Exit Strategy: An exit strategy is a well-planned approach to ending post-disaster project support through a controlled and gradual cessation of activities or passing responsibility for the project to a local partner or community of beneficiaries. I wrote these words during my tenure as projects coordinator for the Australian Red Cross in Aceh following the … More The Exit Strategy
I am in the middle of evaluating a Human Trafficking project in a large Asian country. The well-known international organization I am evaluating has made some great improvements in combatting this awful problem. But I have faced a massive dilemma in evaluating the victim ‘protection’ projects I was taken to see because of what I … More RESCUED?
Following a few weeks’ residence in Liberia, in which I spent a total of two days in field research and interviews, I was then off to Sierra Leone for 5 days, in which another day was allotted for field research. Despite a full schedule, I only managed 1 very formal, large, crowded ‘interview’, but a … More My West African Development Safari
This is one of the very first ethnographic articles I ever wrote, and which went on to thoroughly influence how I went about the rest of my career. Street kids trained me in ethnographic analysis, patience, trust, and how to combine advocacy with research. In short, if you are not giving back something to the … More The Family of GIRLI: the Homeless Children of Yogyakarta
The Disaster of Development: How Women’s “Empowerment” Projects are Damaging Indonesian Smallholder Farming, Rural Families, and the Environment[1] Laine Berman, PhD Abstract: Ecofeminism, or ecological feminism, is based on a belief that the social mentality that leads to the domination and oppression of women is directly connected to the social mentality that leads to … More The Disaster of Development: How Women’s “Empowerment” Projects are Damaging Indonesian Smallholder Farming, Rural Families, and the Environment
Postcard from Flores: on food Flores is one of my favorite places on earth – a small tropical island in Eastern Indonesia with cool weather, amazing mountains and scenery, fabulous beaches, abundant greenery with things to pick and eat everywhere! One never goes hungry in Flores – or so I thought. In Flores, my favorite … More Postcard from Flores – Signed, a concerned project evaluator
Laine Berman 