When: Thursday, February 23rd, 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Where: NYU Campus, Kimmel Center 914 – Silver Board Room

This event is open to the public but space is limited. Register now.

Email dri@nyu.edu with any questions.

On Tuesday, February 28^th, Abhijit Banerjee, MIT Professor of Economics, will discuss how he is rethinking the fight against poverty in his lecture Why aren’t children learning? (and what we can do about it).  The lecture, part of the Albert Gallatin Lecture series, will take place at 6:30pm at the Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts at 1 Washington Place in New York City.

Banerjee is the author, with Esther Duflo, of the recent must-read development book, Poor Economics, which describes his and his colleagues’ work evaluating development interventions through randomized experiments at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).

Download the event poster here; to attend the event register with Gallatin.

David Rice, DRI’s Executive Director, will be speaking at Wesleyan University’s Forum for International Development this Saturday February 18^th. David will give the keynote address “Is it Better to Give or Receive? Rethinking International Development,” as well as a lecture on “Innovating Capital Flows to Small Enterprises.” Nathaneal Goldberg, Policy Director at Innovations for Poverty Action, will discuss “How Do We Know What Works in Development?” Other discussion topics include different approaches to development, Wesleyan non-profits, identifying and scaling up effective interventions, and getting involved in development.

Click here for the full program.

The agenda reflects CTED’s goal of combining economic principles, technological advances, and human-centric designs to address problems in developing regions, as well as DRI’s interest in exploring the role of technology in enabling bottom-up development through non-state actors. One joint DRI-CTED project, for example, evaluates whether providing Ghanaian farmers with market information via text message leads to fundamental changes in the bargaining process between farmers and traders.

At the February conference, Former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings, now the African Union envoy to Somalia, and UAE Foreign Trade Minister Lubna Al Qasimi will give keynote speeches. Panels led by an international group of scholars and practitioners—including Mwangi Kimenyi, Director of the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings, Ethiopia Commodities Exchange Founder and CEO Eleni Gabre-Madhin, and DRI Co-Director Yaw Nyarko—will discuss mobile money, food security, education, energy, and technologies for healthcare.

We’ll be covering some of these speakers and topics here on the DRI website in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Debates in Development

Please join us for our all-day 2012 Annual Conference
Thursday, March 22nd on the NYU Campus

 Confirmed Speakers Include:

Abhijit Banerjee
MIT Department of Economics and Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab

 Michael Clemens
Center for Global Development

 Angus Deaton
Princeton University Economics Department and Woodrow Wilson School

 William Easterly
NYU Department of Economics and Development Research Institute/AfricaHouse

 Yaw Nyarko
NYU Department of Economics and Development Research Institute/AfricaHouse

 Stewart Paperin
Open Society Foundations

 Bernadette Wanjala
Tilburg University Development Research Institute

Register Now

This event is free and open to the public, but space is limited
Detailed agenda and exact location to follow
Email dri@nyu.edu with any questions

Machine Gun Preacher.

The strange contrast between evil violent African males with the saintly violent white male, who frequently boasts “I am saving African children,” was apparently a clincher for our voting audience.

If you want to read more, the most (very) detailed blog post is by Brett Keller (shorter version in Foreign Policy.) Keller concludes that the real Machine Gun Preacher is either a dangerous liar or a dangerous lunatic, or most likely both.  Tales from the Hood is less favorable. Keller also wrote a follow-up piece, based in part on some disturbing new material about alleged neglect at the orphanage the MGP founded.

Fortunately for the cause of discouraging Insulting and Exploitative Pictures about Africa, MGP only earned $1.1. million box office worldwide back on its production budget of $30 million. It was also widely panned by the conventional movie critics.

PS In the Aid Watch spirit of representing dissenting opinions: Chris Blattman presents the case that MGP may still have been useful to call attention to the horrific situation of the victims of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

We include links to the trailers.

Machine Gun Preacher. This one is so exemplary that it inspired the EAAA in the first place. A commercial film based on a violent ex-con turned violent Christian who goes to central Africa to shoot bad guys and rescue any children still alive after the cross-fire. Principal white saviors : based on “true(?)” story of ex-biker-gang-member Sam Childers, supported in the movie by a beautiful model playing his ex-biker-gang-member-wife.

The Reckoning. About how the International Criminal Court protects African females and children against male African killers. Principal White Savior: Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Darfur. About how Western correspondents protect African females and children against male African killers. Principal White Saviors: macho journalists supported by one attractive female journalist.

The Vice Guide to Liberia. OK it’s actually a web-based TV series from the Vice media empire, but it’s so horrifically exploitative (baby cannibalism, enough said), we had to include it. Principal White Savior: the Vice correspondent , although it’s very unclear how he’s saving anyone but himself.

An older classic:

Blood Diamond.  Educated the movie-going audience about the acronym TIA to be used whenever anything horrible happens in the movie — “This Is Africa”. Principal white saviors: mercenary and smuggler Leonardo di Caprio supported by gorgeous journalist Jennifer Connelly.

Please vote for your favorite after a few minutes scanning the trailers – we will announce the winner after enough votes come in.

Credits: we went outside of DRI/Aid Watch to consult the real experts: Kate and Amanda from Wronging Rights. DRI/Aid Watch contributors include William Easterly, Laura Freschi, Vivek Nemana, and David Rice.

Yesterday we heard from Oxfam that the World Bank has finally announced an independent investigation into complaints from two communities in Uganda who lost their land in forced evictions to make way for forestry plantations.

The Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) reports directly to the President of the World Bank and examines cases brought by people affected by World Bank private sector lending projects, usually dealing with social and environmental problems.

This announcement comes 123 days after the Bank promised to investigate. Forgive us for being a tiny bit underwhelmed that it took so long to start an investigation that will now take another six months.  The CAO’s mandate is to make the Bank more accountable by responding “quickly and effectively” to complaints from affected communities. Allowing 123 days of obfuscation and confusion to pass instead was a disaster for such accountability.

UPDATE IV January 11, 2012: Everybody loses

The World Bank (through subsidiary IFC) has pulled $1 million in funding from New Forests Company, alleged to be responsible for the forcible eviction of thousands of people in Uganda. This is according to a statement from NFC, which announced a halt to new tree planting, prompted also by the loss of $14 million from a new, unnamed investor.

New Forests Company (NFC), Uganda’s biggest forestry group, announces today that it has suspended tree planting across the country for 2012 that will result in 560 job losses in the Mubende, Kiboga, Kyankwanzi and Bugiri districts.

NFC blamed Oxfam, and the negative publicity its report caused, for the suspension and resulting loss of jobs.

An Oxfam spokesman responded today, saying they were “disappointed to hear of the job losses” and that “[w]ithdrawing investment is not a solution to the issues we have highlighted. We think that existing investors should engage with the company to put things right.”

No word yet from the World Bank/IFC to explain their decision, or their position on how the evicted communities should be compensated.

This looks like the worst case scenario, with the communities displaced and no compensation for them, and the forestry company not even creating the positive benefits of job creation, renewed forests and new economic activity in Uganda.  In other words, everybody has lost out, all because there were no safeguards to protect the residents, and no procedures for NFC and the World Bank/IFC to respond promptly to allegation of rights violations.

UPDATE III, October 18, 2011: What investigation?

Okay, that Twitter post was a practical joke. If you read the post carefully, neither Justin Bieber nor Kim Kardashian announced a hunger strike of any kind as far as Aid Watch knows. We can only fantasize about celebrity activism so bravely challenging the unacceptable impunity of aid agencies. Today’s real story of interest is an Oxfam America update about how the (self) investigation into World Bank-financed Uganda land evictions has so far issued threats to the poor  Ugandans who publicly complained about their homes being burned down. There is seemingly no end in sight for the Investigation Commitments Clock.

UPDATE II, October 9, 2011: The World Bank Responds 

The World Bank (through its subsidiary International Finance Corporation–IFC) finally followed up yesterday on their promise below to investigate — by issuing another promise to investigate:

IFC is committed to ensuring New Forests Company undertakes an independent and transparent review. NFC is drafting a terms of reference that IFC and other stakeholders will validate before the review gets underway.

How would you rate their responsiveness at this point?

UPDATE I, September 29, 2011: Oxfam joins us, after we join them 

Oxfam joins us in our rebel alliance against the Empire.  They kindly overlooked that we neglected to highlight their critical role in documenting the misdeeds in the first place — they did the report on which the NYT based the story.

ORIGINAL POST, September 22, 2011:

This clock shows the time since the World Bank promised an investigation on Thursday, September 22 into the charges from an Oxfam study that they financed a project in Uganda in which poor people had their homes, cattle, and crops destroyed as the project forced them off their own land. Click the image once to reveal clock.

Gates – a benevolent dictator for public health? Laura Freschi and Alanna Shaikh

The public health landscape today looks unquestionably different from how it did in the late 1990s when the Gates Foundation strode on to the field. To its credit, the foundation has brought about a resurgence of interest in global health issues at a time when the cause was running low on energy and funds. Before Gates, global health funding covered little more than HIV and emerging infectious diseases – a bare shadow of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health for All[1] vision of the 1970s. But Gates’ support for global health also raises questions: is it pushing us too much towards simple technological responses to multifaceted problems? With its influence so far-reaching, who will be willing and able to offer objective feedback? Click here to read

The Gates Foundation edition, which was guest-edited by Philanthropy Action’s Timothy Ogden, examined the foundation’s impact on both philanthropy and the fields it contributes to. Watch footage from a panel discussion on ‘Living with the Gates Foundation’ at the Hudson Institute.

See the other most-read articles below, including this one on culture and philanthropy by Tim Ogden:

How much difference is it making? Tim Ogden

Every autumn, an American university publishes a list of once popular items and phrases that fell out of standard use before the new class of students were born. For instance, a few years ago the list noted that incoming students probably hadn’t ever used cassette players. The intent is to remind professors and administrators that young people do not necessarily share many of our perceived cultural touchstones. Today, a discussion of philanthropic foundations’ role in society always begins with the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation. But this shared cultural touchstone is being eclipsed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Click here to read

Interview – Jodi Nelson

In November 2007, Alliance talked to Fay Twersky, recently appointed to head up the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s brand-new Impact Planning and Improvement Unit. Three and a half years later, Caroline Hartnell asked her newly appointed successor, Jodi Nelson, to what extent Bill and Melinda Gates’ original aims for the unit have been achieved. And what challenges does she face in her new role? One thing she emphasizes is the need to measure selectively and only when the results will actually be used to do something. Click here to read

‘They want to save the world in 45 minutes’ Olga Alexeeva

This is a shorter version of an interview with Olga Alexeeva published by CAF Russia’s magazine Money and Charity on 25 May, less than two months before she died. Carried out by Matvei Masaltsev, this interview reflects the unique insights into philanthropy around the world that informed all of Olga’s work, and in particular her most recent venture, the Philanthropy Bridge Foundation. Alliance thanks Sue Rogers for translating this from the Russian original. Click here to read

Why does Bihar matter? Simon Desjardins

Long before Gandhi would use it as a launch pad for his campaign for independence, Bihar was an economic powerhouse, serving as the capital of India during Ashoka’s empire in the third century BC, when India’s boundaries stretched to include present-day Afghanistan and parts of Iran to the west and Bangladesh to the east. It is a state rich in history, home to one of the world’s oldest universities (Nalanda) and the oldest democracy, and they even say Buddha found enlightenment here. Click here to read

We … call on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and America’s Western allies to publicly repudiate Ethiopia’s efforts to use terrorism laws to silence political dissent. We also urge the U.S. to ensure that our more than $600 million in aid to Ethiopia is not used to foster repression.

This is the call to action from a letter published in the New York Review of Books this month.

We at DRI are inspired by the courage of Eskinder Nega, an Ethiopian journalist, newspaper publisher, and dissident arrested on September 14th after writing a blog post demanding freedom of expression and an end to torture in Ethiopian prisons. Despite previous arrests, both Eskinder and his wife, Serkalem Fasil, have chosen to remain in Ethiopia and continue their work.

While we don’t want to meddle in other countries’ politics, we do want to speak out against aid that supports rights-violating regimes, in solidarity with Ethiopian citizens who are simply asking to exercise their own civil liberties.

From 2005, when Eskinder Nega was first imprisoned in the aftermath of Ethiopia’s parliamentary elections marred with rigging and violence, to the present, international aid to Ethiopia has more than doubled to well over $4 billion. The three largest donors are the World Bank, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Although they acknowledge “concerns” about governance and the protection of basic human rights, aid agencies continue to increase aid flows, praising the Ethiopian regime for high national growth rates and improvements on some health and poverty metrics. Even if not entirely reliable, these figures allow Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles to capitalize on The Myth of the Benevolent Autocrat, under which a “strong leader” (in the tradition to Lee-Kwan Yew, Deng Xiaoping, and even Paul Kagame) is given undue credit for a period of high growth, and excused for whatever human rights abuses and press freedom repression was deemed necessary in the pursuit of economic growth. Unfortunately for Meles, recent DRI research has found that there is no empirical basis for a belief that unconstrained autocratic leaders outperform democratic leaders.

The Ethiopian predicament raises tough questions for people concerned with both poverty alleviation and human rights. The Ethiopian government uses aid to build schools, vaccinate children, and provide social safety nets for the poor. But a Human Rights Watch report found that the government also systematically uses aid as a political weapon to discriminate against non-party members and punish dissenters. The report found widespread evidence of village leaders withholding seeds, fertilizer, and loans from farmers not in the ruling party, and local officials denying emergency food aid to women, children and the elderly as punishment for refusing to join the party.

In Ethiopia, aid agencies should do all they can to make sure aid helps Ethiopians rather than their rulers. One (albeit imperfect) measure of this is “channel of delivery” – data collected by the OECD on whether country aid agencies route funds through the public sector, NGOs, private-public partnerships, or multilateral organizations. These two graphs show available data for the US and the UK.

US ODA to Ethiopia, by channel of delivery. Source: OECD CRS, 2009

UK ODA to Ethiopia, by channel of delivery. Source: OECD CRS, 2009

Like the UK, the World Bank has long given its aid through direct budget support either to the central or local governments, insisting that social accountability mechanisms are in place to prevent misuse. But many observers and journalists tell a different story: that such mechanisms are either not present, or are not working because independent, third-party observers upon which such accountability measures depend are more often ruling party-affiliated NGOs.  Even a study commissioned by the donors found that two of the programs for Ethiopia’s most needy “face important challenges in their accountability systems” and “significant weakness” in safeguards and monitoring processes intended to detect distortion and produce evidence about whether or not the program works.

While it is logical to believe that the way donors deliver aid can strengthen or weaken the compact between rulers and their people in democratic countries, aid cannot create this compact where it does not exist. Empirical evidence does not support the idea that aid can cause dictatorships to become democracies, and in fact a new DRI working paper suggests that aid is more likely to push countries further down their existing path—so that aid to dictatorships makes them more dictatorial, not less.

Bad news for Eskinder Nega and other dissidents and journalists wrongfully persecuted and imprisoned, as aid agencies continue to empower the regime at the expense of the Ethiopian people.