I once watched a three-week handover collapse in a dusty compound outside Goma because a departing logistics officer spent four days polishing a transition report …
The Handover at the End of a Mission
June 2026
Measuring Whether People Can Absorb a Shock
I’ve sat through enough donor briefings to know that most people have no clue how resilience is measured in the real world. They want to …
Deploying People in Seventy Two Hours
I remember sitting in a humid warehouse outside Goma in 2012, staring at a stack of empty crates while a coordinator in Geneva gave a …
The Same Lesson Learnt Four Times
I remember sitting in a humid, windowless office in Goma, staring at a forty-page “After Action Report” that cost more to produce than the actual …
Reading a Ministry Budget
I spent most of my nine years in East Africa staring at spreadsheets that looked perfect on paper, only to watch the actual supplies rot …
Lending Below Market Rates
I spent most of my years in the field watching people argue over spreadsheets while the actual supplies sat idling at a border crossing. You’ll …
Designing for a Changing Climate
I spent three weeks in South Sudan waiting for a shipment of solar pumps that looked perfect on a spreadsheet in Geneva, only to realize …
Finding a Story in a Dataset
I spent nine years in South Sudan and the DRC watching people pour millions into “digital transformation” while the actual supplies sat rotting in a …
Evaluating a Response While It Runs
I spent a decade in the back of dusty Land Cruisers and humid warehouses, and if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people …
Paying Someone Else to Check
I spent nine years in the dust of South Sudan and the DRC, watching people present glossy spreadsheets to donors while the actual supplies sat …