Blogging international development – a new kind of conversation
Welcome to the Overseas Development Institute’s 2005 blog!
http://www.odi-blogs.org.uk/blogs/2005/
This is the place to find quick comment on all the international
development issues of 2005. The blog doesn’t replace all our usual
products – the academic papers, Briefings, Opinion pieces and meetings. It does give us the opportunity to respond to events as they unfold – and give you the opportunity to comment and engage.
Why now and why us?
Why now because 2005 is an extraordinary year in international development. We’ve already had the Report of the High Level Panel, the Sachs Report on the MDGs and the Africa Commission. Coming up we have the G8, the UN MDG Summit and the Hong Kong trade talks. The EU is writing a new development policy and about to agree its financial framework to 2013. At the same time, the Make Poverty History Campaign
is making waves and many NGOs are producing policy papers and
campaigning documents. All of us who care about reducing poverty are
deeply embroiled on all of this – not just in general terms, but day to
day and issue by issue. The agenda changes fast as leaders fly around
the world to meet each other and as new issues crop up. It’s hard to
stay ahead, harder still to contribute constructively.
That’s where ODI comes in. We describe ourselves deliberately as a
think-tank, because we work at the interface of research and policy. On
the one hand, we work hard to help shape the agenda and contribute to
debate. That’s why so much of our output is short, written in
non-technical language and designed to be accessible. On the other
hand, our core mandate is research. That’s why we have 60 researchers
on our staff, each of them specialist in the core areas of
international development. Whether the topic is business, social policy, trade, natural resources, or humanitarian crisis, there are specialists at ODI whose job it is to know the theory, apply it to the real world and help develop policy.
The blog will create a new conversation on the internet – specialist
but policy relevant, rooted in long-term research but responding to
short-term issues. We want to create space for substantive discussion.
If you want to respond to anything we raise in this blog, to pose a
development question, to give feedback on our work, or to collaborate
on cutting edge, policy-relevant research, send us a comment. In the
meantime, spread the word. The ODI 2005 blog has arrived…