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Category Archives: Aid Policies and Approaches

Am I useless? A critic needs to listen to critics

By William Easterly | Published March 9, 2010

The whole idea of searching is that you never quite know if you are getting it right. You need constant feedback from the intended targets of your efforts, to keep adjusting and re-adjusting. This is my motivation for criticizing aid, to try to induce it to change in response to criticism on things that are clearly wrong. And this is why I myself need to listen to my own critics.

The blogosphere has recently been…

Also posted in Arguments, Logic and Use of Evidence | 42 Comments

Do what you’re actually good at? or what you should be good at?

By William Easterly | Published March 8, 2010

We have just finished the annual ritual in which Hollywood pretends that its job description is making quality indie movies,  instead of what it is actually good at — producing crowd-pleasing blockbusters. Avatar was not only in the latter category by $2.5 billion or so and counting, it even got good reviews from critics. But it couldn’t win Best Picture under Hollywood’s hypocritical self-fantasy that rewards what they think they SHOULD be doing.

Wait, I feel another Aid…

Also posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

The War of the Causes in Aid

By William Easterly and Laura Freschi | Published March 2, 2010

The development industry seems to be riddled with people whose main job is to divert money to their good cause. The advocates are united by a strong belief in the priority that should be given to their sector (education, water, AIDS etc). They convince themselves that they are speaking for real interests of the poor… Within many aid agencies there is a permanent state of low intensity bureaucratic warfare for resources…{staff} fight to defend and

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15 Comments

Even more apparently even more not a big fan…

By William Easterly | Published February 21, 2010

Another post from @transitionland:

Bill Easterly’s cheap, ignorant Afghanistan snark…

Also posted in Grand Plans and Other Delusions, User Feedback, Announcements and Surveys | 2 Comments

China in Africa Myths and Realities

By Laura Freschi | Published February 9, 2010

In recent years, journalists and pundits in the West have looked on China’s economic engagement with Africa, including foreign aid, with growing alarm. An NYT op-ed a few years ago called China a “rogue donor,“ giving aid that is “nondemocratic in origin and nontransparent in practice, and its effect is typically to stifle real progress while hurting ordinary citizens.”

Other negative stories about China in Africa include China abetting genocide in Darfur by…

16 Comments

How the war on AIDS was lost

By William Easterly and Laura Freschi | Published February 4, 2010

There was an alarming article in the Wall Street Journal on the reverses of previous advances in AIDS prevention in Uganda, plus running out of US funding for AIDS treatment.

The war on AIDS is being lost. Here are the facts:

  1. There were an estimated 2.7 million new infections worldwide in 2008; 1.9 million of them were in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The number of people added to treatment each year is also increasing

…

23 Comments

Goat loans reach the end of their tether

By Guest Blogger | Published January 14, 2010

The following post is written by Diane Bennett and Dennis E. Bennett.

“Yes, but is it scalable?” is a question often asked of development interventions. Sure your life-saving malaria net program works in one village, but will it work throughout the whole country? Yes, cash transfers worked in Mexico but will they work in Sierra Leone?

Everyone knows that development interventions should be scalable. But sometimes… everyone is wrong. In our experience working in…

Also posted in Guest Bloggers | 18 Comments

Teasing my friends at Center for Global Development: censoring for Hillary?

By William Easterly | Published January 8, 2010

More updates on coverage of the big Clinton Development Speech, following up on the previous post:

 Chris Blattman has a negative take. Change.org some negatives, some positives, so a mixed review. The Center for Global Development (CGD) blog is positive, although mostly only about the idea of the Secretary of State even giving a whole speech devoted to development. Duncan Green at Oxfam liked some of the…

2 Comments

The power of searchers

By William Easterly and Laura Freschi | Published January 8, 2010

darpa-red-balloon-challenge_large

The Defense Department just sponsored a contest in which they randomly placed 10 large red balloons across the United States and challenged teams to find them all. The one who found all 10 first would get $40,000.

The National Department of Supervisory Agencies for Universal Surveys for Many Different Types of Objects took on the challenge from its massive Washington DC headquarters. It dispatched instructions by secure mail pouch Circular #10-A643 to its 135…

Also posted in General Economic Principles | 9 Comments

Let’s show some compassion for gifted individuals like Secretary Clinton, whom politics forces to babble

By William Easterly | Published January 6, 2010

clinton280This is my blog that just went up on the Foreign Policy web site on Hillary Clinton’s development speech today. There’s a positive ending! Plus my wife likes it!

MORNING UPDATE: News coverage of Hillary’s speech was overwhelmingly dominated by her plans to visit New Zealand. This supports one of two theories: (1) there was indeed too much babble, eliminating any newsworthiness, (2) the media doesn’t care about development.

UPDATE 2: Nick Kristof has a much more…

Also posted in Arguments, Logic and Use of Evidence, Meetings, Reports & Boring Old Business As Usual, Uncategorized | 12 Comments