The December 2011 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The November 2011 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The October 2011 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The September 2011 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The July 2011 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

Yesterday, the compromise FY2011 full-year appropriations bill (HR 1473) passed through Congress, with a 260-117 vote in the House of Representatives and an 81-19 vote in the Senate. President Obama will sign the bill sometime today.

Negotiations over FY2011 spending between Senate Democrats and House Republicans remain at an impasse this afternoon. A government shutdown looms if an agreement is not reached by midnight tonight. Please check out InterAction’s extended coverage of the FY 2011 appropriations process in the Washington Update section below.

Our thoughts are with those in Japan and other countries across the Pacific Ocean that have been affected by the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami. InterAction member organizations have strong partnerships with civil society groups in Japan that are responding.

Weekly Public Policy Update for Feb. 11, 2011. Covers the upcoming federal budget discussions next week and several hearings on Capitol Hill that took place Feb. 7-11, 2011.

“We estimate that between 2005 and 2010, nearly half a billion people escaped extreme hardship, as the total number of the world's poor fell to 878 million people. Never before in history have so many people been lifted out of poverty in such a short period.”

Transcript of an interview of InterAction's president and CEO, Sam Worthington, and the State Department's Special Coordinator for Haiti, Thomas Adams, on the way forward in Haiti after the one year anniversary of the earthquake on January 12, 2010.

The March 2011 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The people of Southern Sudan are a little more than one month away from casting their votes in a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or become an independent state. The referendum is the most significant milestone in a six-year interim period that began with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005.

•Largely unnoticed outside the region, the Sudanese states of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile have begun the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)–mandated process of popular consultation, which permits Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile to either adopt the CPA as the final settlement between the two states and the Government of Sudan (GoS) or renegotiate the CPA to remedy any shortcoming

Sudan’s north-south civil war was the longest conflict in African history and claimed more than two million lives. In 2005, the United States played a critical role in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ending that conflict and setting forth a roadmap for sustainable peace. Despite many lapses and some tragic violence, the agreement has held.

On 24 September 2010, the United Nations Secretary-General convened a high-level meeting on Sudan to mobilize international support for the Sudanese parties’ full and timely implementation of the final phase of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), including the referenda on the self-determination of the people of Southern Sudan and on the status of Abyei, and for the peace processes f

•Many of the post-referendum scenarios in Sudan envisioned by the U.S. Institute of Peace and Clingendael Institute one year ago remain plausible today, less than six months prior to the referendum.

Sudan is at a crossroads and the next 12 months could determine the future of Africa’s largest nation.

The Sudanese Network for Democratic Elections (SuNDE) is a coalition of over 75 civil society organizations in all the 10 States of Southern Sudan whose objective is to promote and protect citizens’ participation in electoral and democratic processes.
 

Ambassador Richard Williamson discusses the importance of the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act in testimony before the U.S. House of Representives Subcommittee on International Monteary Policy and Trade on November 30, 2010. 
 

Humanitarian supplies are being prepositioned at key locations in Sudan ahead of an expected referendum in the event of a possible mass movement of southern Sudanese from the north to the south, Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said today.

For the past several years, significant U.S. attention has been focused on the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region, in which roughly three hundred thousand have died and nearly three million have been displaced.

In January 2011, after nearly six decades of armed conflict and tenuous peace, Sudan will hold a referendum to determine whether the south will remain united with Sudan or secede to become an independent nation. At the same time, Abyei is to hold a referendum to decide whether to join the South or remain in the North.

The clock is ticking fast towards what might be the most important date in modern Sudanese history – two
referenda in Sudan that are likely to result in the breakup of Africa’s largest state. With six months remaining
until 9 January 2011, the scheduled date of the referenda, the run-up to, and outcome of, the vote must be

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the final report of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). The report provides a blueprint for elevating American "civilian power" to better advance national interests and to be a better partner to the U.S. military.

“For the first time, there’s been an attempt to rationalize the role of U.S. diplomats and development officers around the world and how diplomacy and development advance U.S.

The November 2010 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The July 2010 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The June 2010 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The May 2010 issue of Monday Developments Magazine

The December 2009 issue of Monday Developments

A progress report about encouraging government accountability in Uganda to rebuild the northern region since publication of InterAction’s 2008 Foreign Assistance Briefing Book.

A progress report on efforts to end conflict in Sri Lanka ince publication of InterAction’s 2008 Foreign Assistance Briefing Book.

A progress report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo since publication of InterAction’s 2008 Foreign Assistance Briefing Book.

The November 2009 issue of Monday Developments

This InterAction Forum 2008 session shed light on current evaluation perspectives and approaches of organizations such as Oxfam America and Mercy Corps International within the realm of their humanitarian response, transition, development and advocacy initiatives. It also produced some candid and informal discussions on how to best evaluate programs and showcase real program effectiveness.

The 25th Anniversary Forum special issue of Monday Developments

The leadership of major NGOs understands that employees are their most valuable asset. Investing in staff, and in particular staff care, is not only the right thing to do, it is also the cost-effective thing to do. It improves staff retention rates and the completion of assignments, and it decreases the costs associated with frequent staff turnover.

Thousands of people in our community are engaged in the day-to-day work of reducing the devastating impact of poverty, providing humanitarian relief and responding to natural and man-made disasters in every country of the world.

Climate change was described as the "defining issue of our era" by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the 2007 G8 Summit in Germany. In this edition of Monday Developments, we explore how climate change is impacting the poor around the world.

In this issue of Monday Developments, we have allowed ourselves the luxury of a deliberately ambitious goal: to invite practitioners from within and outside our community to share with us their take on happenings that are consistent and frequent enough to be considered trends.

We’ve all heard it before: "Americans don’t care about foreign affairs." "Politicians aren’t concerned with the developing world—they’re more interested in getting re-elected, so they only care about local issues." Those in the development community know that these statements aren’t true, and are increasingly proving that fighting poverty and injustice everywhere is an American ideal.