A really good article. It seemed like such a good idea at the time: A merry-go-round hooked up to a water pump. In rural sub-Saharan Africa, where children are plentiful but clean water is scarce, the PlayPump harnessed one to provide the other. Every time the kids spun around on the big colorful wheel, water… Read More »
… and ditch its poorer but apparently much cuter cousin, RCT. At least that is what I see as the takeaway from this article about external validity problems with RCT – which by the way is similar to the “how do you scale it up” and “how can we apply what you have found in… Read More »
“Dear Elders, You may already know that I am legally required to send my sons to school because we live in Germany and home education is not permitted here. In this country, all children are taught a curriculum designed with only white children in mind. A quick flick through most standard school atlases will reveal… Read More »
A sizable chunk from a lengthy piece by the ever insightful Keith Hart: Every person of African descent, whatever their actual history and experience – they could be Barack Obama, for example — suffers the practical consequences of being stigmatized by colour in a world built on racial difference. This situation will only be ended… Read More »
From a new report by the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa on external funding of infrastructure projects in Africa: In 2011 total external financial commitments/investments in African Infrastructure declined to 2009 levels. Overall commitments totalled US$41.5billion – a decline of 26% compared with 2010 figures. Commitments from ICA Members declined by 56% to US$11.9billion as compared to 2010… Read More »
If you get pissed off by the non-reflective, non-critical, and arguably racist list that the Failed States Index is, you should read this: There will never be a Postcard from Hell that bears a picture of an American street. But what if there were? What would go on there? Might it not apply the very… Read More »
I review Edward R. Carr’s book for SAIS Review. An excerpt: Underlying typical research is the assumption that a more intense integration into the global market economy is the solution to development problems, and that GDP growth brings an improvement in the well-being of a country’s citizens. Most existing development indicators have these same assumptions… Read More »
In the current edition of The Economist: In some countries it [citizenship] is, in effect, on sale. In others, such as America, it may be an accident of birth, with no conscious choice involved. Rather than making a fetish out of passports, a better approach would be to use residence (especially tax residence) as the… Read More »
From a WSJ review of Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy: Mr. Neuwirth introduces us to a woman named Jandira who for a decade has peddled coffee and homemade cakes to the unlicensed vendors at São Paulo’s early-morning wholesale market for pirated movies. Her street-corner business, she proudly tells him, has enabled… Read More »
I was looking through my computer earlier today and I discovered a review I wrote during my first weeks as a Masters in Development Studies student at Uppsala in Sweden. The first thing those guys did was to encourage us to question the whole idea of development by making us read Gilbert Rist’s The History… Read More »