Beyond the Borders

I’m doing this blog to share my thoughts about my time in Ethiopia with friends and family. I have decided to make my blog a travel-blog rather than a commentary on aid and politics in Ethiopia, in recognition of the fact that being able to do my job here is much more important than blogging, and that there might be a trade-off between the two. I’ll keep my thoughts on aid and politics for another day. I’ve also added a disclaimer.

Today is my last day of working for ODI; at least until next June. It’s been … an experience. On the upside, I’ve been involved in some very interesting pieces of work on accountability and governance, and on policy coherence. I’ve learned a lot and have worked with some great people both at ODI and at the various agencies which I’ve done work for (DFID, OECD, UNDP, Norad, European Commission CIDA, Commonwealth Secretariat, IPU, AFD). On the downside … actually, I’ll try to focus on the up-side, but overall, it’s certainly time for me to take on a new challenge and one that is less about coming up with new conceptual frameworks to look at X and is more about trying to get people to work together to achieve Y. And working in Ethiopia – particularly in the run-up to elections in May 2010 – will be a great opportunity for me to learn about development effectiveness and country ownership in practice.

Bloomin’ heck – user-friendly as the software may be, this business of setting up a weblog could steal as much time as messing around with FTP did in the mid-90s! Note to self: Don’t get sucked in.

As I’m about to go to Addis Ababa, to work for 6 months as a Governance Adviser with DFID Ethiopia I thought I would take this opportunity to write a blog.

I’m hoping that it will help me to keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues and enable me to share my thoughts about what I am sure will be a fascinating and challenging experience.

I start in Addis in about 3 weeks’ time and can’t wait to get there! Watch this space …