Governance

A complaint that can only be heard by the people it is about is not a safeguard. It is a suggestion box with a lock.

The smoke alarm works perfectly. It is wired, tested, and certified. It sounds on schedule. And the room is on fire, and no one moves, because everyone is busy logging that the alarm performed exac…

When we say we trust local actors, the budget should be able to read the sentence.

We mounted the suggestion box on the wall, photographed it for the report, and never told a single person who spoke into it what we did with their words.

Localization has become one of the most repeated commitments in our sector, and one of the hardest to see in the accounts. We affirm it in strategies, on panels, and in annual reports. Yet by the m…

A budget is written in one currency and spent in another. Between the two sits a number that moves on its own: the exchange rate. When it moves the right way, a program quietly gains a little room….

We keep producing better evidence and wondering why the decisions do not move.

We are rightly afraid of losing money. A diverted grant, a fraudulent invoice, a payment that cannot be accounted for: each one can end a program, damage a reputation, and betray the trust of the p…

We have built a quiet preference for the proposal with the lowest overhead. It looks like good stewardship. A leaner budget seems to send more of every dollar to the people we serve, and on the pag…

We hand decisions down in the calm and pull them back in the storm, then call the result delegation.