Our commitment to international development, where is it?

While the Northern Ireland Executive has taken the important step of setting up an All Party Working Group on International Development we would appear to be miles behind our neighbours in Scotland in this regard. NIDOS which is the main Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland has just been set up. Recently the Scottish Government announced its international development budget. I look forward to similar commitments here.

People's Learning and Action

The Institute for People's Education and Action seeks to identify, support, and facilitate community-based, learner-led education as a strategic tool for community organizing and democratic social change. It has some useful links to Grundtvig Folk Schools, Latin American Popular Education, Study Circle learning and much more. They also have a useful set of resources including links to other People's and Communal based learning networks, an extensive bibliography and educational resources and toolkits. Very useful indeed.

Training for transformation

The Partners Training for Transformation, who have been hiding out in Ireland, are an independent agency dedicated to personal, group, organisational and societal transformation through community development work. Partners have been largely involved in cross-border and cross-cultural contexts and have developed considerable international networks. They have recently brought out the publication Partners Intercultural Companion to Training for Transformation: Exercises, Processes, Resources, and Reflections for Intercultural Work. This new resource written by Maureen Sheehy, Frank Naughton, and Collette O'Reagan is a compilation of exercises, processes, resources and reflections used by facilitators over several years. It draws mainly from the experience of PARTNERS’ work in Ireland, Wales, England, Scotland and in a European Grundtvig Learning experience.

Eight hot topics for international development in 2008

From Laurence Haddad, Director of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Read more here.

DARD announce publication of Farm Planning Handbook

'The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) have announced the publication of the ‘Farm Business Data 2008’ farm planning handbook. "Farm Business Data 2008" will be a valuable source of information for farmers, their professional advisors, those undertaking formal training in agriculture or anyone who requires planning and budgetary data relating to farming in Northern Ireland. The role of ‘Farm Business Data’ is to provide a comprehensive and authoritative source of physical and financial information that is tailored to farm planning needs in Northern Ireland.'

Download handbook here.

The Smart Toolkit; evaluating information products and services

Communication is vital for rural development. But what makes communication effective? Who bothers to find out? Seemingly few, after all evaluation of communication tools and products is involved and complex. Thankfully some organisations involved in information documentation and dissemination have placed emphasis on evaluating the effectiveness of their products and services such as newsletters, websites, training events and databases and dossiers. The Smart Toolkit, which is a collaboration between CTA, KIT and IICD, is one example of such an evaluation toolkit. Follow the links on the left hand side of the website and it will take you to the original toolkit (which is currently being updated).

Mind the gap!

'Gapminder is a non-profit venture
promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics
and other information about social, economic and environmental development at
local, national and global levels.'

There are a range of powerful tools and resources on the website. You can select various indicators and watch how they have changed over time.

Excellent resource, try it out!