To get the ball rolling, Scriptoria conducted a marketing campaign, specifically targeting professionals working in leading NGOs, the World Bank and other development organisations, as potential fans. Now, the Livelihoods Facebook page is self-perpetuating as fans spread the word to their friends and colleagues.

The Facebook page includes news, photos, videos and links, all providing quick updates of the work the DFID Livelihoods team does to help some of the poorest people in the world climb out of poverty. Since the Scriptoria design and initial write-ups were put in place, the Livelihoods team has managed the page itself, creating several new posts each week.

It’s free to join the online community to link up with others and create your own profile. But if you don’t want to do that, you can still access news, events, links and jobs information, and download resource guides and dossiers (for non-experts) and the bi-monthly IDS Insights magazine.

The Eldis site is well organised and easy to use - you can access information on a topic- or country-oriented basis. We’d say it’s a good one-stop-shop for anyone interested in international development.

The portal is actually hosted by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, Brighton, on the UK south coast.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, announced an immediate review of the UK’s annual £3 billion aid budget and warned international organisations that they could be stripped of their funding.

The Guardian said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization would come under close scrutiny, but that the World Bank, which gets the biggest share of Britain’s multilateral aid, is considered to be doing a good job.

It will be interesting to see which development programmes retain their UK funding. We at Scriptoria have always believed that organisations that communicate their achievements well are more likely to be successful. In the coming DFID review, we fear that those that fail to explain clearly what they are doing may see their funding withdrawn.

Visit www.guardian.co.uk/achievementsaward to find out more.

The research, conducted by Ipsos MORI, confirms for the second year running a statistically significant link between effective management of environmental and social issues and financial performance.

It found that companies participating in BITC’s annual Corporate Responsibility Index each year between 2002 and 2009 outperformed their FTSE350 peers on total shareholder return (TSR) by an average of 10% in seven out of the eight years. The TSR of these companies did not fall as far and recovered more quickly in 2009.

As a consultancy specialising in helping companies and organisations communicate climate and CSR issues, we at Scriptoria applaud the fact that more and more companies in the UK are recognising their social obligations. And as the research shows, businesses themselves can benefit as much as society.

The Vodafone Foundation manages the mobile phone company’s charitable donations in countries where it operates. It’s just the type of serious, long-term commitment we at Scriptoria like to see from businesses large and small.

Mr Huhne claims to be a green MP who is passionate about climate change. His appointment has been welcomed by the environment lobby and the green business sector and may turn out to be a real asset for the international movement to create low carbon economies. Certainly the Lib Dems have been the more aggressive party in their plans to cut carbon emissions (40% by 2020).

Already, comment has begun about what Mr Huhne should do in his new post. Just this morning, ‘10 questions for Chris Huhne’ was published on The Guardian website. This feature pulls no punches on the challenges Mr Huhne will face. It asks questions like how does he plan to keep his “department’s work near the top of the political agenda when all the focus will be on spending cuts and the health of the new coalition?” This is especially relevant during the current run up to the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held in Mexico in November and December.

By contrast, little has been said about the appointment of Andrew Mitchell; perhaps because there are fewer differences between Conservative and Lib Dem policy on international development. According to today’s Katine Chronicles Blog on The Guardian website, both parties want to see that aid is spent wisely. The blog notes that the Tories’ focus is on tackling corruption in the distribution of funds, while the Lib Dems are keen on consulting with intended beneficiaries to ensure that money buys what they actually want.

In a press release on the DFID website, Mr Mitchell is quoted as saying he intends to get the Millennium Development Goals back on track and that his government ‘will harness the full range of British government policies - including trade, conflict resolution and environmental protection - to contribute to our progressive vision of a more prosperous, sustainable and secure world.” Let’s hope Mr Mitchell can put this vision into practice. Let’s face it, with Britain’s economic situation as it is, he will have his work cut out.

Let’s hope we’re not reverting to the same old penny-pinching and the same old betrayal of the developing world.

Interestingly, the story on the OECD’s website is headed “Development aid rose in 2009 and most donors will meet 2010 aid targets”, which at first sight seems to contradict The Guardian. In fact, The Guardian’s story is there in the OECD’s copy; you just have to work to find it in the blizzard of facts, figures and words.

The OECD’s story is not wrong and the organisation’s expertise is beyond doubt. But it is a good example of how an expert overview awash with technical detail can sometimes mask the real stories that people need to hear.

To read The Guardian’s article, visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/14/west-break-g8-aid-pledge-oecd.

To read the OECD’s article, visit http://www.oecd.org/document/11/0,3343,en_2649_34487_44981579_1_1_1_1,00.html.

All the best
The Scriptoria team

By contrast, Labour has a whole page about it. The party says it will lead an international campaign to get the Millennium Development Goals back on track, that it remains committed to spending 0.7% of national income on aid from 2013, and that it will enshrine that commitment in law early in the next Parliament.

“We will fight corruption, investing more to track, freeze and recover assets stolen from developing countries,” says Labour.

Of course, what political parties say in their manifestos and what they do when they get into power can be very different things, so we can only hope that, whatever the colour of the next government, international aid and development plays a significant role in its policy.

All the best
The Scriptoria team