DEVELOPMENT ISSUES

Fighting cancer with cell phones: Innovation to save lives in Africa

Karen Yeates (left) with colleagues Agnes Mtambo and Zahara Mahmoud, at the Pamoja Tunaweza Women's Centre in Moshi, Tanzania. Yeates is leading a project to improve cervical cancer screening in rural parts of the country.

The cervical screening project is one of 68 schemes that will receive funding from Grand Challenges Canada. Another project will use Coca-Cola's distribution chain to improve the availability of life-saving drugs in developing countries.

Ten packages of "Kit Yamoyo" anti-diarrhea kits fit easily into a single crate of cola.

In Uganda, youth will be paid to collect and sort garbage and deliver it to a plant for conversion to fertilizer and biogas, in order to improve sanitation.

Uncollected waste lies in the streets of an urban slum in Uganda, which can cause flooding and breeding sites for waterborne diseases.

Dr. Anthony Ablordey handles a point-of-care test sample in a lab at the University of Ghana. The test aims to provide rapid and accurate detection of the Buruli ulcer disease in poor places.

Green liquid indicates a positive test for the Buruli ulcer disease and yellow indicates negative.

A Kenyan woman weaves a ceiling mat, an effective and environmentally sound tool used to prevent entry of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes into rural homes.

HIDE CAPTION

The Kilimanjaro Cervical Screening Project

Piggy-backing anti-diarrhea kits

Piggy-backing anti-diarrhea kits

Urban waste collection

Urban waste collection

Bedside diagnosis of buruli ulcers

Bedside diagnosis of buruli ulcers

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(CNN) -- Only innovation can reduce illness and poverty in Africa, according to a program that is funding creative approaches to healthcare in developing countries.

More than 50,000 women die each year of cervical cancer in Africa, according to World Health Organization estimates, as more than 80% of the cases are detected in late stages.

In countries such as Tanzania, where nearly 4,500 women die annually from the disease, the problem is exacerbated by an acute shortage of medical experts and a lack of quality screening services, especially in rural areas.

But now a group of Canadian and Tanzanian health innovators have joined forces to apply simple and safe mobile technologies to improve cervical cancer screening and thus potentially reduce mortality rates in the East African country.

The idea is to send teams of two trained non-physician healthcare workers in remote Tanzania to examine women living several hours away from health centers. The nurses, who will be equipped with cervical screening and treatment tools as well as standard smartphones, will take a photograph of the cervix with their phone and send it via SMS to a medical expert in a specialized clinic.

Trained doctors will then be able to review the image immediately and text the diagnosis back to the health worker, as well as give instructions about treatment.

"That's the beauty of it -- for early grade cancers, those will be able to be treated right in the field, right in the rural area," says Dr Karen Yeates, of Queen's University, Ontario, the principal investigator of The Kilimanjaro Cervical Screening Project.

Read: How the cell phone can improve health care

The effectiveness of the idea will be put to the test in the coming months as Yeates was named Thursday amongst the 68 innovators to receive $100,000 Canadian grants to pursue bold concepts for tackling health issues in developing countries.

In total, some $7 million has been awarded to 51 innovators in 18 low and middle-income countries, and to 17 Canadian projects, by Grand Challenges Canada, a group sponsoring breakthrough concepts to improve health in poor parts of the world. Thirty-eight of these projects will be implemented in Africa.

"This is probably the largest pipeline of innovation in global health from the developing world," says Peter Singer, chief executive of Grand Challenges Canada, which is funded by the Canadian government. "It shows that poor countries are very rich in ideas because talent is everywhere, opportunity is not and what we are trying to do is to bring opportunity to talent to improve health."

Poor countries are very rich in ideas because talent is everywhere, opportunity is not and what we are trying to do is to bring opportunity to talent to improve health.
Peter Singer, Grand Challenges Canada, CEO

Amongst the Africa-based projects is a new trading system in Kenya where researchers will create a barcoded vaccination card that people can redeem for farm seeds and fertilizer as part of efforts to encourage vaccination of children.

Benson Wamalwa, of the University of Nairobi, says the project "would powerfully incentivize parents to seek and adhere to their children's immunization schedule even when hard pressed financially to reach a distant vaccination center. The idea is a practical solution that would significantly boost small farm productivity and incomes for poor households while safeguarding the general health of children in farming villages through up-to-date immunizations."

Read: How 'Afropreneurs' will shape Africa's future

Other programs include restoring native freshwater prawns in Senegal to eat the populations of snails that are responsible for the spreading of the parasitic disease schistosomiasis; paying youth in Uganda to collect and sort garbage and deliver it to a plant for conversion to fertilizer and biogas in order to improve sanitation; and anti-diarrhea kits for children hitching a ride on Coca-Cola's distribution chain to improve the availability of life-saving drugs.

Grand Challenges Canada says it will repeat its Stars in Global Health program every six months, funding hundreds of projects over the coming years. It also plans to work with partners to provide scale-up funding of up to $1 million to those ideas that are proved to be successful so that they can have a bigger impact in a more sustainable way.

Singer says that many of the traditional approaches when it comes aid have proved to be inadequate. Instead, he argues, fostering innovation and investing in the ideas of the people can be an effective exit strategy from poverty.

"There are only two ways for a country to develop, there's only two sources of wealth in the world," he says. "Either you mine the ground for resources and minerals,if you do that in a non-corrupt manner, or you mine the brains of your citizens for their bold ideas and help them to create social enterprises, to create businesses that can improve the local conditions in a broader scale."

He adds: "I do think that these innovators can help the problems of their community -- in fact, they are the only thing that can."

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Millennium Development Goals: challenges and the way ahead.

AP TARGET: This borehole in Dertu, Kenya, may look no different from thousands of villages that dot the landscape of sub-Saharan Africa. But it is one of `Millennium Villages' envisoned as launch pads for a mass leap out of poverty.

The achievement of the goals is not optional, but an essential investment in a fairer, safer and more prosperous world.

People often ask me what I consider to be the highlight of my career with the United Nations. While there were many wonderful moments, hosting the largest collection of world leaders ever assembled to sign the Millennium Declaration in New York is certainly among the top. The can-do-spirit in the room was infectious. And, for once, the gulf between rich and poor, between countries often at loggerheads with each other, seemed to be bridged by a genuine partnership among nations and people. Development issues were finally elevated to the highest political level. And, for the first time, developing countries were challenged to translate their development vision into nationally-owned plans.

The eight goals and the results

There is no doubt that the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and their framework of accountability have served the world well. They have not only provided a much-needed sense of direction to national plans and international cooperation, they have also delivered measurable results. We have seen primary school enrolment rates double in Ethiopia and Tanzania. Countries like Malawi and Algeria transform themselves from food importers to food exporters. We have seen HIV infections fall significantly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the number of reported malaria cases halve in high-burden countries such as Rwanda and Zambia. All around the world, we have seen efforts to achieve MDG-based targets improve the lives of millions of people.

However, we are still far from achieving what we set out to do. Too many people remain caught in extreme poverty, too many remain hungry and sick, too many mothers die in childbirth, and too many children still do not go to school. We are also not yet doing enough to meet basic needs and fulfil basic rights, to protect the environment, to build effective international partnerships for development, or to harness private entrepreneurship to deliver public goods and services to those in need.

The challenges are still great and the circumstances have not become any easier since the Millennium Summit. Back then, there was palpable confidence that the world's problems could be addressed collectively and an open acknowledgement that, in a world of plenty and astounding technological progress, the poverty, hunger, and relative depravation that so many of our fellow human beings still faced was intolerable.

That confidence has now faded, and the international consensus on development is in danger of crumbling under the weight of successive crises and a changing world order — even as the true significance of our growing interdependence is becoming increasingly obvious. The disappointing Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen was an unfortunate example of this paradoxical trend. On the one hand, the appreciation that global problems cannot be solved in one country or continent alone is growing. On the other hand, this is not translated into decisive action and overdue reform of global governance. Lack of concerted leadership and cumbersome institutional arrangements on the international level and a growing array of financial and political pressures on the national level are proving to be formidable obstacles.

Serious investors needed

I am worried that these obstacles risk may have made the September 20-22 MDG Review Summit in New York a futile exercise, characterised by grand speeches and carefully-worded promises, but followed by little meaningful action.

Several important donors have already reneged on their commitments, or at least relaxed their development efforts. They have used a variety of justifications ranging from concerns about aid efficiency to the need for a more comprehensive approach to achieving development objectives. As a result, the latest projections predict an aid shortfall of around $21 billion against the global targets. While I agree that a more coherent and results-oriented approach to development is needed, this should not be used as an excuse to cut financial assistance at the first sign of difficulties. The MDGs do not need fair-weather friends, but serious investors in for the long haul.

Political will

Revitalising the political will to achieve the MDGs, and scaling up proven interventions, is the linchpin to success. As instigator and guardian of the MDGs, the U.N. has an important role to play in this process and the High Level Advocacy Group created by Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon is a welcome step in the right direction.

The primary responsibility, however, rests with national leaders. Their challenge is to re-articulate a compelling case for global solidarity and equitable growth. One that embraces but goes beyond aid. One that addresses the growing inequalities between male and female, rural and urban, rich and poor. One that does not measure development and progress purely in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) but also of the quality and sustainability of growth. The message must be that the achievement of the MDGs is not optional, but an essential investment in a fairer, safer and more prosperous world.

But achieving the MDGs is only the first step. For even if we succeed and meet all the eight goals by 2015, almost a billion people will continue to live below the poverty line. Hundreds of millions will remain hungry. Millions will continue to die from preventable diseases or unnecessary complications.

We will certainly need to take the MDGs to the next level after the initial deadline. While there is some scepticism about the utility of naming specific goals as basis for development strategies and institutional arrangements, I remain an advocate. After all, who can argue with an objective as simple and powerful as access to food and clean drinking water, jobs, health care and education for everyone?

(Kofi Annan was U.N. Secretary-General between 1997 and 2006. He now chairs the Africa Progress Panel (www.africaprogresspanel.org) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (www.agra-alliance.org), and heads the Kofi Annan Foundation (www.kofiannanfoundation.org).)

 

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MELI MPYA YA KISASA YA AZAM MARINE YENYE UWEZO WA KUBEBA ZAIDI YA WATU 1000 NA MAGARI 200 YAWASILI NCHINI.

Meli ya Azam Marine inayoitwa Azam SeaLink 1 ikiwasili katika bandari ya Visawani  Zanzibar kwa mara kwanza.

Baadhi ya wakazi wa Zanzibar wakipiga picha Meli hiyo iliyowasili Visiwani Zanzibar.

Mzee Said Bakheresa (mwenye nguo nyeusi) akikagua mazingira ya Meli hiyo baada ya kuwasili Bandari ya Zanzibar.

Sehemu ya Parking yenye uwezo wa kuingiza magari 200.

Muonekano wa ndani wa Lounge ya kumpzikia wasafiri.

Muonekano wa nje. (Picha na Omar Said wa Kampuni ya Bakheresa).

Na Mohammed Mhina, wa Jeshi la Polisi Zanzibar

Kampuni ya Azam Marine inayomiliki boti ziendazo kasi hapa nchini, leo imeingiza meli mpya na ya kisasa itakayochukua zaiidi ya abiria 1500 na magari 200.

Meneja Mkuu wa Kampuni ya Azam Marine, Bw. Hussein Mohammed Saidi, amesema  mjini Zanzibar kuwa meli hiyo ambayo itafanya safari zake kati ya Dar es Salaam, zanzibar na Pemba itatoza nauli nafuu kwa abiria wake.

Amesema meli hiyo ambayo inatarajiwa kuanza safari zake mara baada ya kukamilisha taratibu za mamlaka mbalimbali.

Meli hiyo inayoitwa AZAM SEALINKI ni ya kisasa katika ukanda huu wa Mwambao wa nchi za Kusini na Pembe ya Afrika.

Bw. Hussein amesema Meli hiyo ambayo imetengenezwa nchini Ugiriki na inatayarishiwa eneo maalumu litakalotumika kwa kupakia na kushusha abiria na mizigo yakiwemo magari.

Amesema meli hiyo itasafiri kwa muda wa saa tatu kutoka Dar es salaam na Zanzibar na saa 4 kutoka Zanzibar na Pemba ama saa 7 kutoka dar es salaam na Pemba.

Amesema pamoja na kuwasili kwa Meli hiyo, Kampuni ya Azam pia inatarajia kuleta meli nyingine ya abiiria inayojulikana kama Kilimanjaro namba 4.

Kwa upande wao, baadhi ya wananchi wa Visiwa vya zanzibar wamepongeza ujio wa meli hiyo lakini wakaitaka serikali kuendelea kudhibiti uingizwaji wa meli chakavu na kukuu ili kuepuka uwezekano wa kutokea ajali za mara kwa mara.

Bwana Rajabu Khamisi mkazi wa Pemba na Bi. Rehema Omari wa mjini Zanzibar, wamesema kuna haja ya Serikali kusimamia ukomo wa nauli ili kila mwananchi aweze kusafiri kutoka sehemu moja na nyingine kwani wamesema vipato havilingani.

 

 

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CHINA OPENS RECORD BREAKING 4,000 FT LONG BRIDGE.

Note that the person below is 1102 feet above the ground and is sweeping the dirt off this twenty first century engineering marvel with a broom that was designed centuries ago and has no safety line. Blasting and coating this steel superstructure in a couple of decades will be an interesting project.

Aizhai Bridge in Hunan province is 336 m (1,102 ft.) high and has a 1,176 m (3,858 ft.) span.

It connects two traffic tunnels in the mountains, cutting the time needed to traverse the canyon from 30 minutes to 1 minute.

Construction took five years.

Work finished at the end of last year, making it the world’s longest and highest suspension bridge.

A brave worker put the final touches on the Anzhaite Bridge .

The bridge, which connects to two tunnels, was built to ease traffic

Drivers can take in the views of the Dehang Canyon

People and traffic during the opening ceremony.

Vehicles motor along a two-way, four-lane motorway.

Pedestrians walk along it on a special walkway under the road.

 

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HIVI NDIVYO CHINA INAVYODHIBITI OMBA OMBA.

WADAU MNADHANI TANZANIA KUNA HAJA YA KUDHIBITI OMBA OMBA WA KWETU KWA MFUMO HUU?? AU TUENDELEE KIUSHKAJI.

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JINA JIPYA LA HUU UWANJA WA NDEGE MWANZA UKIKAMILIKA UKARABATI.

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Baada ya kuependekezwa, sasa serikali imeridhia kubadilishwa kwa jina la uwanja wa ndege wa Mwanza na sasa utaitwa uwanja wa kimataifa wa Serengeti au Serengeti international airport.
Kwa sasa utafanyika ukarabati mkubwa wenye mipango mingi ikiwemo kukuza utalii kwenye mikoa ya Kanda ya Ziwa , hiyo yote itafanikiwa kwa sababu uwanja ukikamilika itakua rahisi watalii kufika katika mbuga ya wanyama ya Serengeti wakitokea Mwanza.

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Picha hii na nyingine zinazofata hapo chini ilikua ni mwezi April 2012 ambapo mvua ilinyesha alafu bati likawa linavuja maji yanaingia mpaka ndani, ikabidi abiria waliokua wakisubiri kupanda ndege wahame walipokua wamekaa zikawekwa ndoo.

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JINSI MJI WA KIGALI RWANDA ULIVYOJENGEKA..

Hii yoye ni juhudi za Rais Paul Kagame akiwa anaiongoza nchi ambayo sio muda mrefu sana toka itoke kwenye vita.

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Hapa ndio lilikua soko lao kama Kariakoo, kulikua kumekaa ovyo sana lakini muonekano wa sasa ndio huu.

Hii ndio plan ya muonekano wa mji wa Kigali kwa miaka michache ijayo

 

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From the World Bank, a credit to nutrition in India

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The World Bank has approved $106 million to improve the health, diet and personal hygiene of pregnant women and children in India.

The World Bank approved Thursday (Sept. 8) a mixture of credits and loans to India, with one centering on improving the nutrition of pregnant women and children.

A total of $106 million — the first of the bank’s two-phase loan — will go to the ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project. The money will be used to improve government interventions in ensuring the health, diet and personal hygiene of pregnant women and children aged 3 years old and below.

The project indicates a shift in the government’s focus. For years, India had been focusing on food-based interventions and on children aged 3 to 6 years old. However, research has shown that “undernourishment can begin before a child is even born, with the critical period continuing until she turns two,” World Bank Country Director Onno Rûhl said in a press release.

Sixty percent of malnutrition cases in India are in the low-income states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The project will be financed by the International Development Association, the bank’s anti-poverty lending arm which will also be responsible for a $60 million watershed development project in the Indian state of Karnataka. The credit, also approved Thursday, is expected to benefit 160,000 farmer households in seven districts in Karnataka.

In addition, the World Bank has approved a $100 million development policy loan for Himachal Pradesh, a mountain state in northern India. The money will be used to support the government’s “transformative actions” in the areas of energy, watershed management and tourism. The loan will come from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

 

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Can better communications end malaria?

inShare

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership has unveiled a strategic framework to better integrate communications in national malaria-control programs.

Access to and availability of malaria interventions have been improving through the years. In Africa, where the disease burden is high, more people own insecticide-treated nets, more women receive intermittent preventive treatment and more children are given anti-malaria medicines within 24 hours.

But while access to these life-saving interventions has improved, challenges remain: low funding, differing behaviors and communication shortfalls. The last, evidence suggests, can mobilize politicians to adopt policies that could reduce drug costs, ramp up knowledge and awareness of malaria among communities, and motivate more people to protect themselves from contracting the disease.

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership has recognized the importance of proper communication in eliminating the global threat of malaria. At the recently concluded 13th East Africa Subregional Network annual meeting, RBM unveiled a strategic framework that will help nongovernmental organizations and governments integrate communications in their malaria control strategies.

The framework consists of six actions points, namely:

• Ensure commitment from donors and organizations on funding, capacity building and technical assistance for communication programs.
• Appoint a national malaria communication coordinator and establish a national communication working group for capacity building and to boost coordination at country level.
• Build a ‘community of practice’ to share best practices and avoid duplication of efforts.
• Integrate regular, timely communication in country malaria programs.
• Set up an operational research agenda to better understand people’s behavior, improve effectiveness of interventions and build a stronger evidence base per approach.
• Create an RBM communication working group, which, according to the framework, will serve as the “focal point for the implementation of the present Strategic Framework.”

To determine whether the framework will have a positive impact on malaria control and prevention efforts, the action points will be measured against four indicators.

• Presence of an evidence-based, national communications strategy at 80 percent of high-burden countries.
• Regular allocations for communications from these high-burden countries’ malaria control budgets.
• Regular dissemination of evidence of the impact of communications on malaria control.
• Within one year, RBM should have set up “community of practice and database that maps partners in the majority of high-burden countries in order to facilitate partner collaboration.”

 

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‘Private sector for food security’

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Vegetables at a market in Tajikistan. A one-day conference on food security will focus on countries in the southern and eastern Mediterranean region and those in the Black Sea and Central Asia.

 

Food security will be in the spotlight once again at a one-day conference the Food and Agriculture Organization and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development are hosting next week.

More than 100 managers from agricultural companies, agricultural ministers and leaders of various international development organizations are expected to participate at the meeting, dubbed “Private Sector for Food Security Conference.”

The assembly will focus on countries in the southern and eastern Mediterranean region and those in the Black Sea and Central Asia, which need “massive investments” to tackle food security, according to a press release. Initiatives that can improve trade conditions in both regions as well as ways to boost policy discussions between governments and the private sector will be among the topics to be tackled in the event’s working sessions.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and EBRD President Suma Chakrabarti will be attending the conference, which will be held Sept. 13 in Istanbul, Turkey.

 

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AusAID sees some success in fight against fraud

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Peter Baxter, director-general of the Australian Agency for International Development, boasted recently of the aid program’s success in cutting losses due to fraud.

After last year’s independent aid effectiveness review on the Australian Agency for International Development’s “fraud management,” the agency further intensified efforts to fight “fraud risks.” These efforts seem to be paying off.

Peter Baxter, director-general of the Australian Agency for International Development, boasted recently of the aid program’s success in cutting losses due to fraud — from some 1.4 million Australian dollars ($1.43 million) in fiscal 2010-2011 to AU$580,000 Australian dollars in fiscal 2011-2012, according to ABC News.

The reduction, Baxter says, was due to AusAID’s comprehensive approach to “combating fraud risks.” The program has “more than doubled” support for fraud control and has appointed fraud control officers in high-risk locations, according to a press release.

But these are not the only measures the aid agency has taken since the independent review of its aid program last year.

AusAID has introduced a risk and fraud management plan at every “post,” which it updates annually. It has also maintained a memorandum of understanding with the World Bank Integrity Vice Presidency, enabling the aid agency to stop dealing with organizations debarred by the bank and the other multilateral financial institutions that signed the cross-debarment agreement in 2010.

Further, AusAID has continued to review and audit specific fraud control mechanisms of its partner nongovernmental organizations, commercial contractors and tertiary institutions. This ensures their compliance in the agency’s “financial, contractual and activity management requirements, including fraud reporting and risk management,” an AusAID spokesman told Devex.

The agency has opened up a risk management and fraud control branch in March to boost its fraud control capacity as well. Moreover, countries are being “assessed in detail” before AusAID disburses funds to support development work, although the agency also provides assistance to these countries to improve oversight and fraud control.

Most cases of fraud were found in the Asia-Pacific region, including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia. “Significantly less cases” are found in countries in Africa and Latin America.

The agency was mired in controversy last year due to such cases of fraud. Documents acquired by media through the country’s Freedom of Information Act revealed fraud cases that involved corrupt overseas agencies and officials in some 27 countries.

Some cases under investigation involve falsification of documents concerning grant applications, alteration in check payments, and “collusion among tenderers and falsification of quotes submitted in tender processes.”

In April, Laurie Dunn, the agency’s first assistant director-general, expressed the difficulty of recovering money lost to fraud. But the spokesman said the latest estimated “figures are subject to change and potentially may improve as AusAID continues investigation of matters and makes further recovery efforts.”

 

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Why is it so difficult to reform fossil fuel subsidies?

In a post on Duncan Green’s From Poverty to Power blog, IDS Climate Change Team Leader Matthew Lockwood explains why politics are making it difficult to reform controversial subsidies for oil, electricity and coal in developing countries.
In recent years, $500 billion a year or more has been spent globally on making high-carbon fuels cheap, with around 40% of that coming from developing countries, including some of the big emerging economies such as China, India, Indonesia and South Africa.
However, fossil fuel subsidies have a number of negative impacts:

• they are a type of negative carbon pricing (i.e. a carbon subsidy);
• the majority of the benefits are captured by the middle classes rather than the poor; and
• they take up fiscal resources that could be spent on public services or better targeted social protection.

Dr Lockwood explains that reform of subsidies has been on the G20 agenda since the Pittsburgh Summit in 2009, but has proved difficult to achieve in practice. Where attempts at subsidy reduction or removal have taken place, they have often been reversed within a few days (e.g. Ghana in 2008, Nigeria in 2012), postponed (Indonesia in 2012), or at best been highly partial (India since the 1990s). Fuel price rises often provoke violent street protests – the most recent example is Sudan.

Dr Lockwood argues that the political role played by subsidies is crucial to understanding how a reform package might be more successful. For example, concerns about corruption mean that any promises to compensate people for the loss of fuel subsidies with a targeted benefit face a big credibility problem. People see that there is no incentive for ruling regimes to eliminate corruption and distribute resources fairly, and there is no impartial third party which can enforce the promise.
He concludes: ‘This really is an area where a better understanding of the political economy of reform could help bring about practical change that benefits poor people and the environment in a major way.’

 

 

 

 

 

Is the faultline among NGOs over the future of development deepening?

A study of NGOs is sparking debate about whether development is too skewed towards aid rather than the causes of poverty

Down the tube … A report claiming NGOs have gone awry has not gone down well with Duncan Green of Oxfam. Photograph: Jeffrey Blackler/Alamy

A paper summarising the academic literature on the role of NGOs in development and poverty reduction has sparked a lively debate on From Poverty to Power, a blog written and edited by Oxfam's Duncan Green.

The gist of the June paper by the Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester, by Nicola Banks and David Hulme, is that NGOs have lost their way. Having started out as grassroots-led development bodies – "heroic organisations" that offered the potential for innovative agendas – NGOs turned into bureaucratic, depoliticised creatures that respond more to the dictates of donors than the people whose interests they claim to represent.
"Greater acknowledgment and concerns emerging from their closer proximity to donors and governments than intended beneficiaries also brought into question the very comparative advantages once lauded," wrote the authors. "NGOs could no longer be viewed as the autonomous, grassroots-oriented, and innovative organisations that they once were, raising questions about their legitimacy and sustainability."

Green, senior strategic adviser for Oxfam GB, expressed his irritation with the paper on his blog. "I've got a paper I want you to read, particularly if you work for an NGO or other lobbying outfit," he wrote. "Not because it's good – far from it – but because reading it and (if you work for an NGO) observing your rising tide of irritation will really help you understand how those working in the private sector, government or the multilateral system feel when they read a generalised and ill-informed NGO attack on their work."
Green said he had some sympathy with the critique, which he acknowledged was a fairly standard one. What he objected to were the sweeping generalisations, argument by assertion, "dodgy stats", and the lack of case studies and interviews with NGOs themselves.
Banks denied that the paper was an attack on NGOs, and expressed surprise at Green's reaction. "Our confusion reading this is why it has generated such a heated response from Duncan when his book, From Poverty to Power, is based on the well-founded premise that poverty is a political condition, and that solutions too, must be based upon transformations and redistributions of power. So why such disconnect," she wrote.

As Green acknowledged, the overall critique was a standard one and it was not the substance to which he objected, but the approach. One gripe was that the authors apparently failed to talk directly to NGOs, and thus ignored "all knowledge generated by NGOs themselves, either through interviews or reading their own massive literature on issues of power and inequality, and the challenges of relationships with CSOs [civil society organisations]."
Green has a point. There is a vigorous debate among NGOs about the present discourse on development. Some are unhappy about how much of this has been skewed towards the aid agenda, especially the focus on the 0.7% of GDP target.

John Hilary, executive director of War on Want, the anti-poverty group, is highly critical of this focus. "Far too many NGOs have lost sight of the long-term, transformative goals of international development, and are instead following a donor-led agenda of aid and service delivery," he said. "British NGOs are especially guilty of this – often highly professional and efficient, but lacking the political drive that should be the lifeblood of the sector. If we are to play our proper role in civil society, NGOs need to learn from grassroots movements and embrace a far more radical vision of change."

Hilary belongs to a group called the progressive development forum, which seeks to reframe the debate away from aid, charity and philanthropy towards one of global justice and shifting the discourse towards structural causes of poverty. At a meeting of the forum in July, attended by 50 senior figures from a wide range of NGOs – among them the World Development Movement and Jubilee Debt Campaign – and trade unions, many of the concerns raised were similar to those voiced by Banks and Hulme.

The meeting laid bare a faultline among NGOs on the state of the development debate. Several participants said they did not want to be involved in further alliances with the larger aid agencies that are mounting their own campaign on food, aid and hunger, linked with the UK government, in the runup to next year's G8.

"There was a strong feeling that we should cease to be so British and 'polite', and instead be more willing to enter into open criticism of NGOs and to challenge those that are beyond the pale in their distortion of the agenda, particularly agencies such as Save the Children that are now reviving unacceptable imagery of the south in their communications," said a report by the forum from the July meeting.

The UK hunger summit at Downing Street at the weekend, attended by NGOs, politicians and the private sector, crystallised the difference of approach. On one side of the divide are Save the Children and the advocacy group One, which pushed hard for the summit. They urged target commitments to reduce hunger and malnutrition and would argue the summit was a success.

But those demanding a more fundamental rethink on development would say the summit tinkered around the edges. Owen Barder, senior fellow and director for Europe at the Centre for Global Development, wrote: "The discussion in 2013 should be much more about the responsibility of G8 countries to improve their own policies – and this summit on malnutrition unfortunately did not start that conversation as it needs to continue. The risk is that the G8 will think that they can address these issues by earmarking some of their aid programmes and they will not feel under pressure to make the systemic changes which only they can make."

With the focus on the UK as it takes over the G8 next year from the US, and the discussions on hunger and nutrition set to continue, this faultline among British NGOs can be expected to deepen.