Owen Barder

Keeping track of occasional hyperbole in which we claim to be “the first generation” which can defeat poverty.

I spoke at a dinner of the Board of the Childrens’ Investment Fund Foundation on Friday. I touched on the role of evidence in scaling up, and the role of foundations such as CIFF. Here are my remarks.

The video of my debate this morning with Bill Easterly.

In the latest episode of Development Drums, I talk to the journalist and author Nina Munk about Jeff Sachs and the Millennium Villages Project, and the lessons for development cooperation more broadly.

If there is value in the process of iteration and adaptation that people and organisations go through, then might development cooperation which tries to bypass that struggle do more harm than good?

Is DFID suffering from a resource curse? The emphasis on growth is welcome, but the focus is too much on aid and not enough on other policies that can help poor countries grow, such as trade and technology transfer.

I am discussing the the future of development cooperation, and the role of Northern NGOs,, with the policy, advocacy and campaigns team at ActionAid UK this morning.  Powerpoint is forbidden.  I’m going to paint ten broad brushstrokes about the future of development cooperation:

A service from O2 looks ideal for frequent overseas travellers from the UK.

Five things you could do this holiday to protect your privacy and your memories.

If you add up all the aid that all OECD countries have given since they started counting it in 1960, and then assume that the only thing that this aid has achieved was the eradication of smallpox, then the whole thing would still be a bargain, costing less than half what the UK National Health Service spends on average to save a life.