Of fleabites and aid exit

"A year, in the timescale of international development, is barely a fleabite": so began today's Guardian editorial on Katine. Apologies for returning to it but I do like the reflective nature of the reporting and commentary on the project's interactions with the Ugandan community they have chosen to help. It marks a change from dry donor-speak about "sustainability". But we have to take the latter seriously because donors do choose to disengage from projects they initiated (often too soon it seems to me). On this theme, the Christian Michelsen Institute in Norway was commissioned by a consortium of Nordic donors to review issues around donor exit: their report dealt with projects in Botswana, Malawi, Eritrea, South Africa and India. It has just been published on the Sida website.