‘We will make more progress if we take a human rights approach”, Mary Robinson, The Elders.

As the UN reports that only half of countries are on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Mary Robinson, Graça Machel, Gro Brundtland, Ela Bhatt and Martti Ahtisaari support the Every Human Has Rights campaign and call for freedom from poverty as a human right.

Dear Friends, some thoughs on aid effectiveness, transparency and advocacy, originally published in Atlantic Community:

It is not the lack of knowledge that hampers development aid, but the structure of incentives within the aid system. Aid transparency and civil society engagement are key levers for addressing these problems and improving aid effectiveness.

The Clitoraid Campaign now has its own campaign page. You can find full details of the events leading up to the start of the campaign to the present at http://bit.ly/9okGBF

The Kabissa online community platform was built using Drupal and CiviCRM, two very powerful freely available open source web applications. It would be great to get more folks in Seattle who are working in Africa to pick up on the benefits of CiviCRM for nonprofit/charitable work and consider using it. A terrific opportunity to find out more is coming up - a new CiviCRM Users Group will meet for the first time on May 27th. Details at http://bit.ly/b1vUY1

Join us for this online dialogue from March 24 to 30, 2010.  Yes, we are working to change serious problems, but that doesn’t mean this work should not use humor as a tool to accomplish our objective!  Humor is a powerful nonviolent tactic that has the ability to prevent and counter activist burnout, engage more supporters, and increase the chance of getting media attention.  It can give you an opportunity to put your opponent in a dilemma – no matter what he does, he has lost.  In this dialogue, practitioners will share advice and resources on u

The new opportunity to have activism through mobile phones is fascinating. A while ago Sokari Enkine asked me to write a chapter for a recent published book funded by Hivos.

Yesterday Facebook enacted a new set of privacy rules, the purpose of which is to expand the information which all users share, making it “easier for you to find and connect with the people you’re looking for.”  However, according to a great analysis by the  Electronic Frontier Foundation:<

August 6, 2009, Luvungi, Democratic Republic of Congo: Amid the chaos and lawlessness of Eastern Congo, a local organization has developed an innovative approach to settling disputes and promoting justice, one community at a time.

June 26, 2009, Washington, DC: "You are sick and it is the weekend. You have a fever and you're sweating and vomiting so you fear you have malaria. You need medical attention. All the money you have is what is in your pocket, a total of $3.59. You never went to school so you do not know how to read or write. You live in the Kibera slums."

Uvira, DRC: Banana peels, sugar cane and manioc are widely found in the trash piles that collect outside of homes in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

They're also the ingredients being used by environmental advocates to create a light, inexpensive cooking fuel that could ease deforestation in the region.