Author Archive:

Barry Knight

Opinion Barry Knight and Rebecca Hanshaw 29 February 2024

The change is now – but how?

After 18 months of work with the H & S Davidson Trust on its Reforming International Development programme, it is clear that the system is broken. As the world drifts towards ever more violent conflict, …

Opinion Avila Kilmurray and Barry Knight 12 December 2023

Peace needs more than one per cent of giving

Philanthropy should re-engage with peacebuilding in 2024. A gathering in Belfast must be the start of something bigger ‘We live in an age of war, and this is a perilous moment for the world’ is …

Opinion Rebecca Hanshaw and Barry Knight 13 July 2023

Breaking out of echo chambers: Expanding constituency conversations

Our consultations about the future of international development show that responsibility for deciding how money is spent should be transferred to people who receive the money rather than retained by those who give it.  This …

Opinion 1 Rebecca Hanshaw and Barry Knight 19 May 2023

Progress on reforming international development

In this article, we report progress on our consultations across the ‘development’ ecosystem in the nine months since the publication of the Jigsaw report that called for root and branch reform of international development. The …

Analysis Barry Knight 6 September 2022

An end to aid failure

Despite manifest failures and repeated criticisms, the machinery of international development remains substantially unchanged. It’s time for a radical overhaul A recently-launched study demonstrates overwhelming support for root and branch reform of international development. The …

Analysis Barry Knight 31 August 2021 For Subscribers

25 years of philanthropy

From the flourishing of civil society to the fall of philanthrocapitalism and shift to a more trust-based philanthropy, our field has changed considerably in the last 25 years Alliance was born into an age of …

Special feature Barry Knight and Lauren Bradford 4 June 2019

The peace deficit

A major new survey reflects concerns that philanthropy doesn’t give enough support to peace-building activities. If only it would, its qualifications for doing so are striking This article gives early results from a survey called …

Opinion Barry Knight 23 October 2018

The strange case of dignity

We need to build the capacity of actors on the ground to deliver an empowering strategy for users and beneficiaries, while satisfying the needs of multiple stakeholders, so that we can deliver our sustainable goals in accord …

Analysis Barry Knight 10 August 2018

Philanthropy needs all the help it can get

It is good to see that the Alliance Special Feature on ‘Philanthropy’s Developers’ pays homage to some of the pioneers of philanthropy infrastructure. To my mind, one of these – Barry Gaberman – merits special …

Conference reports Barry Knight 26 April 2018

Are we dancing on the edge?

‘Come to the edge’ was the invitation, and 200 came. The premise of the Edge Funders Conference held in New Orleans from 17th to 20th April 2018 was that from the edge you can see …