Accountability Matters » Uncategorized

Status Update: Back to Brighton, looking for work!

alan hudson — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:27:00 +0000

From June 2010, I will be based in the UK. Much of my time over the next six months will be spent working on accountability-related issues for DFID’s Policy Division. However, please do drop me a line at alan@alanhudson.info if you want to discuss opportunities for freelance collaboration. My speciality is the analysis and provision of context-sensitive advice about governance and accountabilities. Click here for more information about me, my skills and experience.

What to do? A request for career advice!

alan hudson — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:09:32 +0000

Decisions about what to do career-wise are seldom easy. My time with DFID Ethiopia comes to an end at the end of May. It’s been great. I did have a job to go back to at ODI, but I’ve decided not to take that option.

There are a number of factors to consider, some of which don’t feature below despite being particularly important (Hello Amanda!), and time-scales to play with. I’ve come up with criteria, scoring systems and weighting systems that are too embarrassing for public consumption. However, I thought it would be good to get some advice from the friends and colleagues and fellow development wonks who occasionally have a look at my blog.

I’ve whittled it down to three simple questions:

What would be the most interesting thing to do?
What would be the best thing to do in terms of learning new stuff? (I like learning new stuff, and it looks good on my CV … a CV which is a bit short on long-term developing country experience)
What would be the most useful thing to do? (my goal is to contribute to global poverty reduction – yeah, I know it might sound crazy …)

I’m happy to take suggestions as to better questions to ask, but those three will do for now.

In terms of options, let’s keep that simple too for now. Some of this is slightly wishful thinking, but let’s say that I have 4 options:

Option A, doing policy-relevant research at a place like ODI, in the developed world.
Option B, doing a policy job at a development agency in the UK.
Option C, being a governance adviser in a development agency’s country office.
Option D, being a UK-based freelance development consultant (perhaps while I decide amongst A, B and C)

What do you reckon? With those criteria and those options, what should I go for? Putting voting buttons on my blog is beyond me, but if you have any thoughts please do drop me a line or add a comment!

If you’ve got other options that I should be considering, don’t hesitate to drop me a line. I’m available for weddings, christenings, barmitzvahs, and short or long-term consultancies on governance and accountability

Protected: First impressions

alan hudson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:15:54 +0000

Next stop Addis!

alan hudson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:05:26 +0000

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.

Time-thievery

alan hudson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:37:25 +0000

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.

Opening lines

alanhudson1 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:52:57 +0000

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 …