As MDG summiters head home this weekend, they would be advised to read this excellent article by Nandini Oomman. This week’s summit on the Millennium Development Goals, which concluded Wednesday, culminated in the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s announcement of a 5-year, $40 billion initiative for maternal and child health. While the initiative is certainly a welcome one, […]
I was a bit late to the webcast since I had class, but I tuned in to hear the speech made by Graca Machal. She is the third wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela and the widow of the late Mozambican president Samora Machel. She is the only person in the world to have been […]
Not much to report so far, but the tone has been set by the General Assembly President Joseph Deiss, who says, “We must achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We want to achieve them. And we can achieve them.” The Gates Foundation has a live stream of the conference that you can access here.
The MDG Summit begins tomorrow! Are you ready? Bono is. Read his op-ed in the New York Times today, and ponder these short-term tests Bono proposes to assess the Goals: 1) Find what works and expand on it. 2) Governance as an effect multiplier. 3) Demand clarity, measure inputs and outputs. The rest of the […]
Is there a tradeoff between economic development and environmental conservation? I have just returned from Vietnam, where it is easy to believe there is. Modern tourists to Vietnam are often lured by the lush green scenery and pastoral lifestyle. The sharp green hills and women tending rice fields in conical hats are there, but today […]
BOLD NEWS today out of Ethiopia: President Meles Zenawi has declared that “Ethiopia will no longer need food aid by 2015.” Meles was referring to a “Growth and Transformation” plan seeking to achieve 15 percent economic growth over five years. Ethiopia has increased its agricultural output in recent years, but has not been able to […]
All talk in the aid community this month is the lead up to the Millennium Development Goals summit in New York from September 20-22. The goal of the summit it to assess general progress since the MDGs began, and consider a push toward meeting the deadline of 2015 (which most development professionals would agree is […]
The “Friday Spotlight” has rapidly become a “Saturday Spotlight,” but bear with me. Today Johnson & Johnson announced a plan to donate $200 million in cash to women and children in the developing world. The company will donate its medicine for treating intestinal worms in children, send pregnant women messages on prenatal health on their cell […]
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to a welcome reception for former President of Botswana Festus Mogae, who has joined the center for 4 months as a visiting scholar. This was pretty exciting for me, given the Botswana connection, though, I didn’t really know what […]
The NYTimes published an editorial yesterday which debated the practice of allowing unsupervised, yet highly trained nurses to provide anesthesia care. California recently joined 14 other states in allowing the practice; Colorado is set to approve it as well. The cost savings are clear: In the long run, there also could be savings to the health care […]
Read Bill Easterly’s piece in the WSJ here about “Famine and Foreigners.” I mentioned this book earlier as one I’m looking forward to reading. To Amazon!
Cell phones and the internet are widely considered to be some of the most important tools in speeding up development in much of the world: businesses can grow faster with wider access to customers and advanced technologies, doctors can stay in touch with patients and keep more sophisticated medical records, and educational opportunities vastly increase. […]
Interesting article from the Voice of America today. Of particular importance in this news: 1) the loan is intended to help “end the unilateralism” (President Evo Morales) of the world powers; and 2) the loan has no use restrictions. The lack of spending restrictions has been one of the biggest complaints against many of the […]
Left Foot Forward’s website is back up, posting this: “[International Development Secretary Andrew] Mitchell was quick to claim that the perception created by the leak was “total and utter bollocks” and that any new Government had the right to a “bottom up” review of existing practice. Mitchell insists that his new approach – focusing on […]
This week, Britain’s coalition government was accused of ”securitising” its international aid budget and demanding that British national security be placed at the heart of projects in the developing world. The shift in aid policy, signaled in a document prepared by the Department for International Development (DFID), suggests that the National Security Council – Britain’s […]