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...
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Archives
Bill Easterly tweets
- Why are they singing pro-Confederacy song "Maryland, my Maryland" at Preakness horse race? about 10 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
- Good article on aid to Mali, even though I'm quoted http://t.co/1aWi9mjWAo 02:03:59 PM May 17, 2013 from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- RT @dandrezner: Um... http://t.co/R8U5P6jbid MT @bill_easterly Thoughtful, well-written critique of Krugman anti-austerity crusade http://t… 06:43:31 PM May 16, 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
Category Archives: Global health
Scratch and win for authentic malaria drugs
Here’s a problem most people in rich countries don’t often have to deal with: wondering whether the drugs you’ve just picked up from your local pharmacy will kill you, save your life, or give you just enough active ingredients to create a new drug-resistant strain of an otherwise curable disease.
Counterfeiting does happen in rich countries, but more prevalently with “lifestyle drugs” like Viagra or allergy meds. Poor countries often have thriving counterfeit markets…
A warning from Tajikistan
The following post was written by Alanna Shaikh. Alanna is a global health professional who blogs at UN Dispatch and Blood and Milk.
A polio outbreak is underway in Tajikistan. 12 people have died of the diseases since March. 32 cases of polio have been confirmed, and 171 cases of acute flaccid paralysis (a signal of possible polio) have been identified. That’s a full-fledged outbreak in a country with an 82% vaccination rate. Until this January,…
Also posted in Aid policies and approaches, Field notes Tagged Alanna Shaikh, Bill and Melinda Gates, Global health, polio, Tajikistan 2 Comments
NYT on HIV/AIDS crisis: “You cannot mop the floor when the tap is still running on it”
UPDATE 4:10pm 5/11: Bill responds to Gregg Gonsalves’ comment on this post, at the END of the post.
The New York Times ran not one but two articles (edit: make that four) on the global fight against HIV/AIDS last Sunday. As these pieces tragically recount, the international community’s hard won successes against HIV/AIDS are in danger. There is not enough funding to meet the demand for treatment among sick patients in…
The Plumpy’Nut dust-up: Nutriset’s side of the story
The following post was written by Alanna Shaikh. Alanna is a global health professional who blogs at UN Dispatch and Blood and Milk.
Plumpy’Nut is a lifesaving Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food that was developed, and patented, by a French company called Nutriset. An American NGO and company have brought suit against Nutriset in an attempt to break the patent. I wrote about the basics of the situation in a previous post.
That post brought up more questions than…
Also posted in Financing development, In the news Tagged Alanna Shaikh, Global health, Nutriset, RUTF 11 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…
Also posted in Data and statistics Tagged aid fungibility, David Roodman, Global health, The Lancet 3 Comments
The Plumpy’nut dustup
The following post was written by Alanna Shaikh. Alanna is a global health professional who blogs at UN Dispatch and Blood and Milk.
There is a fight brewing over Plumpy’nut, a fortified peanut butter product used to treat malnutrition in children. The company that invented Plumpy’nut has a patent on the product. Two American NGOs want to make their own version, but rather than pay a royalty fee, they are trying to…
The good news on maternal mortality: Uncertainty about everything except the advocates’ response
UPDATE 4/15, 4pm EDT: see end of post.
The NYT lead story today (as well as other media) reports a new study with some very good news:
For the first time in decades, researchers are reporting a significant drop worldwide in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth, to about 342,900 in 2008 from 526,300 in 1980.
So happy about success! Alas, the universal rule with media reports of development…
Also posted in Badvocacy and celebs, Data and statistics, In the news Tagged Global health, maternal mortality, New York Times 11 Comments
Does health aid to governments make governments spend more on health?
If you’re not an economist, you might reasonably assume that the answer to this question is yes. The story might go something like this: aid agencies give money to poor country governments to distribute bed nets or give vaccinations, and those additional funds are added to whatever money the country was able to scrape together to spend on health before the donor came along. As a result of the health aid, the total amount of…
Also posted in Aid policies and approaches, Economics principles, Organizational behavior Tagged aid fungibility, Global health 26 Comments
This device WILL change the world
No, no, no, not THAT one!
I meant the one below:
It’s going to be a long while before very many poor people have iPads, but there is already one TV for every 4 people in the world. I remember being in a remote village in Ghana with 30 people crowded around a TV set, so 1 in 4 implies a VERY big reach for TV already. In the words of…
Readers’ Submissions: Honorable Mentions in Best and Worst of Aid
The Aid Watch request for reader submissions for Best and Worst of Aid was our experimental attempt to use informal social networks to collect and spread stories about good and bad aid projects. In retrospect, it was only a partial success: we got a lot of submissions that couldn’t be totally verified, and many that did not explain why their submission deserved to be the best or the worst, problems for us to think about…