For the most part I don't notice when the dollar is weak or strong. Unless I’m travelling it just doesn't register with the prices of things I buy. Economics isn't my best subject, so I can't really say why. Maybe it is the pegged Yuan, or the fact that oil is priced in dollars? Maybe […]
This nice overview of CSR begins with an illustrative short anecdote that shows how “creative capitalism” has been around for a while. “Like many people in Guatemala, Dona Blanca grows crops which are exported to companies in North America and Europe. But unlike most of them, she is paid fairly for her work. That's because […]
The FY09 budget request is out. Foreign aid comes under international affairs. In addition to the staffing increases I wrote about earlier, here are some highlights I picked out from the press release: $2.3 billion to help Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and West Bank/Gaza achieve necessary economic, democratic, security and political stabilization and to advance their […]
Henrietta Fore, Director of Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator, has announced her plan for reforming the US Foreign Aid system. The Center For Global Development gives a solid analysis of what she had to say. The CGD tracks this issue closely, and just started a new project on modernizing foreign assistance. The four main points […]
In addition to adding 1,000 new diplomats to the State Department, the President's new budget calls for 300 new USAID Foreign Service Officers and 250 people for the Active Response Corps – a group of pre-vetted civilians to respond to emergency situations. As someone who may one day want to take one of these new […]
The Islamic Development Bank transfered a $130 million anonymous donation to assist vicims of the November cyclone in Bangladesh. It is the largest private donation ever to Bangladesh.
Dogooder.tv is a good place to learn about the range of philanthropy going on in the world. It is also pretty entertaining, and a worthy replacement for YouTube when you feel a need to be unproductive on the Internet. onPhilanthropy wrote a complete article on them last week.
The Center for Global Development Global Health Policy Blog explains very clearly why they are in favor of “positive price” bednets (meaning that the end user has to pay for them) rather than distributing these important anti-malaria tools for free. They also support positive pricing through a combination of public and private distribution chains. According […]
There are a lot of reasons to donate money to a cause: tax write-offs, guilt, religious beliefs, security, and compassion are just the first the come to mind. Some reasons are self-serving and others are not. Here is a case of what looks like the self-serving kind. It appears that Bill Clinton traveled to Kazakhstan […]
Sean Stannard Stockton, who writes the blog Tactical Philanthropy commented Kiva.org's problem finding enough people to borrow all the money that people want to give. He rightly points out that there are probably many people who would like to borrow, but aren't able to for lack of microfinance access – leaving Kiva and its partners […]
There are a lot of interesting things to hear in this Forbes.com Video interview with Robert and Lucia Duvall. They are talking about the Latin American microfinance institution Pro Mujer. As their name suggests, Pro Mujer is specifically aimed at providing loans to women entrepreneurs. They also provide business training and healthcare. Neither of those […]
When the President spoke last night he categorized most foreign aid under the heading “compassion”. He specifically mentioned 1) Food Aid Reform, 2) HIV and Malaria Control and Prevention, 3) Basic Education Assistance, and 4) the Millenium Challenge Account. Compassion was also mentioned briefly as a side note to “Keeping America Safe by Fostering the […]
The Gates Foundation got some more insults today. It's a little depressing that something as fundamentally positive as the world's richest man giving away billions of dollars to benefit the world's poor gets so much negative press and so little positive. All the positive articles I turn up for Gates Foundation are obvious press releases, and […]
A study has shown that there is only a small correlation between corporate social responsibility practices and profitability. Particularly scandalous corporate behavior brings poor profits, though. The study authors interpret (and admit they are being cynical with this) that it pays to be good, but not too good. Put another way, profit should not be the […]