Over at The Atlantic Community there is a discussion this week on how aid can be improved. First up is Lawrence Haddad, with Six Ways to Improve Aid Effectiveness. In summary, his six are: fix the broken feedback loop. communicate the successes and risks of aid in a less ‘public Read more…
Ray Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, writes on the Modernizing Foreign Assistance blog that US foreign assistance should be more transparent, more predictable, reduce reliance on US contractors and NGOs, use local NGOs, use country-based rather than Washington-based planning, and focus on outcomes rather than outputs. This is very good Read more…
Seventeen years ago this month, I set up the first British government website. I was a young economist at the UK Treasury, and I thought the budget documents should be available online. I proposed this to the Treasury Management Board, most of whom had no idea what I was talking Read more…
The satirical aid blog (“Hand Relief International“) is clearly written by someone who knows the aid system pretty well. Their description of aid workers at the Addis Ababa Sheraton is pretty much spot on: One of the meetings I attended last week was in Addis Ababa where my stay in Read more…
Nick Kristof writes approvingly in the New York Times about faith based aid organisations: Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more Read more…
Thim Harford lambasts the Robin Hood Tax campaign: The basic proposition of the RHT is that it is a tiny tiny tax which will raise a humongous sum of money. Nobody is really going to have to pay it – ‘coz it’s so very tiny – but if anyone does, Read more…
<geek stuff> Obviously I don’t use Internet Explorer because it is (a) not compliant with standards; (b) not safe; (c) Microsoft. And I don’t use Safari because Steve Jobs is a control freak and I don’t wish to be locked up in his world. So like most geeks I’ve been Read more…
On the CGD blog, Nancy Birdsall proposes “Ten Actionable Ideas … for a 21st-Century Global Development Agenda” What are examples – some realized and some on the table but untested – for practical action in the interests of global prosperity? Where do good ideas come from? How do they get Read more…
Laura Freschi at AidWatch lists four ways in which the brain drain from Africa is a good thing. Her analysis includes (a) gains to the migrants; (b) gains to the migrants’ families; (c)the benefits of exchange of ideas; and (d) the stimulation of the accumulation of skills. This is consistent Read more…
No less a scholar than Bill Nighy urges us to support a “Robin Hood Tax” to take money from the bankers and speculators and give to the poor. The Robin Hood tax appears at first sight to be a way to kill three fairly succulent birds with one stone. It Read more…