identifying rebels with a cause (and effect)

HIV risk? It’s in the programming…

‘On the fast track to end AIDS’. That’s the UNAIDS slogan for today’s World AIDS Day; and beneath the inevitable soundbites lie some clear principles of approach, one of which is ‘deliver results that leave no one behind’ (UNAIDS, 2015). In Asia and the Pacific, as elsewhere in the world, the HIV epidemic continues to take its heaviest toll among communities and groups that are … Continue reading HIV risk? It’s in the programming…

Myanmar Election 2015 – An International Observer’s Perspective

The Institute is very happy to post this blog from Michelle Imison, a Sydney-based international development consultant, on her recent experience as an election monitor in Myanmar. We are very grateful that Michelle was able to respond to our request to share her first hand experience of this historic event. On Sunday, 8 November Myanmar’s general election was run and, although not yet officially won, the process itself was … Continue reading Myanmar Election 2015 – An International Observer’s Perspective

The Results Agenda: Friend or Foe?

Chris Roche, Director at the Institute, is co-editor of the recently released book ‘The Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development. The book examines the current results agenda of international development.  In this blog, Megan Driscoll from the Institute of Development Studies summarises a recent panel discussion on this topic.  The panel was made up of experts on aid effectiveness, including the book’s co-editor, Rosalind Eyben, … Continue reading The Results Agenda: Friend or Foe?

Not Drowning, Fighting…

Pacific climate change activists are engaged in a race against time as they seek to influence the upcoming COP21 summit. As part of our engagement with Pacific social change movements, we are publishing the following short blog, to help publicise their campaign… Pacific activists Noelene Nabulivou and Miki Wali write: If Australia and New Zealand really cares about the Pacific as a partner, they must … Continue reading Not Drowning, Fighting…