About Aid Watch
The Aid Watch blog is a project of New York University's Development Research Institute (DRI). This blog is principally written by William Easterly, author of "The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics" and "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good," and Professor of Economics at NYU. It is co-written by Laura Freschi and by occasional guest bloggers. Our work is based on the idea that more aid will reach the poor the more people are watching aid.
“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.” - H.L. Mencken
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Recent Posts
- Rodrik, Defining Libertarians, Afghan Tribes, Finding Coffee in New York
- The tragic disappearing of humanitarian neutrality
- New UN report says Somali food aid failing to reach the poor (NYT)
- Readers’ Submissions: Honorable Mentions in Best and Worst of Aid
- Am I useless? A critic needs to listen to critics
- New York Times on Millennium Villages
Recent Comments
- jmdesp on In defense of being mean-spirited: response to a critic: « During the war, deliveries of food to the camps by the World Food...
- WP on The tragic disappearing of humanitarian neutrality: Perceptions are certainly important here. Some of the writers here conflate...
- Belay on New UN report says Somali food aid failing to reach the poor (NYT): This is sad. But equally sad is the fact that this blog...
- Agnostic on The tragic disappearing of humanitarian neutrality: The attack was a criminal, horrible, despicable act of violence for which...
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Popular Posts
- 100% African leaders advise Bono on reform of U2
- 83% Nobody wants your old shoes: How not to help in Haiti
- 34% Haiti earthquake: Help navigating complex terrain of disaster relief
- 18% The Civil War in Development Economics
- 16% How to write about poor people
- 15% If Martin Luther King had been an aid official -- the Powerpoint version of I Have a Dream
Bill Easterly Tweets
- @CoffeeGourmet have you ever tried the fabulous Tomoca coffee from Ethiopia? about 1 hour ago from webin reply to CoffeeGourmet
- Links: Rodrik over-excited on capital controls, defining libertarians, NYT Afghan tribal analysis, & bonus NYC coffee http://bit.ly/9sOx1A about 3 hours ago from bit.ly
- Update: Evangelical blogs on the aid worker killings in Pakistan http://bit.ly/alyL9i about 21 hours ago from bit.ly
- Free Press => a bit of aid accountability: WFP cuts off Somali bad guys after NYT food aid diversion story http://bit.ly/csTPPG about 21 hours ago from bit.ly
Aid Watch tweets
- RT @USAID_News #Shah's testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Ops http://bit.ly/90XNdt 11:53:17 AM March 04, 2010 from web
- A great, thoughtful post from @patrickmeier: Haiti and the Tyranny of Technology (via @alanna_shaikh, again) http://bit.ly/aV0oYb 12:56:02 PM March 03, 2010 from web
- FP: Refugees International issues striking indictment of UN efforts in Haiti so far http://bit.ly/bPner8 via @cblatts 12:07:02 PM March 03, 2010 from web
- BBC investigation: 1984 Ethiopia famine aid spent on weapons as rebels posed as grain merchants http://bit.ly/aq53Rb 10:59:29 AM March 03, 2010 from web
Monthly Archives: February 2009
How About a Free Press to Hold Aid to Africa Accountable?
Courageous independent Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda was featured in a mass circulation magazine last weekend, getting some well-deserved recognition.
Mwenda has been in and out of jail for his criticism of the (aid-supported) authoritarian Ugandan government. He was a recipient of the International Press Freedom Award for 2008.
Mwenda started his own independent newspaper (known appropriately as the Independent) in Uganda, after complaining the government was curtailing the freedom of…
Begin it Now: The Inspirational Success of Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana
Ashesi (which means “beginning” in a local language) is a remarkable private university begun in 2002 by a returning Ghanaian expatriate, Patrick Awuah.
A recent column in the Seattle Times interviewed Awuah and profiled the university: “So far, its four graduating classes have had a 100 percent placement rate. Most graduates have stayed in Africa, and some have even started companies that are hiring Ashesi students.”
Half of the students are on scholarship.…
I Call Your Authenticity, and I Raise You One Ideology
People sometimes try to win a debate by playing “trump cards” that allegedly overturn any other argument, instead of practicing reasoned arguments based on logic, common sense, and evidence.
One attempted “trump card” is that an “authentic” member of group X is in favor of a certain policy towards group X. The hidden assumption is that any “authentic” member of group X can speak for all other members of group X, and knows what is…