'Development Outreach' on the Contours and Possibilities of Open Development

Is the newly fashionable term 'open development' another masterpiece of imprecision, or does it mean something real, definable and enduring? The latest edition of the World Bank Institute's flagship magazine, Development Outreach, invites you to partake in a meditation on an emerging paradigm shift in development practice.

The World Bank Institute (WBI)  asked me to serve as Guest Editor of the edition. I was delighted to accept. And  the CommGAP team worked on the edition with our WBI colleagues. Together, we brought together a number of leading thinkers from around the world to reflect on aspects of what we think constitutes 'open development'.

I hereby invite you to meet them and to see what you make of what they have to say:

• The Contours and Possibilities of Open Development, Sanjay Pradhan, World Bank Institute, and Sina Odugbemi, World Bank 


• Enabling Open Government, Anupama Dokeniya, World Bank


• Open Development: Beyond Proprietary Solutions, Angge Gregorio-Medel, Affiliated Network for Social Accountability for East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP)


• The Power of Public Discourse, Kavita Abraham Dowsing, BBC World Service Trust


• In the News: An Interview with Steven Livingston, Steven Livingston, George Washington University


• New Media: Challenging the Establishment, Ivan Sigal, Global Voices


• Producing Home Grown Solutions: Think Tanks and Knowledge Networks in International Development, Ajoy Datta, Overseas Development Institute


• Co-Creating Development, Venkat Ramaswamy, University of Michigan


• Access to Aid Data Transforms Lives, Alasdair Wardhaugh, United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID)


• Enhanced Social Accountability through Open Access to Data: Geomapping World Bank Projects, Björn-Sören Gigler and Johannes Kiess, World Bank Institute


• Debate: Who's Business is Development? Not a Popularity Contest: Bringing Rigor to Open Development, Ariel Fiszbein, World Bank


• Debate: Whose Business is Development? Experts in an Open Society, Rakesh Rajani, Twaweza

Please feel free to write in and comment on what we are all saying.

Photo Credit: Kannan B (on Flickr)

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