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
- Jeffrey K. Silverman on Statement from CARE on Bruckner FOIA Request: I hope that OIG is reading some of these postings, especially about...
- Jeffrey K. Silverman on NGO Transparency: Counterpart International to release budget: That might be giving AEI too much credit, and it...
- AA on IAD on A-i-d: @ Tulip: Your comment about rich taxpayers driving aid policy may be true for Europeans, but I see some trouble with...
- Jim on Africans do not want or need Britain’s development aid: The statistics posted by Terence are fascinating. If Bill Easterly...
- Katrina on Be Careful What You Export: Brendon, I think the NHS is a good boiler plate model that can be tinkered. I’m in Uganda...
- edinburgh photograph on Statement from CARE on Bruckner FOIA Request: Great favorite is usually most definitely the idea is usually these...
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
- IAD on A-i-d http://bit.ly/9Yqk1H. Claudia Williamson discusses Elinor Ostrom's work on development. 12:29:51 PM September 03, 2010 from web
- Be Careful What you Export: http://bit.ly/cE3e1v 11:11:33 AM September 02, 2010 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
Tag Archives: Ghana
African Tourism projects: great potential or white elephants?
Not too many people are aware that Ghana has a very good game park, called Mole National Park, about two hours drive from Tamale in the north, which is in turn a short flight from Accra.
Like many other African governments, Ghana’s government has high hopes for earnings from tourism. Will it happen?
You can sign me up as a zealous booster of Ghana tourism. Mole National Park alone is amazing, as I hope some…
The Lives of Others
UPDATE: contrasting negative images offered by commentators on Twitter (see end of post)
My Ghanaian friends often tell me that if you want to understand Ghanaians at all, you have to understand how religious are most Ghanaians. I believed them of course, but it didn’t really become vivid until I attended the most amazing church service this morning. I am not saying this out of any religious motives, just to point out another side of…
Posted in Aid policies and approaches, Field notes
Also tagged aid policies/approaches, aid recipients, Religion
32 Comments
Is &%# allowed in aid?
My wife and I visited the village of Goyire yesterday, about 30km from Bolgatanga in northern Ghana, home to the Builse subgroup of the Talensi ethnic group. We were looking at a malaria bed nets project that I will discuss more in a future post. The community had organized a skit to dramatize why bed net utilization is so important to prevent malaria. The amateur community Thespians doing the skit really hammed it up and the…
Greetings from remote places
Greetings Aid Watchers, just back on line, been busy touring remote places in northern Ghana. I’ll be writing up experiences in a future post, but I only have a few minutes right now. One very quick thought I have been having:
Q: what’s the difference between remote northern Ghana and downtown Manhattan?
A: my iPhone gets a signal in remote northern Ghana
Posted in Field notes
13 Comments
Fitting Kwame the cabbie into the brain drain equation
The following post is by Yaw Nyarko, a Professor of Economics at NYU and founding director of Africa House.
Not too long ago I got in a cab in New York with a Ghanaian taxi driver named Kwame. He remembered picking me up several years ago. What a memory he has. Anyway, he told me he has four children: one is a doctor and the two youngest are in private school. He said his kids…
Posted in Academic research, Field notes, Global health
Also tagged brain drain, Yaw Nyarko
16 Comments
Me and Lady Gaga
You are connected by “Six Degrees of Separation” to almost everyone. This surprising amount of connectedness was brought home to me when I realized that I knew a person who knew Lady Gaga (One Degree of Separation). The connection had nothing at all to do with my career or that of Stefani Germanotta, but only with our respective networks of family and friends.
Economists have gotten as excited as anyone else by social networks.…
Four Ways Brain Drain out of Africa is a good thing
Conventional wisdom frets that the exodus of skilled workers—the brain drain—is bad for African countries. The share of Africans with college degrees who live outside their home countries is certainly high: nearly half of Ghanaians, about 40 percent of Kenyans, and about one-third of Ugandans.
The metaphor of the term itself implies that brain drain is a waste, as if all Africa’s most promising minds were being sucked down some global sink, leaving behind a…
Africans already got the idea: “Africa does not need strong men, it needs strong institutions”
A reaction to President Obama’s speech in Ghana by Leonard Wantchekon, NYU Professor of Politics
Overall, I like the theme of the President Obama’s speech in Ghana. Africans must own their future by strengthening democratic institutions and the rule of law in their countries, and by becoming less reliant on assistance. I also like the idea of a real partnership between Africa and other developed countries based on trade. It is very much in…
Posted in Cognitive biases, In the news
Also tagged Africa, conflict, democracy, Leonard Wantchekon, Obama
12 Comments
Begin it Now: The Inspirational Success of Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana
Ashesi (which means “beginning” in a local language) is a remarkable private university begun in 2002 by a returning Ghanaian expatriate, Patrick Awuah.
A recent column in the Seattle Times interviewed Awuah and profiled the university: “So far, its four graduating classes have had a 100 percent placement rate. Most graduates have stayed in Africa, and some have even started companies that are hiring Ashesi students.”
Half of the students are on scholarship. I…
Posted in Big ideas/ the secret to development is..., Entrepreneurship
Also tagged Africa, Ashesi
14 Comments