As I had the chance to note in another post, consideration of the spatial dimension is often forgotten in aid work, and a whole set of tools and approaches are still not known by many practicioners. I happened to see drafts of settlement plans sketched not with a GIS program nor with AutoCad but with …
Category: Practice
Some notes on trainings
Trainings can be a blessing or a curse. I guess there is no need to explain why they are a blessing. On the other hand, I believe that with trainings there is a high risk of being satisfied with the activity being done rather than focusing on its eventual impact. Delivering a training doesn’t mean …
An intention survey in Melut
As I mentioned in a previous entry about the relocation in Bor, what to do out of the PoCs was (and still is) one of the most debated issues on humanitarian policy in South Sudan. When talking about a phasing out strategy, there were security, logistical, political considerations to put in the picture. And there …
Uses and abuses of Excel (with an example of a good enough use).
Aid workers have two secret weapons. The tarp is one. Microsoft Excel is the other one. Any aid worker has a love-hate relationship with Excel. Or at least, I do. Is a piece of software that has indeed countless possible applications – and here lies its greatest limit. While what it does best is analysis …
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Partecipatory mapping
One of the most exciting projects in development work I happen to read about in these last years is MapKibera. Through the use of open source data, collection of geodata and participatory processes, the project managed to, literally, put the biggest African slum on the maps, from where it had been conspicuously ignored until then …
Seeking the link 