Posts Tagged ‘aid’
Can pay-for-performance save US Aid? Why Tina Rosenberg didn’t convince me
Tina Rosenberg trumpeted Cash on Delivery (CoD) in 1500 words in the New York Times recently, and I’m really confused about why. Here’s the summary: Aid is inefficient and forward-paid. Cash-on-delivery is paying for results once you’ve seen them. Aid should do that. (I don’t think aid works exactly the way Rosenberg describes so simply, [...]
A poetic pause for “The Brown Man’s Burden”
TexasinAfrica recently pointed me to a poem I hadn’t seen before, and I basically think it should be required reading for anyone in aid, development or journalism that writes about either of those (and so many other) things. The poem is by Henry Labouchère, at times a journalist, at times an art critic, at times [...]
African poverty is falling. (Seriously.) Maybe it’s the tourism? (Doubt it.)
The ridiculously digitally prolific Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution points to a new paper from an MIT-Columbia team of authors who’ve found that across the board, poverty is falling in Africa. Not just in certain kinds of countries, with certain advantageous histories or certain huge amounts of minerals…everywhere. (In a sentence that has to have [...]
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 [...]
So you wanna help Africa? Here's how. (Hint: It only takes $10. But you gotta be fast.)
Some of you might remember my series on grassroots reconciliation in Sierra Leone. Fambul Tok is a local program in every sense–started by a Sierra Leonean, run by Sierra Leoneans, and welcomed by villages that want to use their traditional culture to help overcome the legacy of war. It’s not a requirement of the UN, [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [