Foreign assistance expert Owen Barder identified in a recent blog entry four megatrends that are shaping aid work. Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam GB, offers his list of four megatrends that non-governmental organizations should watch out for, including:
- Technology.
- Age of scarcity, specifically the systematic limits of several environmental components such as water, soil and the atmosphere. Regulation and innovation is required to make living within these limits possible and sustainable.
- Informal and “non-stuff” economics, including services and finance.
- Migration, which has increasingly become an essential source of stable source of finance for poor communities in developing countries.
