An Institutional Perspective on Development Aid

The World Bank’s excellent PSD Blog mentioned a report by ActionAid, criticizing development aid spent on expatriate consultants. The entry started a thought process to expand on that issue.
As I’ve argued with friends, the incentives of development aid are all wrong - meant to preserve the very poverty it is supposed to cure. I will [...]

A Book on Development Aid

So, international development assistance and aid does not work. Surprise, surprise! Now, we have a book - The White Man’s Burden - to tell us why.
I learnt of it in today’s International Herald Tribune. With little pressing work at the office, I read some more and finally found this review that for me is authoritative [...]

A Week of Philanthropy

Time for some reflection. The past two weeks were spent organizing and attending a conference on philanthropy. Bringing together a select crowd, we discussed NGOs, family foundations, world disasters, and development.
I am now full of statistics. About US$270 billion donated in philanthropic funds in 2005 to charitable causes in the USA - 75% from individuals. [...]

The Power of the NGO

Back in university, I had heated debates with my colleages from the US and Europe, on labor and environmental standards. As I’ve said before, I am vehemently against them. For me, they constitute at best protectionism by other means. At worst, for some it is neo-colonialism by means of the NGO.
I do not, necessarily subscribe [...]

Globalization and the Race to the Bottom

Today I bring forth two interesting, long, articles, each with the same simple lesson.

Scientific American: Does Globalization Help or Hurt the Poor, by Pranab Bardhan
Reason: Why Poor Countries are Poor, by Tim Harford

Pranab Bardhan’s discussion reminds me of debates in school on the foretold ‘race to the bottom’. I fought vehemently against labor and environmental standards, because [...]

Corporate Responsibility and Profits

I have been doing some research recently on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI). These days, in the banking world, SRI is en vogue. Banks are constantly introducing special investment funds with positive or negative screening criteria. Other forms of SRI are also gaining popularity - as an advocacy mechanism as well as social venture capital.
SRI is [...]

NGO’s Claim Victory

This may not have made it to your headlines. The French President has ordered a ‘toxic’ ship home.
The ship had been the rallying point for much of the environmental community. It had been on its way to a ship breaking yard in India, where the ship - decommissioned in 1997 - was to be taken [...]

The Incentives of Development Aid

The longer I stay here, the more skeptical I am of development assistance.
Examples keep emerging of the perverse effects of development aid. In the refugee areas of Nairobi - such as Eastleigh (where Somali refugees have settled) - donor dollars provide health services, water, and infrastructure. While the neighborhood is not heaven, what does this [...]