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
Recent Comments
- Rukmini on Aid Watch blog ends; New work on development begins : This has been a valuable resource for me and I’m sorry to see it...
- Jesse on From Hell to Prosperity: I would like to see this graph with a comparative one which shows the number of people in each religion...
- Ellie on Aid Watch blog ends; New work on development begins : Sad to see you go, but I certainly respect the decision. Hope it is...
- Vivek Nemana on From Hell to Prosperity: Jeff, Well, the billionaire effect might explain a disproportionately high mean income, but...
- M on Aid Watch blog ends; New work on development begins : I agree that Bill and Laura should think about how they can get their message...
- Mr. Econotarian on Are Lax US Gun Laws Spilling Violence into Mexico? : The paper says: “DHS data gives the number of illegal...
Archives
Bill Easterly tweets
- RT @hangingnoodles: "a self-satirizing plan…pouring in money to a fictional government” http://t.co/K9yCiLgs06 @bill_easterly NYT on Mali … about 12 hours ago from Twitter for iPad ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Good article on aid to Mali, even though I'm quoted http://t.co/1aWi9mjWAo about 20 hours ago from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- RT @dandrezner: Um... http://t.co/R8U5P6jbid MT @bill_easterly Thoughtful, well-written critique of Krugman anti-austerity crusade http://t… 06:43:31 PM May 16, 2013 from Twitter for iPad ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Thoughtful and well-written critique of the Krugman anti-austerity crusade http://t.co/3dAjHsz5WN 02:19:33 PM May 16, 2013 from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
Aid Watch tweets
- Where is the line between marketing social impact and exploitation? | http://t.co/YTc7AoLRMc via @Thehumanosphere about 15 hours ago from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Why the rise in global trade may have less to do with policy and more to do with metal boxes. http://t.co/QN6uw0wLys via @TheEconomist about 16 hours ago from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- “I thought you were here to help.” http://t.co/z7hbKP8RtX via @NYTimes about 16 hours ago from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- African traders flocked to Guangzhou for the cheap goods but are staying to run manufacturing operations http://t.co/gK7jmSS3qW via @qz about 17 hours ago from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Congress to USAID: Stonewalling is SO over
Yesterday from a deliriously happy press release of Publish What You Fund:
Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), Chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, today introduced the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (HR 2139), a bipartisan bill designed to increase accountability and improve the effectiveness of U.S. foreign aid
The bill:
instructs federal agencies to make aid information on a detailed country-by-country and program-by-program basis in a comprehensive, timely, comparable, and
…
Bono and Foreigner
The long and remarkable reign of the celebrities in foreign aid shows no sign of abating. On a May 1 CNN special on TIME magazine’s new selection of the world’s 100 most influential people, according to a press release, “George Clooney — a four-time honoree — will sit down with U2 frontman and activist Bono to chat about fame and politics.”
In a desperate attempt to give some balanced perspective, let me be fair…
Posted in Badvocacy and celebs 4 Comments
Response to “Can Starbucks Buy A ‘Saving Africa’ Image for a Nickel?”
We sent our blog post on the Starbucks RED campaign to Starbucks last week and offered them space to publish a response. Here is their answer from Vivek Varma, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs:
I suppose I should begin by thanking you for the opportunity to comment. It would have been nice to receive a call first so that the confusion in the Professor’s blog could have been addressed.
But let me layout…
Posted in Badvocacy and celebs 11 Comments
We can make bad news look worse…and for Africa, we can make even good news look bad
Lost in the confusion of the Spring Meetings this weekend in Washington was the release of the IMF/World Bank Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2009, the annual song of woe about lack of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. You would think the current supply of bad news was adequate for our needs, but the GMR has long made a specialty of portraying the poor nations as bleakly as possible and this year’s report was…
Posted in Cognitive biases 3 Comments
Kenyans seek to prosecute manufacturer of wedding dresses made out of malaria nets
A report in the Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation:
Mosquito net manufactures are teaming up with the provincial administration and village elders in several parts of Kenya in an effort to apprehend and prosecute people who use the products for purposes other than covering beds.
According to Dr Elizabeth Juma, who is the head of malaria control under the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, there has been evidence of people turning the nets
…
Posted in Global health, In the news 4 Comments
Peter Sellers makes unexpected appearance at G-7 meetings
In today’s NYT:
Headline: World Finance Leaders Meet, and Cautiously Glimpse ‘Green Shoots’ of Recovery
“American and European officials embraced a hopeful new buzz phrase — the “green shoots” of recovery.”
My wife immediately noticed the exact parallel to the classic 1979 movie “Being There.” A mentally-challenged gardener played by Sellers winds up by accident in Washington elite circles and is quickly embraced as a sage as he mumbles gardening platitudes about spring-time growth,…
Posted in In the news Comments Off
Random Snippets and Miscellany
The FT has a great special section on malaria today (tomorrow is World Malaria Day). Their very sensible editorial says: “…malaria is becoming an industry in its own right. That brings responsibilities, including rigorous evaluation to ensure money is well spent.” There are plenty of other grounds for hope, let’s hope also that somebody will step up to hold this industry accountable.
In another article, FT writer Andrew Jack quotes activist Louis da…
Can Starbucks Buy a “Saving Africa” Image for a Nickel?
I was curious about what the going rate is these days for attracting customers who want to save Africa. Five cents was a little lower than I expected.
How much money is flowing to Africa from this? Aid Watch’s exclusive investigation consisted of asking about seven Starbucks cashiers around Greenwich Village how often they processed the Starbucks Red card, with its payoff of five cents for Africa per use. All except one cashier said…
Self-Esteem in Africa
by Moussa P. Blimpo (the author is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at NYU from Togo.)
A prominent university professor in the US goes back to his home country in Africa with his American Master’s student who wanted to get some field experience. The professor is unable to schedule a meeting with a key political leader whereas the student does get a meeting with the African leader.
Last summer, in a heated discussion with some…
Posted in Cognitive biases 9 Comments
USAID Responds to ‘Life in the Aid World’
Kudos to the USAID press office for replying to us quickly when we sent them our post on the USAID Inspector General’s report of misuse of funds in Afghanistan. They replied with this statement:
The USAID IG severely criticizes the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) for their management of the Quick Response Program in Afghanistan, conducted between 2003-2006. We recognize that Afghanistan is a difficult place…
Posted in Accountability and transparency, Organizational behavior Comments Off