or: Why I am fantasising about standardisation and algorithms.

The NGO/non-profit world has told each other stories about its need for “digital transformation” or “digital maturity” for probably more than a decade now. Each year, the story is repeated with more urgency and sprinkled with some cases of organisations who “digitally transformed” their operations.

What is our role in that change, as monitoring, evaluation, and learning professionals? I would argue that despite the case studies featuring new mapping technologies, methods for field data collection and the invention of Tableau and Power BI, the M&E sector lags behind what would be possible and desirable in 2019. …

This is a post about power and climate change, which is actually part of a small series. You can read the first post here. Synopsis: the small island developing state Dominica was hit badly by a hurricane in September 2017, pushing its Prime minister to embark on a campaign to become “the first climate resilient nation” in the world. What’s the chances of that claim making any real-world difference?

Short answer: potentially a great deal, but more people on and off the island need to be more strategic about their response.

The long answer:

Firstly, not the First

First of all, and this will be my only occasion to be so pedantic, let’s drop the “first” from this claim. Firstly because it assumes there is an agreed “finish line”, a standard of climate resilience everyone can adhere to, which there isn’t. And secondly because even if we just look at commonly understood factors such as the robustness of basic infrastructure, or the availability of capital and government plans to build that infrastructure, then Dominica is pretty obviously lagging behind many countries with higher GDPs. You can read more about the state of Dominica’s economy and infrastructure here. …

Dominica is a tiny island state in the eastern Caribbean (not knowing that is almost excusable). Think green hills, glass-clear waterfalls, beautiful beaches with few tourists. Formerly 70 000 inhabitants, probably significantly less at the moment.

Dominica got hit by hurricane Maria, a category 5 hurricane, in September 2017. Even though people there see storms every year, the destruction caused by Maria exceeded everything the islanders could imagine — and what they were prepared for. 80% of buildings destroyed or damaged, 80–90% of agricultural produce uprooted, electricity and water networks in pieces, damage estimated at 224% of the country’s GDP.

Out of the rubble comes a campaign by its prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit, touring the UN, World Bank, and regional stage: “We have publicly committed to the international community that we will rebuild ourselves as the first fully climate resilient nation in the Anthropocene. Our small island will shine the torch for others to follow”. …

This is the third post in a little series. It’s about climate change, disasters, and an island’s quest for hurricane resilience.

You can read the first post here. Synopsis: the small island developing state Dominica was hit badly by a hurricane in September 2017, causing its Prime minister to embark on a campaign to become “the first climate resilient nation” in the world. What’s the chances of that claim making any real-world difference? In the second post here, I looked at the way power can shift with such proclamations. …