Aid Myths Busted

A very good, and short, critique of commonly heard criticism of international development cooperation (or “overseas aid”)

Why Ireland invests in overseas aid

Anyone wondering why Ireland continues to spend money on overseas aid, take your pick from these quotes from the last week: Speeches by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore

Rio+20 – A Time To Move Forward

Some reflections ahead of the June 2012 UN conference on Sustainable Development

Ireland’s 2013 EU Presidency

In January 2013, Ireland will take over the rotating Presidency of the European Union. An event that the Government and NGOs in Ireland feel presents a great opportunity to influence the way “Europe” thinks about global Development (and its own Development)

NGOs and Accountability: What it says in the Papers

Irish NGOs are clearly very aware of the challenges and opportunities for greater NGO Accountability. But a research sample suggests they have failed to harness the power of the media to educate the Irish public about the issue.

Using cartoons to Communicate Development

In preparation for our conference on “Communicating Development”, we present a series of cartoons, to illustrate the challenges NGOs face when it comes to public communications.

Why NOT to use overhead ratios as a way to compare NGOs

We would like everybody to support high quality NGOs. And that is why we are promoting standards of Quality in the Development NGO world. But we keep coming up against the fact that most ordinary people think that the easiest way to judge the quality of an NGO is the amount it spends on administration and overheads. In this blog post, we list a few reasons why that is NOT a good idea.

How do we communicate global poverty?

As the debate about Kony 2012 has shown, people in the Aid sector often agree that “things are more complicated” than popular media discourse suggest.
That is of course true, but the real question then is: How DO you communicate the full complexity of “Development” and yet succeed in Engaging people?

Oireachtas members continue to support Overseas Aid

Dóchas key word analysis of Dáil and Seanad debates since 1974 shows growing parliamentary interest in development cooperation.

Humanitarian Appeals: Messages and Connotations

Emer McCarthy & Grace Duffy blog about their research project, “Humanitarian Appeals: Messages and Connotations”, initiated by the TCD-UCD Masters in Development Practice and supported by Dóchas.