New Security Beat

In her monograph: “Improving Development Aid Design and Evaluation: Plan for Sailboats, not Trains” @RachelKleinfeld explains that it is assumed that development models move like trains, in one direction with stops along the way, but always moving forward.

Instead of trains, she argues that the development projects that require policy action need to have a crew to move them forward. You judge a good crew as to whether it can understand the conditions to move towards the goal and navigate accordingly.

Why is thinking and working politically, and political economy analysis important for biodiversity? @anthronrm highlights the importance of understanding #biodiversity and the importance of trust in building #conservation.

Timing, teams, and tools are what @skl09 said helps reduce the silo-ed thinking in political economy analysis and advance work on #biodiversity and improved #environmental governance

As development practices have moved towards evidence-based decision-making, the work on political economy is vital. - @skl09 on exploring tools like data outside of the field research comfort zone i.e. social network data should be considered to advance projects.

What are the soft skills needed to advance the thinking and working politically landscape? @RachelKleinfeld said removing the acronyms and understanding, "Who’s with you, against you, and by your side."

Other soft skills worth emphasizing in the thinking while working politically framework @anthronrm: 1. Humility 2. Listening 3. Understanding the reaction to an action 4. Trust 5. Understanding power interests

We get to leave, but the people on our projects do not. First and foremost do no harm and power analysis are starting points for this work - @skl09