Moving on

As of 19th September I’m taking up the position of Team Leader, Knowledge Management and M&E with the UN Development Operations Coordination Office (UNDG).

I’m leaving UNICEF (well actually going on secondment) after 14 great years and so this is quite an emotional move for me, even though the new job is only across the road from my old job. I’m sorry not to be able to see through the next phase of UNICEF’s knowledge management work which is being reconstituted as part of a new Office of Research being set up in Florence – but it’s also good to take on new challenges and learn new things in a different environment.

I plan to keep blogging here about knowledge management and development and the insights I gain through my new work. Among the tasks in my new job will be identifying documenting, sharing and promoting good practice in how the various UN Development Agencies can work better together to achieve results.

UN agencies often come in for criticism in the media and even in development circles, despite much good and important work that they do. UNICEF, with its long history and track record and its appealing mandate tends to come out among the best in public opinion surveys while other agencies are often less well known and respected. This makes the work of identifying and sharing good practice from the UN’s work all the more important – and more challenging when the audiences for this are more skeptical and demanding – a challenge I am looking forward to.

It will also be good to see things from a UN system wide perspective and to see what can be done to foster knowledge sharing across the UN system beyond a single agency and further into the world beyond the UN.

Many thanks to all my colleagues and collaborators from inside and outside UNICEF – I hope to keep in touch and carry on benefitting from your wisdom and knowledge in my new job.

And here’s a bit of Curtis Mayfield that captures my mood…. 🙂

Who reads development blogs and why?

I’m just back from vacation and also preparing for an imminent job move (will share more information soon) so to ease back into blogging here’s a little request….

Those of us who are writing aid/development related blogs would like to know who is reading them, what you read, how you read it and why.

Smartaid pal Dave Algoso (and author of the excellent development blog Find What Works) has put together a nice, short questionnaire. Please take a few minutes (it takes less than 5) to complete it so us bloggers can learn more about our audiences, and then with any luck, make them better. And what’s more the results will be shared so that both bloggers and blog readers can benefit from Dave’s analysis – which will be a useful contribution to the blogging knowledge pool.

Here’s a link to the questionnaire.

Please take a mo to fill in the questionnaire, and if you have a blog please also post a link. Thanks!