ideas about development
Tim Harford’s new book Adapt is essential reading for anyone interested in how to improve development aid. In this TEDTalk, Tim worries about the prevalence of the ‘God complex’ among politicians, doctors and economists in a world where problems and their solutions are multifaceted and complex. Tim is a big fan of adaptation through variation and selection, trial and error, to find solutions to complex problems. His thesis is that in order to get closer [...] Read more »
Andrew Mitchell MP has been appointed as the UK’s Secretary of State for International Development. The Secretary of State said: “I’m delighted to be appointed to spearhead the new government’s campaign to tackle global poverty. “Tackling deprivation around the world is a moral imperative and firmly in Britain’s national interest. I’m proud of the commitments that our new government has made on international development. Our bargain with taxpayers is this: in return for contributing your [...] Read more »
The Global Monitoring Report 2010 attempts to assess the impact of the global economic crisis on poverty. Are the numbers useful? According to the World Bank’s analysis, the global economic crisis has had an negative impact on poverty, but could have been much worse. The report argues that timely and effective policies, including IFI assistance, helped save the day. What was the impact of the crisis? The report correctly says that it’s too early to [...] Read more »
We’re often asked for data on this, that and the other. While a lot of this has to be hunted down through local sources, the World Bank has made your job of making international comparisons of WDI data much easier. Spurred on by the likes of Hans Rosling (see his terrific TEDTalk on ‘no more boring data’), the World Bank has released the whole of WDI database and improved the client interface. What’s more, they are holding a [...] Read more »
Bill Easterly and Jessica Cohen discuss whether we can know what works and why, and have a great discussion on randomised control trials. On January 21, the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings hosted a discussion on these fundamental global development questions with the book’s editors. Their discussion focused on the benefits and challenges of both a smaller grassroots development approach and a traditional big-picture development approach, with the goal of achieving a consensus [...] Read more »
India has weathered the global economic crisis better than most countries, but has also felt the strain. Export and manufacturing sectors, though recovering now, were battered hard. The impact on poverty of even a two or three percentage point slowdown in economic growth is still possibly about six to nine million more people remaining in poverty. (A reflection of India’s high levels of poverty – with 456m people living on less than $1.25 a day, [...] Read more »
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