In January 2011, I started writing a monthly column for Ethical Corporation’s website called View from the Middle.

The aim is to link the work of Advance Aid with what is becoming a new approach to the way that humanitarian aid and development assistance is provided by countries like the UK – in many case bringing the private sector into what has been largely a state and NGO enterprise.

There are links below to all of the columns that have been published online and I hope that you enjoy reading them – any comments that you wish to add can be posted on the Ethical Corporation site.

Howard Sharman

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Why corporate humanitarian actions are good marketing

January 2012

Smart businesses can see the financial upside of getting involved in effective disaster relief programmes

Read on

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How cooperation makes successful development programmes

December 2011

Effective private sector partnerships can help find some long-term solutions to development problems – here are four real-life examples

Read on

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Local companies can be the best place to start

October 2011

Mitigating disasters and building resilience can start at the local level

Read on

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Development projects are not disaster relief

September 2011
Remember to differentiate development from disaster relief when it comes to private sector programmes

Read on

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Companies that provide business solutions to disasters

August 2011

It is by developing products that help prevent humanitarian disasters that companies can make the most significant impact

Read on

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Ambitious development roadmaps

July 2011

If companies are to provide effective development solutions, then they need to be setting the bar a bit higher

Read on

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How corporations can solve development problems

June 2011

A new report from Accenture Development Partners suggests that companies will be more centrally involved in development programmes.  Is this something that shareholders will welcome?

Read on

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Aid agencies pool efforts for Kenyan village

May 2011

Eight organisations and the UN have combined to get clean water to a village near Nairobi

Read on

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Time to let supermarket buyers loose on the suppliers of emergency relief materials

April 2011

If you rushed to download and read Lord Paddy Ashdown’s Humanitarian Emergency Response Review committee report when it was published at the end of March, you may have spotted one phrase on p25 that should have hit you like a sledgehammer between the eyes…..

Read on

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Market failures and solutions for humanitarian aid

March 2011

Put March 28th in your diaries now.  That’s the date that DFID’s Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (also known as HERR, otherwise known as the Ashdown Committee) will be submitting its recommendations.   It could be a real red-letter day for those involved in the provision of emergency relief…..

Read on

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Corporates, development and the literal Bottom of the Pyramid

February 2011

Let’s talk about toilets. That’s somewhere where the public and the private meet.   And somewhere where the private sector could really make a difference.  There’s nothing more demeaning to a human being than having to defecate in the open…..

Read on
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Aid and development – The evolving role of business

January 2011

Welcome to the first of a regular series of articles that are going to look at aid, development, natural and man-made emergencies and the role in all of this of companies and the private sector

This new column is called View from the Middle because that is where we find ourselves…..

Read on

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