Perhaps I should introduce myself as this is my first contribution to the Newsletter… and it will tell you about my first assignment for Mokoro. I may be new to Mokoro, but I’m certainly not new to this business.. with almost 20 years and 35 countries under my belt.. I was obviously just a bit…

Advocates for more secure land rights for the poor and vulnerable are a diverse and disparate group and not always of one mind on how to achieve their objective. Nonetheless, in January 2014, we were all united in mourning the sudden and unexpected loss of a much loved and respected mentor – Professor Patrick McAuslan….

In the face of discernible fatigue around the Post-2015 Agenda, Mokoro’s seminar brought a fresh perspective to the question of what’s next after the MDGs, focusing specifically on the education sector, and bringing to bear emerging thinking on inequality, a preview of the latest report on global education progress, and new research into how partners…

The national budget lies at the intersection of all important decisions to be made in the public sector. By allocating resources as a means to realise policy goals, the budget is intrinsic to the policy-making process itself. Getting it right, then, deserves a concentrated, multi-shareholder effort, and in this vein the 2013 ODI-CAPE conference brought…

Sitting in the diplomatic enclave in the capital, Kinshasa, it is very hard to visualise the vastness of the Democratic Republic of Congo (‘DRC’) – stretching as it does from the South Atlantic across jungles and savannah to Lake Tanganyika – and bordering nine countries1. With the majestic Congo River draped around its shoulders, the land…

In an African Arguments brief in January 2011, I wondered ‘why, given that the long-term impact of global land grabbing on many African rural communities could well be catastrophic, does there appear to exist an almost total conspiracy of silence on the subject?’. But I added, ‘I sense that this may at last be beginning…

In a discussion on the limitations of institutional reform in developing countries and why many reforms have failed to bring about desired change, Matt Andrews refers to the ‘invisible norms’ and ‘cultural cognitive and normative mechanisms’ that form the foundations for the new ‘rules of the game’. He argues that many reforms do not look at these…

For over twenty years, Mokoro has been involved in the planning, assessment and evaluation of programmes that aim to strengthen people’s rights to land and other natural resources. In the course of our work for governments, funding agencies and international NGOs in East, Central, West and southern Africa, we have advised on land redistribution, on…

The ODI fellowship scheme has been placing junior economists in line positions in Governments of developing countries for 50 years, and counts the founders of Mokoro amongst its alumni. As my two-year posting in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning of the Government of South Sudan draws to a close, I consider myself very…

It feels as though I’ve waited almost a whole career for this to happen. Perhaps that’s because my daughter, Hebe, is here in Dakar to attend the dialogue event on agriculture that is being organised by the Collaborative African Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI). Hebe has just finished her second year at Uni, where she is…