Why Are We Leaving Older Women Out?

Ecosystem Op-Eds, Guest Posts

Stories about women raped by soldiers, or old into sexual slavery and trafficked have been documented and used to develop a global conscience about this issue. Global campaigns have produced innovative solutions that include everything from crowdsourcing to programs that help communities understand the dangers and signs of gender based violence.
While we can applaud this progress, we must also recognize that there is still a long way to go if we are going to prevent and eliminate all violence against all women. Despite hundreds of studies that have been collected over the years, there is a huge gap in data about older women’s experiences. In fact, the voices of women over 49 are absent from the conversation about violence against women.

The New World Order: Smart Democracy in the Age of Multi-Level Governance

Ecosystem Op-Eds, Guest Posts

Intermediation is not going away but it is changing and we should all agree that’s for the better. It’s changing in two fundamental ways:
1. Who is intermediating?
2. How are they intermediating?
In the old paradigm, large organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations, CARE, Save the Children, and the Red Cross hired the experts to i) analyze problems and ii) design solutions. They then iii) mobilized the money to fund those solutions, iv) hired the staff or consultants to deliver the solutions; and then finally v) organized any monitoring and evaluation.

A Housing System Built for Zero: Data Collection and Coordination

Ecosystem Op-Eds, Guest Posts

By utilizing data, communities are creating systems that are built for learning in order to change and improve as they go, helping them prioritize resources, identify gaps and match people to the best housing opportunities to fit their needs. This post is the final in a series about the elements of a coordinated assessment and housing placement system (CAHP). This post offers an overview of data collection and communication, which plays a vital role in the housing referral process. We’ll also take another look at Take Down Targets, which are helping to drive results as we push on toward an end to veteran and chronic homelessness.

Impact: So What? Measuring and Learning around Accountability

Ecosystem Op-Eds, Guest Posts

The Accountability Lab and Feedback Labs recently co-hosted an event at the OpenGov Hub in Washington, DC entitled “Impact: So What?” The idea was to generate an honest conversation around how we are measuring impact in the accountability and transparency space and what we can collectively learn from this process to help us improve. Preceded by a Twitter chat (#impactchat) and a twin event at the OpenGov Hub Kathmandu, the discussion brought together a diverse crowd of activists, non-profits, policymakers and donors.

Using Healthcare Narrative Methods to Improve Outcomes

Ecosystem Op-Eds, Guest Posts

In healthcare, numbers matter.  They are the measures of physical condition – blood pressure, temperature, height and weight – in a patient profile. They govern the amount of time a provider spends with each patient daily in order to elicit the information needed for assessments and diagnoses.
Increasingly, research shows that a vital aspect of that information is the patient context: the environments, values, relationships and experiences that shape who patients are and how they live. This context directly impacts health, and shapes the challenges patients face in striving to be well; communicating about life outside the four walls of healthcare is thus integral to healthcare that addresses patients’ individual needs.