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
- New book identifies this as 1st rock and roll album -- in 1938 http://t.co/umXVgRlXeQ about 1 hour ago from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Warning sign that Lenin was centrally planning toilet time on train back to Russia http://t.co/bV8SuNLvF3 about 2 hours ago from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Why are they singing pro-Confederacy song "Maryland, my Maryland" at Preakness horse race? about 18 hours ago from Twitter for iPad ReplyRetweetFavorite
- RT @hangingnoodles: "a self-satirizing plan…pouring in money to a fictional government” http://t.co/K9yCiLgs06 @bill_easterly NYT on Mali … 09:29:12 PM May 17, 2013 from Twitter for iPad ReplyRetweetFavorite
Aid Watch tweets
- Where is the line between marketing social impact and exploitation? | http://t.co/YTc7AoLRMc via @Thehumanosphere 06:25:08 PM May 17, 2013 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 05:57:06 PM May 17, 2013 from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
- “I thought you were here to help.” http://t.co/z7hbKP8RtX via @NYTimes 05:29:12 PM May 17, 2013 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 05:03:40 PM May 17, 2013 from Buffer ReplyRetweetFavorite
Monthly Archives: April 2010
Here’s one kind of racism you can still enjoy
UPDATE 2, 4/30 4:58pm see end of post for Response to “Glen Beck” comment et al.
UPDATE 4/30 4:09PM: see end of post for a GREAT comment on this post from a very knowledgeable person
Most kinds of racism are now thankfully no longer tolerated. However, this doesn’t change the part of human nature that enjoys racism – it allows you to blame all your problems on some despised ethnic minority. So racism may have…
Posted in Cognitive biases, In the news 29 Comments
To lawmakers on financial reform: Don’t hit the send button while you’re angry
Congress showed a lot of rage at Wall Street this week, for good reason. Some of the most eloquent senators spoke from their hearts. Senator A denounced those who devoted their financial “expertise” to “taking from others.” Senator B seconded the motion that Wall Street’s “illicit gains” were only possible through “the loss and ruin of others.” Senator C said his constituents had implored him to expose “financial misdoings” to save them from…
Posted in In the news 11 Comments
A suggestion for the 1MillionShirts guy
Here’s the back story: A young American entrepreneur wanted to use his powerful social media profiles to do good. He hit on the idea of convincing people to pack up all their unneeded T-shirts, throw in a dollar for shipping, and send them – 1 million of them – somewhere in Africa. He partnered with two charities, applied for 501(c)3 status, and voila, a new cause was born: 1MillionShirts.
Yesterday, professional aid workers, academics,…
Posted in Badvocacy and celebs 34 Comments
Are aid donors now running Haiti?
This post is written by Daniel Altman
Who will determine Haiti’s future? Probably not the Haitians. With aid groups enlarging their presence on the ground and foreign governments exercising control through their wallets, Haiti’s future may be out of the hands of the Haitians for years to come.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the recently convened Interim Committee for the Reconstruction of Haiti (CIRH), which will set the nation’s priorities during an 18-month state…
Posted in Aid policies and approaches, Disaster relief Tagged Daniel Altman, donor capture, Haiti, IMF, World Bank 15 Comments
Nobody wants your old T-shirts
UPDATE 4/28 10:45 am answering the ”be a man” video: see end of this post
I guess our great Alanna Shaikh post “Nobody wants your old shoes” (2nd most popular post of all time) did not quite reach everybody. Or maybe the parallels between old T-shirts and old shoes were not widely appreciated (HT @texasinafrica)
A new clothing-themed charitable campaign from the guys behind lucrative social media marketing exercise I Wear Your Shirt is looking
…
Posted in Aid policies and approaches, Badvocacy and celebs Tagged 1 Million Shirts, gifts in kind 25 Comments
We have met the enemy and he is powerpoint: NYT on the military
The New York Times had a front pager today on a story that this blog (twice: Dec 22, 2009 and Dec 12, 2009 ) and other blogs has been all over for months – the use of nonsensical Powerpoint slides to guide the US military in Afghanistan. The NYT reproduced the infamous Afghan nation-building spaghetti chart over most of the front page:
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of
…
Posted in Democracy and freedom, In the news, Military aid Tagged Afghanistan, nation building, New York Times 12 Comments
Wax and Gold: Meles Zenawi’s Double Dealings with Aid Donors
Helen Epstein, author of The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing The Fight Against AIDS in Africa, has a stunning piece on aid to Ethiopia published in this month’s New York Review of Books.
Epstein argues that the main cause of fertile southern Ethiopia’s chronic food shortages—the so-called “green famine” —is Ethiopia’s toxic and repressive political system, presided over since 1991 by Meles Zenawi. While Meles placates donors and Western governments with speeches about fighting…
Posted in Aid policies and approaches, Democracy and freedom, Human rights, Language Tagged Ethiopia, Helen Epstein, Meles Zenawi 12 Comments
Reasons to doubt new health aid study on fungibility
This post is by David Roodman, a research fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD) in Washington, DC.
A couple of weeks ago, researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation triggered a Richter-7 media quake with the release of a new study in the Lancet.
Here’s how the Washington Post cast the findings:
After getting millions of dollars to fight AIDS, some African countries responded by slashing their health budgets.
Laura Freschi…
Posted in Data and statistics, Global health Tagged aid fungibility, David Roodman, Global health, The Lancet 3 Comments
Goldman was hedging–how evil!!!!
According to the Washington Post:
Goldman admits it had reduced its exposure to the overheated U.S. property market and had sought to limit possible losses through a strategy that would make money if home prices fell. It says such “hedging” is a routine part of its business and is intended to moderate risk to the firm, an especially vital function when markets shift violently, as they did in 2008.
The Post puts “hedging” in…
Posted in Economics principles, In the news Tagged Goldman Sachs, hedging, Washington Post 13 Comments