G and I are back from two weeks in Morocco. We went into the desert on camels and slept in tents, and hiked for days in the glorious Atlas mountains. The weather was hot, despite which every adult we met was observing Ramadan. I start work at DFID next week, Read more…
G and I are going trekking in North Africa for a couple of weeks. (Note to American readers: In Europe we have these arrangements called "holidays" during which we stop work for a few weeks and enjoy ourselves instead. You should try it.) We will be offline so there will Read more…
Nick Kristof has a review in the current New York Review of Books of recent books by Jeff Sachs, Bill Easterly, Ruth Levine, Robert Calderisi, David Leonard & Scott Straus about the effectiveness of aid. Coincidentally, G and I went to a presentation by Bill Easterly this morning, here in Read more…
Sebastian Mallaby writes in the Washington Post highlighting the possible gains to developing countries of a relaxation in the migration policies of rich countries. In ” Let Their People Come ,” a new book published by the Center for Global Development, Lant Pritchett reports that if rich countries permitted extra Read more…
Alex Singleton at the Globalisation Institute writes: Over the past couple of years there has been a growing consensus that conditionality does not work. … It has failed because imposing good policies on countries that don’t want to do them just results in countries taking the cash and then not Read more…
A new study has found that aid channeled into vaccination has had a significant effect on improving childhood vaccination rates in the poorest countries. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, writing in the current edition of The Lancet (pdf), have analyzed how funding provided by aid donors through Read more…
The UK Government is today hosting a conference on the proposed Arms Trade Treaty. The treaty is being promoted by Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Japan, Kenya and the UK and it would create a framework to regulate the arms trade so that all countries adopt similar standards.While the treaty is Read more…
Alex Singleton at the Globalisation Institute reports that all is not well, in at least some fair trade cooperatives Sadly, for too many farmers in poor countries today, they are trapped in not terribly voluntary co-operatives. Out in rural Kenya last week, I found that there was some scepticism towards Read more…
The Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation joined forces yesterday to fund the development of a green revolution in Africa (see washingtonpost.com) The Africa program will begin with a relatively small Gates contribution of $100 million over five years, plus $50 million from Rockefeller, to fund development of more robust disease- Read more…
I'm grateful to my Dad for pointing out the article in today's Guardian by Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, calling for free movement of people. We live in an increasingly globalised world. Our best response is not to yield to little England, but recognise that the best Read more…