THREAD: I❤️INNOVATION but...

Family & friends send me links about innovative tech solutions for #globaldev. I disappoint them with my muted enthusiasm.

I 💖tech. We fund brilliant innovation- e.g. in humanitarian w/ partners like @Elrha & @FldRdy bit.ly/2TNtEdX
1/25 UNFINISHED BUSINESS #LeaveNooneBehind

We also fund research tackling enduring, complex problems: extreme poverty, disability exclusion, VAWG, corruption.
There are some openings for tech, but few ‘solutions’, & the need to tackle Tech AND Political constraints is clear.
2/25

NOT MOPING, BUT MOOPING (short thread)

Farewell Migrating Out Of Poverty: 10 yrs of exceptional research.

🐣joining @DFID_RED_GCSD in 2014 I became DFID #SeniorResponsibleOwner (SRO) for MOOP & learnt loads about rsrch, partnership, policy uptake.

some reflections...

https://twitter.com/MigrationRPC/status/1207251966839185409

1.A CONTINUUM: NOT BINARY

Quant+qual rsrch in Asia/Africa/MENA showed
- dynamic continuum between licit & illicit migration;
- agency & exploitation within a single migrant journey;

Debunked simplistic policies that see migrants as <either> wholly innocent <or> wholly bad.

GOOD SPORTS - A THREAD

As well as the hype and gory of a string of sport world cups, there is some brilliant new #globaldev research on using sport as a vehicle for something even better than cardio fitness (and slightly odd smelling synthetic fabrics).
1/19 <TRAINING MONTAGE>

My interest in sport-in-dev began in trying to use a football tournament to promote WATSAN, West Bengal. Paying for tea & biscuits gave me a flash of my own mortality: the tiny trophy was engraved

<Peter Evan Memorial Cup>.

WATSAN effects? unknown.

2/19

Thread <RANDOMISTA HARVEST>

It’s been a few weeks since we were last called the R-word but it set us thinking about a summer holiday thread.
Plse forgive the mix of B-movie pulp & serious research. But if it helps to retire <Randomista> it was worth it🤨
peter, gcsd
1/21 🤨<low quality pastiche begins>

RANDOMISTA!
That cry is rarer now. In the worst times, any research conference could be disrupted by shouted denunciation. Or by rumours and unease - Randomistas had been spotted in the lobby, with offers of ‘gold standard’ evidence.
2/21

Thread: the public vs. procurement

<HUGE> development spending hides in plain sight.

Do you ignore it? Think someone else has it covered?

In LMICs upto 50% of all government spending is via <PUBLIC PROCUREMENT>

Myriad contracts: roads/bridges/hospitals/drugs....
1/24 (hand) Pump Primer:

India 1999: I worked in WATSAN. Over 1000 new handpump tubewells would replace contaminated shallow wells & rusting pumps that often stood in puddles. You paddled to collect drinking water, and the puddle seeped into the well.
2/24

<Thread> LOOK BOTH WAYS!

Prof Heather Marquette (@hamarquette of @iddbirmingham & @DFID_UK Senior Research Fellow for Governance & Conflict) thinks through how to bring 'Serious & Organised Crime' into future 'Development Research'
#LookBothWays
1/n I’ve been doing research on corruption in #globaldev for well over 20 years. But what some might not know is that I started out my PhD with a proposal to do research on serious & organised crime. SOC in Boston linked to the IRA, to be exact. bit.ly/2KYOq7w
2/n

THREAD: DISABILITY INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT (DID)
- RESEARCH & INNOVATION
@RClarkeDFID tweeted this week about @LSHTM innovation to help people with disabilities access quality eye-tests (huge unmet need).
bit.ly/2QRnlnD

Want more on @DFID_Research 's new work..?
1/14 DFID has long supported DID research - starting long before DFID was DFID.

If you like your research methods ‘old skool’ head back to 2001 (SocSci&Med) for ODA-funded research on Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) in urban India in '90s.... bit.ly/2wGKCj2 2/14

A GOVERNANCE HALF-LIFE* IN 25 TWEETS
‘Doing’ governance & (self indulgent) thoughts on #governance & #evidence & #health

I joined DFID on 9/11 (11/09/2001) as a Social Development Adviser.
Not drunk on the MDGs, but slightly merry.
I had never heard of governance. 1/25 I started work in 1993 in health research (Tz, malaria; drug prescribing), then disability inclusion (India) & consulting in health, WATSAN.
After 6 yrs in Kolkata I heard that DFID was recruiting regional specialists.
I fancied myself as a DFID South Asia specialist! 2/25

SEMINAR or SAME-INAR?
We use @ukaid to commission governance/conflict/inclusion research.
We are ‘Mission Driven’- research on policy/operational priorities where evidence is thin. Let through competition, all research is #OpenAccess.
We want people to read & use it!
1/11 We support research engagement & uptake in pursuit of real world impact (impact is where Value For Money bang is biggest) though understand that pathways to impact take time & not all research has impact. Research engagement may be digital/virtual (e.g. this tweet)… 2/11

@DFID_RED_GCSD spent 2 days in Bristol last week with massed DFID Governance Advisers; & guest researchers including #SamHickey, @mushtaqkhan100 , #MickMoore (quoting Aristotle), @hamarquette , #TomCarruthers - talking governance, politics, & pol-econ. .1/6 ...& @DFID_RED_GCSD now trying to reconcile the various different levels of Political Economy Analysis (PEA) / Thinking & Working Politically /Political Settlement research....
Does this stuff matter?
YES! we use these tools to inform £££ millions of public spending. 2/6