developments

The World Bank - Mapping for Results

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:21:11 +0100

The World Bank - Mapping for Results:

roomthily:

visualization of World Bank-financed projects with socio-economic indicators

The Global Sociology Blog: Why I Keep Harping on Inequalities

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:18:39 +0100

The Global Sociology Blog: Why I Keep Harping on Inequalities:

globalsociology:

Because it is THE issue facing many societies today, with negative effects across the board, and yet, it is largely ignored:

“The incomes of the richest sections of society are soaring in the UK, China and India, and in most other countries as well. The poorest groups are seeing slow…

Peace Dividend Trust: Aid still benefits companies from donor countries

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:17:21 +0100

Peace Dividend Trust: Aid still benefits companies from donor countries:

pdtglobal:

Despite a pledge made 10 years ago to end ‘tied aid’, recipients of aid are still being forced to buy goods and services from donor country firms, a report reveals

Claire Provost

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 September 2011 13.13 BST

Article history

Information on who…

Peace Dividend Trust: AID “INDUSTRY” VS HUMANITARIAN “RELIEF”

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:16:30 +0100

Peace Dividend Trust: AID “INDUSTRY” VS HUMANITARIAN “RELIEF”:

pdtglobal:

We don’t call it this, but there is a “PDT Doctrine”, a general world view among PDT staff that informs what we do and how we do it. Regular readers of this blog or those with whom we work can sketch the rough outlines without much trouble. We believe job creation comes from private…

lysscglobal: www.charitywater.org/whywater

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:15:55 +0100

lysscglobal:

www.charitywater.org/whywater

International Development - Kathy Calvin: UN Foundation CEO on the Future of Development Aid

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:03:00 +0100

International Development - Kathy Calvin: UN Foundation CEO on the Future of Development Aid:

Mainly just for my reference.

A Livable Career in International Development Work

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:02:15 +0100

A Livable Career in International Development Work:

Invaluable advice for any undergraduates.

Food is a human right, not a corporate commodity.*

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00:48 +0100

Food is a human right, not a corporate commodity.*:

niennaweeps:

This podcast is from last year, but the information presented and trends discussed are, unfortunately, still quite relevant. Felicity Lawrence speaks with Duncan Green, Jayati Ghosh, Olivier de Schutter, and Raj Patel about the causes of and possible solutions to the global food crisis.

While acknowledging that domestic policies and inequalities play significant roles in food crises around the world, Lawrence and her guest speakers focus on the international trade and development issues that perpetuate global hunger. In this thirty-minute podcast, they discuss trade rules that favor rich countries over poor, long-term neglect of agriculture in development work, food speculation, the growing Western preoccupation with biofuels, changing global dietary habits, and the impact of climate change on agriculture in the tropics.

*I took the title for this post from a letter to Paul Collier written by William Aal, Lucy Jarosz, and Carol Thompson. Read it here.

Lyss C Guatemala: Millions of children and adults remain deprived of educational opportunities, many as a result of poverty.

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:55:45 +0100

Lyss C Guatemala: Millions of children and adults remain deprived of educational opportunities, many as a result of poverty.:

lysscguatemala:

Why is education important?

Education increases quality of life. Education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all other human rights.

A more educated society is more productive, consequently creating more prosperity.

A larger educated population contains more…

Development Today and Microfinance on the Edge

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 02:51:30 +0100

twolayersdeep:

By Matt Borden for Women’s Initiative.

June 20 2011

The word’s richest 500 people alive today control more wealth than the world’s poorest 416 million. Unfortunate in more ways than one, that’s like comparing the collective populations of Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Canada to the size of my college economics class last year.

Ananya Roy presents this statistic in her new book Poverty Capital to emphasize the growing global disparity in access to capital. Microfinance, she writes, is perhaps not the magical solution to the woes of mainstream development as we once thought.

Read More

Cogito Ergo Sum: If The Earth was A Village!

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 02:49:02 +0100

Cogito Ergo Sum: If The Earth was A Village! :

summerskiies:

If we could shrink the earth’s population to village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratio remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

There would be:

57 Asians

21 Europeans

14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south

8…

jerfrey: UN warns of severe food crisis in Horn of Africa The...

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 02:45:27 +0100

jerfrey:

UN warns of severe food crisis in Horn of Africa

The worst drought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa has sparked a severe food crisis and high malnutrition rates, with parts of Kenya and Somalia experiencing pre-famine conditions, the UN said yesterday.

More than 10 million people are now affected in drought-stricken areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and the situation is deteriorating, it said. “Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones,” Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said. “There is no likelihood of improvement [in the situation] until 2012,” she added.

Food prices have risen substantially in the region, pushing many moderately poor households over the edge, she said. A UN map of food security in the eastern Horn of Africa shows large areas of central Kenya and Somalia in the “emergency” category, one phase before what the organisation classifies as catast-rophe/famine – the fifth and worst category.

Neglect

Wed, 25 May 2011 19:04:54 +0100

With my current course coming to an end it’s crunch time. This place has taken a back seat while I finish off my essays, exams and what not.

Good news though, one of the assignments I have is a research project and it’s due in in a few days. So with a bit of luck I’ll be able to publish in on here shortly, and that should mark the return of more frequent updates.

Test

Wed, 18 May 2011 04:04:04 +0100

Tes test test test

and now, for some music. nomoney-moproblems: It seems donors...

Mon, 09 May 2011 07:50:35 +0100

and now, for some music.

nomoney-moproblems:

It seems donors are also learning lessons from my mother, because they’ve decided to try out a new approach to giving out money. Giving it out after the chores have been done, rather than before (#ministryofthebleedingobvious?).

Instead of paying up in advance to, for example build new primary schools or train teachers, DFID are trying out paying on delivery of results. The number of additional children who finish and pass primary school will be counted, and only then will the government get the money (paid per child passed).

The point being to create stronger incentives for governments to improve their education systems and attempts (as Dambisa Moyo mentioned in the video I posted earlier) to make governments more accountable to their citizens rather than the international donor community.

I guess like Wiley, donors have decided that they also want to see numbers in action. I certainly do!

For more info check out this podcast with Nancy Birdsall http://tinyurl.com/6278xbq

Research Project, part ii

Sun, 08 May 2011 23:59:00 +0100

Well, it’s live. Watching the data come in is really interesting in a I’m-a-massive-geek kind of way.

Please complete and share!

UK aid: a public opinion http://bit.ly/mG3sIX

edited 09/05/11, wrong URL!

Research Project: Student opinion of UK aid to developing countries

Sat, 07 May 2011 16:57:34 +0100

I’m finally getting this project started, and the questionnaires will be going out shortly.

Google Forms seems to be the way forward, easy enough to put together and it gathers all the data in a spreadsheet so it’s easy to show pie charts, graphs and such.

Back issues of Developments

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:05:41 +0100

In the first post on this blog, I mentioned trying to get hold of the back issues of the discontinued DfID magazine Developments.

I’d forgotten that I’d emailed DfID regarding these, so had a nice surprise when they responded and offered to send some of the hard copy of the issues not archived on the DfID website. While they could only send six out of a thirty-five or so I was after, it’s well worth contacting them and asking for whatever they can put together. They’re great for referencing.

Department for International Development.

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/

Tel: 0845 300 4100 (UK only)
Tel: +44 (0) 1355 84 3132 (from outside the UK)
Fax: +44 (0) 1355 84 3632
Email: enquiry@dfid.gov.uk

How much is cheap High Street clothing really costing?

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:50:00 +0100

Just a quick one, this Guardian article highlighting that sweatshops are still a problem.

‘Factories in three countries – the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka – were surveyed, and not one of them paid a living wage to their combined 100,000-strong workforce. Many of them didn’t even pay the legal minimum wage.

Such precarious employment makes it harder for trade unions to organise and recruit, because contracts are not renewed if the worker has been involved in trade union activity. On average, 25% of workers in Indonesia were short-term or temporary, while inthe Philippines it rose to 85% in one factory, 50% at another.

Many of the workers at these factories in Sri Lanka are young women from rural areas. They are told when recruited that the factories prefer them not to marry, and some companies even carry out pregnancy tests to weed out pregnant women. Sexual intimidation and abuse was common.’

This is an oft seen problem of globalisation that is still faced- we need better protection for the trade unions and their members before we can overcome problems of wages and gender discrimination.

Unfortunately, it seems DFID does not share the same opinion;

‘It’s worth adding at the end of this catalogue of abuse that the UK Department for International Development (DfID) has just axed funding to the International Labour Organisation, one of the oldest international bodies in the world trying to improve labour standards. The ILO brings out a report on Friday in conjunction with the Asian Development Bank on women’s employment patterns across Asia and inequality.’

It's all gone quiet

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:06:03 +0100

My original plan was to update the blog every day/every other day but I’ve quite rapidly let that slip. I’m trying to get a several essays out of the way and then I can finish a post I’ve been doing on the Millennium Development Goals.

As you were.