It's the Future Calling

What do you do when the phone rings? You pick up, or let people leave a message on your voicemail and check it soon after. The phone has been ringing for a long time now in the development sector. What do you do when a caller starts conversing? You talk back - if only to say you're going to hang up. We talk a lot in the sector. What do you do when the caller starts shouting? You hang up, even if the other person has a valid reason to shout. In the development sector, we don’t like shouters. W...

The Future of Citizenship

All over the world the spotlight is on the citizen. From Time magazine’s  nomination of the protestor as person of the year to the enduring  optimism around the ripples of the Arab spring: from Obama’s ‘yes we  can’ to Cameron’s big society: citizenship seems to have become the new  magic bullet. But will this new starring role for the citizen actually  lead to solutions?

The Future Calling

Our world is changing quickly and profoundly. Rich and poor – regardless of where they live – are faced with increasingly ‘thick’ problems and social change is more politicized and contested than ever before. And yet, most international development NGOs (INGOs) keep offering ‘thin’ solutions to these problems. Solutions geared to measurable material success. Solutions that are aimed at increasing participation in unsustainable economies and polities.