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
- New book identifies this as 1st rock and roll album -- in 1938 http://t.co/umXVgRlXeQ about 9 hours ago from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Warning sign that Lenin was centrally planning toilet time on train back to Russia http://t.co/bV8SuNLvF3 about 9 hours ago from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Why are they singing pro-Confederacy song "Maryland, my Maryland" at Preakness horse race? 10:10:17 PM May 18, 2013 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: August 2010
Laura in NYT debate on Can Aid Buy Taliban’s Love?
NYT DEBATE: Can Flood Aid Weaken the Taliban in Pakistan?
Or is it more likely that extremist groups will capitalize on the chaos created by the disaster?
Laura Freschi’s answer: aid doesn’t help with the Taliban, but give anyway.
The idea that flood aid will change Pakistani perceptions about the U.S. in a lasting and meaningful way is both unproven and based on simplistic, even condescending assumptions about the beneficiaries of
…
From Russia With Color, 1909
This amazing collection of color photographs taken in Russia in 1909-1912 is really unmissable (H/T Mari Kuraishi).
The picture is of an autocrat in Uzbekistan. Since then, there has been much progress, in the form of cheap polyester suits for today’s autocrats in Uzbekistan.
Our internal foreign aid program
The US Recovery Act (aka “stimulus package”) has put out this great map of where the money is being spent by Congressional District.
As I looked at where the money is being spent in the part of the country pictured (the part I know best), there did not seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason between Congressional Districts as far as population or need. Is it random? Could…
Posted in Accountability and transparency, Maps 12 Comments
David Rieff takes on Hillary’s “new approach” to global health
In a blog post for The New Republic, author David Rieff calls Hillary Clinton’s approach to development naïve, contradictory, and muddled. His post is a response to Clinton’s speech, delivered last week at SAIS, about the administration’s six-year, $63 billion Global Health Initiative.
Rieff’s critique rests on three main arguments, all of which will be familiar to Aid Watch readers.
1) Insisting that development is going to be “elevated” to the level…
Posted in Global health, Military aid, Organizational behavior Tagged David Rieff, Hillary Clinton 7 Comments
Response from Mercy Corps on Transparency
Editor’s note: Aid Watch received the following from Mercy Corps in response to a request for comment on Till Bruckner’s post The accidental NGO and USAID transparency test. We have reproduced the Mercy Corps response here in full:
Till Bruckner’s posts on NGO accountability raise interesting questions – and it is unfortunate that the discussion has devolved into insinuations about NGO motives rather than an open discussion of what constitutes meaningful accountability in aid work. While…
USAID and NGO transparency: When in doubt, hide the data
by Till Bruckner, PhD candidate at the University of Bristol and former Transparency International Georgia aid monitoring coordinator
In my last blog post on this website, I claimed that some NGOs had instructed USAID to hide part or all of their project budgets in a FOIA response, and praised others for their openness. Aid Watch subsequently contacted all NGOs mentioned in the piece for comments.
In its response, World Vision denied ever having asked…
Superstition and Development
By Peter T. Leeson, BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at George Mason University.
Gypsies believe that the lower half of the human body is invisibly polluted, that supernatural defilement is supernaturally contagious, and that non-Gypsies are spiritually toxic.
Far from irrational, these superstitions are central to Gypsies’ system of social order. Gypsies can’t rely on government-created legal institutions to support cooperation between them. Many of their economic and social relationships are unrecognized or…
The Ground Zero mosque and cognitive biases
Among the many other things involved in this controversy, stereotypes of Muslims are not exactly helping.
As this blog is (excessively) fond of arguing, ethnic stereotypes are partly fueled by an obscure cognitive bias known as Reversing Conditional Probabilities. As a long ago Aid Watch post argued (sorry for indulging in self-quotation, but hey it’s August, time for reruns):
{People perceive} from media coverage that the probability that IF you are a terrorist, THEN you are a Muslim
…
Posted in Cognitive biases 17 Comments
World Vision responds on transparency
Editor’s note: we are posting the following note received in its entirety from World Vision.
World Vision Statement
In response to the Aid Watch post: The Accidental NGO and USAID Transparency Test
World Vision has investigated allegations posted on August 18, 2010 by Till Bruckner, a guest blogger. The blog post charges WV and other NGOs with lack of transparency in responding to Bruckner’s request to the U.S. Agency For International Development (USAID) under the…