Bill Easterly is featured on PBS’s Religion and Ethics program airing this week. It’s called “Making Foreign Aid Work,” and here’s an excerpt:
Check the Religion and Ethics site for local viewing times.
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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Bill Easterly tweets
- When financial crises ARE devastating to a country's long run prospects (Q&A with Carmen Reinhart) http://bit.ly/a55V1d about 14 hours ago from bitly
- African tourism great potential vs. white elephant? This time the comments are better than the original post. http://bit.ly/cRc8l4 about 16 hours ago from bitly
- @BloomsburyUSA yes 08:15:26 PM July 28, 2010 from Twittelatorin reply to BloomsburyUSA
- African Tourism projects: great potential or white elephants? http://bit.ly/cRc8l4 05:47:56 PM July 28, 2010 from bitly
Aid Watch tweets
- RT @MollyKinder Pew Pakistan poll: US still hated, economic worries more intense, and confusion over US aid. http://tiny.cc/4p7kv. about 6 hours ago from web
- Today's post: When financial crises ARE devastating to a country's long run prospects (Q&A with Carmen Reinhart) http://bit.ly/a55V1d about 10 hours ago from web
- RT @intldogooder Have been pulling together links on existing aid reform efforts here: http://www.how-matters.org/links-resources/ about 11 hours ago from web
- Today's post: African Tourism projects: great potential or white elephants? http://bit.ly/cRc8l4 06:24:49 PM July 28, 2010 from web
5 Comments
Congratulations.
Enjoyed the images of women working at the program’s beginning. Very heartening.
Is there any indication that the foreign aid bureaucracy is taking on the critiques highlighted in the piece? Thanks, C.
Very fair, very balanced piece. Glad the issues of trade and food aid were brought up. My only gripe is that these debates about what is wrong with aid oversimplify too much. There are too many forms of aid so be captured in a single word. Aid include some things that are not intended to produce growth or reduce poverty, but that work well to reduce suffering. It also includes lending to corrupt governments that should be stopped immediately.
While I agree with Mr. Beckmann of Bread for the World that most progress has come from people in poor countries, it is misleading to suggest that these people were working hard to “serve their countries.” These people were working to serve themselves in entrepreneurial endeavours. Endeavours that that certainly made “their countries better.” Growth is not necessarily best, or fastest, achieved through the selfless volunteer activities that are typically associated with development. Profit-seeking entrepreneurs can be the main drivers of income growth. This is particularly true in the two examples that the story cites following Mr. Beckmann’s comments; India and China.
This is exactly why I do my best to build relationships in Africa and wholeheartedly support Africans helping Africans.
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