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Facilitating Systemic Change: PEPFAR and Healthcare in Ethiopia
Academics tend to focus on the negatives in international development, not giving as much attention and space to reflect on what has worked well. I previously wrote about a small-scale agricultural project. Here is a brief overview of a large-scale, long-term project that facilitated systemic change: The same year that I first arrived in Ethiopia, in […]
Viewing Complexity Through Life Histories
Thinking about people and objects as components in interconnected, non-linear and dynamic systems, rather than as compartmentalized and independent actors, began to take shape during the early 1900s with work by the biologist Von Bertalanffy. Throughout the last century, the systems approach was applied in a wide range of areas of inquiry, and has been used […]
Mapping coups d’etat in sub-Saharan Africa
Patrick McGowan analyzed planned, attempted, successful and failed coups d’etat in sub-Saharan African states from 1956-2001. Political instability during this period was much higher than other regions of the world, negatively affecting economic growth and human development. McGowan finds that the rate of success of attempted coups was higher than 40%, with an increase of attempts following a successful […]
One of the Most Effective Aid Projects (Agriculture)
Many individuals and organizations suggest that selecting and implementing highly effective international development projects is straightforward. My experience working in North America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia over the last twelve years is that it is far more complex. When projects are smaller-scale, some of the most effective international development projects I have seen are […]
Top Posts from 2015
Posts with the most page views in 2015: 1. International Development Essential Reading (Books) 2. Conducting Research in Ethiopia 3. Advice for Conducting Household Surveys 4. Want to Volunteer Overseas and Don’t Know Where to Start? 5. PhD Reality Check
Land’s End (2014)
Tania Murray Li, professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, published Land’s End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier in 2014. If you are interested in ideas put forward by James C. Scott, such as his Weapons of the Weak or Seeing Like a State, Li provides a number of challenges and alternative conclusions. In […]
In Canadian Association of Food Studies Newsletter
Canadian Association for Food Studies (2015) Fall 2015 Newsletter, Issue 20, p. 10.
Blinded by Humanity (2015)
Interested in international development, NGOs or the United Nations? Martin Barber’s “Blinded by Humanity: Inside the UN’s Humanitarian Operations” (2015) provides insight on the challenges and lessons learned. On good intentions: “…if there is one message that I would pass on to young people wanting to do good in the world, it is this: be passionate, but […]
The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957)
Published in 1957, this book is authored by a Tunisian living under French colonial rule. Albert Memmi’s wrote as European colonization was falling. It provides broader insight into oppressor-oppressed relationships: On the system: “Racism appears then, not as an incidental detail, but as a consubstantial part of colonialism. It is the highest expression of the colonial system […]
New Publication in the Journal of International Development
Cochrane, L. and Thornton, A. (2016) Charity Rankings: Delivering Development or Dehumanizing Aid? Journal of International Development DOI: 10.1002/jid.3201 Abstract Individuals want to know which organisations to donate to, and a variety of organisations have developed ranking systems to guide them. This paper explores charity ranking, with a particular focus on the increasing role of […]
About me
Logan Cochrane
Associate Professor at HBKU in the College of Public Policy. He is an Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and an Adjunct Professor at Hawassa University (Institute for Policy and Development Research). Over the last fifteen years, he has worked in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Logan acts as a consultant for governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations, seeking to create bridges between research and practice.
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