- More Pie: Some Thinking on World AIDS Day – Blood and Milk; It is not because the bandwagon moved on that we should stop caring about Aids.
- Wow: Will This Results-Based Approach Change DFID Country Allocations?; Not the first time we believe we are going to get real results for our money. It should get better, but redemption might be elusive.
- Save the Children and original position ; Just tearing the veil of ingorance.
- Development 3.0: is social accountability the answer? ; Accountability comes in many forms, and social accountability looks tempting. But where is the attention for building the institutions for empowering the beneficiaries and give them a voice beyond a simple vote of confidence? Is getting a heap of individuals screaming (or sms-ing) for their individual rights the way forward? A future where you are never safe, because somebody might complain about you for not giving privileges? In some way the old-fashioned way with womens’ organisations, unions, Chambers of Commerce, was very apt to give feedback too. These membership based civil society organisations have disappeared from the development narrative. Replaced by donor-sponsored NGOs.
- The First Law of Development Stats: Whatever our Bizarre Methodology, We make Africa look Worse – Combined with the research behind the Daily chart: Money and happiness | The Economist, I wonder whether we should not revert to the simple “ one issue” statistics. If happiness is just function of a log(income) we can raise income or distribute it to raise happiness. On a different note, we continue to diminish child mortality, corruption etc. It is just not right to let the bureaucrats decide how many years of education is one dead child worth.
- The end of hunger – Aid Thoughts; This cake has gone viral on the development blogs, and perhaps beyond. It cuts my appetite only by looking at it.
- U.S. Diplomats Aren’t Stupid After All – By Joshua Kucera; Interesting take. Who reads all this stuff on Wikileaks? Who really cares? Indeed, who needs a foreign service if everything they say is already in the newspapers (except for the petty spying, explaining why the diplomats are often distracted about their priorities during negotiations)
- Health Care Inefficiency Is Blamed for Low Longevity Ranking of U.S. “ Researchers have concluded that the inefficiency of the health care system is to blame for the United States’ ranking of 49th in life expectancy.”
- What happened in 1980? – Marginal Revolution; An interesting graph on health cost escalation in the US. The pre-Obama system might not be perfect after all.
- On Not Being Cavalier About Results ; Go for it, Nancy. Don’t let them bribe you with only some cash on delivery projects.
- Loch Lomond – Wax & Wire There are three things of note in… – piranha bay; “There are three things of note in this video: awesome bike riding skills, awesome Scottish landscapes, and a great Scottish sound”.
- 3D Action: Hillary orders US government staff to spy at UN – Aid Watch; “Thanks to Wikileaks, we have a new appreciation how seriously Clinton takes that whole 3Ds thing (Defense/ Diplomacy/ Development). We all should work together, which apparently means all work for Defence”
- The Girl Effect | What we’re watching | Global Dashboard ; Just fun.
- They Are Not Like Ireland. Really. – NYTimes.com; What amazes me most is the lack of understanding of the effects of a serious devaluation in the US. This is probably becasue most of the spending in the US is national, while European countries are more inter-linked. and devaluation has a direct effect on prices for the consumer. With a devaluation the investors and rich can shelter themselves, while in a globalised country the poor become just as much poorer as the devaluation rate.
- 2011 – The Year of the CAT for Carbon Regulation? | David Wheeler | Global Development: Views from the Center; Lets hope for the future.
- How can we raise awareness in Darfur of how much we are doing for them?; Hat tip to Owen
- Business Idea; I only wish
- Whose aid is it, anyway?; The essence about Development 3.0.
- Let’s build a Debian for Development Data; And what with transparency for selection procedures?
- Johann Hari: The Next Crash Will Be Ecological — and Nature Doesn’t Do Bailouts; The title says it all, doesn’t it? But the idea has not sunk in yet.
Osmosis
The village, the land, the world
