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 02:28:18 PM May 19, 2013 from bitly ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Warning sign that Lenin was centrally planning toilet time on train back to Russia http://t.co/bV8SuNLvF3 02:11:30 PM May 19, 2013 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
Category Archives: Stereotypes
Tea and the “narrative of Terror”
Even as [Three Cups of Tea] appears to provide a self-critical and humane perspective on terrorism, [this] article argues that it constructs a misleading narrative of terror in which the realities of Northern Pakistan and Muslim lifeworlds are distorted through simplistic tropes of ignorance, backwardness and extremism, while histories of US geopolitics and violence are erased. The text has further facilitated the emergence of a participatory militarism, whereby humanitarian work helps to reinvent the military as
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Also posted in Books and book reviews Tagged Greg Mortenson, Jon Krakauer, Nosheen Ali, Three Cups of Tea 15 Comments
The African Success Story
If there was a theme to the development stories I read last week it was that the good news about rising standards of living on much of the African continent is not getting the recognition it deserves in the mainstream imagination.
In case you don’t agree that people have a negatively skewed image of Africa as a whole, try this experiment: Ask an educated, well-read (but non-Africanist) friend or relative to estimate what percentage of…
Also posted in Books and book reviews, In the news Tagged Charles Kenny, Karen Rothmyer, Ted Nugent 40 Comments
Er, Yes, Madam, Muslims do want liberty
There is a common view that Muslims don’t share the values of liberty and democracy, as expounded by, say, to take a random example, Michele Bachmann from a few years ago.
Do recent events vindicate those who had already argued there was a universal hunger for liberty? One of them was Michael Novak, who says today in a Wall Street Journal oped (gated, sorry) today:
{There was} the slumbering yet restless desire for liberty
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Also posted in Democracy and freedom, Human rights, In the news, Language Tagged David Brooks, liberty, Michael Novak, Michele Bachmann, Muslims 13 Comments
The Swimsuit Debate continues (sigh)….
…probably exhausting the patience of this blog’s readers. Robin Hanson responds to my updated post on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue:
Easterly doesn’t explain how exactly watching swimsuit models induces disrespect and harassment, and I find it hard to see the imagined causal path.
As I made clear to Robin in an email exchange, I don’t think this debate hinges on an empirical claim. Nobody decides whether to use the N-word or not based…
So now we have to save ourselves and the world, too? A critique of “the girl effect”
by Anna Carella, PhD student in political science at Vanderbilt University
Women have increasingly become the focus of international economic development projects, as exemplified by “the girl effect,” a catchphrase and global phenomenon that suggests that development projects aimed at women will succeed because women are more likely to nurture their families and communities.
The “girl effect” initiative was launched by the Nike Foundation in 2008 and has gained traction in the media (Save a Girl,…
Aid Watch Rerun: And Now For Something Completely Different: Davos Features “Refugee Run”
NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: Over the holidays, we’ll be publishing reruns of some of our posts from the first 2 years of Aid Watch. This post originally ran on Jan 28, 2008, and attracted a firestorm of comments, passionately for and against the idea. There will be a similar event again this year at Davos.
When somebody sent me this invitation from Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, I thought at first
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Also posted in Aid debates, Badvocacy and celebs, Human rights Tagged Aid Watch Rerun, Davos, Refugee Run 2 Comments
The Haiti we don’t see
Haiti is not always and all the time earthquakes, hurricanes, deforestation, misery, rape, corruption, kidnappings, poverty, garbage, violence, gangs, wasted aid, cholera, election fraud, dirty water, orphans and amputees.
These pictures, the result of an NGO-funded collaboration between a Canadian photojournalist and 22 Haitian teenagers living in Jacmel and Croix des Bouquets, are a beautiful reminder that Haiti is also babies with chickens, landscapes, going to school, solitude, hair-dos and cookouts. Via Linda Raftree, blogging at Wait…What?
Tagged Haiti, photography 3 Comments
Africa Clichés, Part LXXVIII
The blog Africa is a Country reacts to the NYT Magazine’s Coverage of John “Save Darfur” Prendergast. The best summary is from former NYT Reporter Howard French’s Twitter feed: “Bwana Saves Africa, Part 3,276.”
The same blog had a post yesterday on cringe-inducing attempts to have a supermodel portray an “Africa” theme at a certain fashion show. It reminded me of crude Hollywood portrayals of Africa when I was a child. And…
Also posted in Badvocacy and celebs 6 Comments
Why doesn’t the other gender care about Gender?
Thirty years on, it is proving harder than many of us had hoped for gender and development policy and practice to move beyond familiar stereotypes – women as abject victims or splendid heroines, men as all-powerful perpetrators.
Axioms abound: ‘women are the poorest of the poor’, ‘women give more priority to others – men invest more resources in themselves’, ‘women live in a more sustainable way than men and cause less climate change’, ‘women are
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Also posted in Aid policies and approaches, Women and gender 9 Comments
World Bank busted for stereotypical images of Ghana
The World Bank has apologized for photographs on the web site for participants at its recent annual meetings, which showed offensive stereotypes about Ghana. A Ghanaian journalist broke the story after he saw the images portraying “a country full of hungry and miserable people.” This has prompted an outcry and debate in Ghana.
Also posted in Poverty 7 Comments