Archive for the ‘Aid’ Category
Farm aid from space
This is the title of my newest Christian Science Monitor article, which is actually about weather-indexed insurance programs in sub-Saharan Africa. All kinds of cool science-and-tech stuff has come together in the last five years to allow big insurance companies to offer super-small insurance policies — low-premiums, comparatively low-payout, to the usually poor, always vulnerable [...]
Does charity work like carbon offsets?
First, let me just say that it sounds like carbon offsets are a guilt salve more than anything else. If you saw the piece in Harper’s Magazine, it’s hard to be optimistic that offsetting carbon does much more than make lay people feel guilty and make smart people scheme about how to create another derivatives [...]
I’m really concerned about whether Angelina Jolie birthed those twins or not
No, I’m not. I just wanted to test that out and see how it feels. It feels as stupid as this little blip from the two Timeses. Apparently Entertainment Tonight–bastion of investigative journalism, guardian of a worthy and noble profession, professionals exemplar–may have been duped by someone posing as Jolie’s assistant into running a story [...]
Forget fish. Teach a man–an Afghan man–to make soap. And then take all his money.
This is a tantalizing–and for that reason, far too short–look at the way U.S. foreign aid works. Albeit in a single country. In a single province. On a single project. Sarah Chayes was a journalist until the fall of Afghanistan, where she gave up her NPR job to see how I would do if confronted [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [