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
Recent Comments
- Rebecca Burlingame on Be Careful What You Export: Oh so true that there are many things the developing world does not want from the...
- Tom on Be Careful What You Export: And that is without even thinking of the material dimension of institutional or organisational...
- Tim on Statement from CARE on Bruckner FOIA Request: Check out who is “Art Keys and Associates” and you will understand how...
- skeptic on Statement from CARE on Bruckner FOIA Request: Umm, why don’t they just release it themselves instead of asking USAID to...
- Andy on Be Careful What You Export: Very true, the lock-in nature of path dependent choices and the increasing returns these paths...
- Debrah Prada on Be Careful What You Export: I hope everyone GOVERNMENT could read this. Very well said.
Archives
Bill Easterly tweets
- Dear Aid Watchers, Laura and I are gone for a week, Adam Martin is Guest Editor, starting with today's great post http://bit.ly/ces1l3 02:12:45 PM August 30, 2010 from bitly
- Have a happy Last Week of the Summer 01:52:50 PM August 30, 2010 from web
- Beloved tweeps: I am going off line for a week in a last-ditch effort to regain my sanity, no more tweets from me till after Labor Day. 01:52:30 PM August 30, 2010 from web
- What to learn from those wacky animal-shaped Sudanese urban plans: rich country urban planners are just as wacky http://bit.ly/ces1l3 01:50:42 PM August 30, 2010 from bitly
Aid Watch tweets
- Be Careful What you Export: http://bit.ly/cE3e1v about 12 hours ago from web
- TransparencyBrawl 2010 continues: http://bit.ly/aG1ytu 08:18:35 PM September 01, 2010 from web
- Hayek vs. the Intellectuals, in technicolor! http://bit.ly/cSnS8m 11:25:39 AM September 01, 2010 from web
- Guest blog by Ben Powell on how to help the poor, just in time for going back to school: http://bit.ly/9pQfhi. 11:18:38 AM August 31, 2010 from web
Author Archives: Administrator
Statement from CARE on Bruckner FOIA Request
AidWatch received the following statement from CARE regarding Till Bruckner’s AidWatch post on USAID and NGO transparency:
Statement from CARE (Aug. 30, 2010):
Contrary to what Till Bruckner suggested in a recent blog, CARE did not withhold information in response to his FOIA request to USAID regarding certain projects in the Republic of Georgia. Our records indicate that CARE never received the request from USAID to review CARE’s budget information before USAID provided it
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Africans do not want or need Britain’s development aid
Editor’s note: This letter was published in the Telegraph (UK) on 22 Aug 2010 with the title given above for this post.
SIR – The parlous state of the public finances in Britain provides the perfect opportunity for British taxpayers to end their half-century-long experiment with “development aid”, which has, since its inception, stunted growth and subsidised bad governance in Africa.
As Africans, we urge the generous-spirited British to reconsider an aid
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Transparency International clarifies the debate, deplores attacks on Till Bruckner
Editor’s note: Transparency International Georgia submitted this contribution to the debate originally sparked by Till Bruckner’s post The accidental NGO and USAID transparency test.
We at TI Georgia have closely followed this debate about whether and to what extent USAID and its NGO contractors should make their budgets public. Till Bruckner began his quest for answers while he was working with us in 2008-09, although his pursuit of the NGO budgets via FOIA requests…
Posted in Accountability & transparency
7 Comments
NGO Transparency: Counterpart International to release budget
Editor’s note: Aid Watch received the following statement from Counterpart International in response to a request for comment on Till Bruckner’s post The accidental NGO and USAID transparency test.
We have checked our records regarding Mr. Bruckner’s FOIA request to USAID for information about our Georgia program budget. Our server logs indicate that USAID’s attempt in June to contact us about this FOIA request was unsuccessful because the message was sent to two former Counterpart…
Posted in Accountability & transparency
4 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…
Posted in Accountability & transparency
11 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…
Posted in Accountability & transparency
14 Comments
NGO Response: CNFA Reaffirms Commitment to Transparency
Editor’s note: We emailed every organization mentioned in Till Bruckner’s recent blog post, The accidental NGO and USAID Transparency Test to ask for their comment. CNFA sent us a response (also posted on their website) this afternoon, which we are reproducing here in full:
Transparency and accountability are core values of CNFA. Our programs are designed to be cost-effective – producing maximum output for the least cost. CNFA is fully accountable to our clients,…
Posted in Accountability & transparency
8 Comments
Fun with serious data
See the full size chart and make new ones here.
Posted in Uncategorized
13 Comments
Easterly appointed to Eliot Spitzer Chair in Gender Empowerment
The NYT revealed today a new way to launder contributions to Congress for purposes of influencing legislation. Corporate lobbyists help fund a chair or research institute at a university, naming it after the Congressperson they want to influence.
This naturally excited the fundraising department of Aid Watch. We welcome suggestions from readers on which corporate lobbies we could suck up to for funding and which politicians can be bought honored with these funds.…
FT: Celebrities urge G8 to make new unkept promises to keep previous unkept promises
Oh how we wish it would be otherwise! What will it take?
Alan Beattie writes on the G8 in the FT:
It stretches the most elastic mind to envisage the collective wrath of Scarlett Johansson, Annie Lennox, Bill Nighy, Kristin Davis and Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan, but it descended on the heads of the Group of Eight this weekend.
The obsolescence of the G8 has long been discussed during interminable and inconclusive international
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