We count our holiday blessings in development

This post is NOT a satire. Aid Watch has a previously-unsuspected sentimental streak and wants to embrace the holiday tradition of counting your blessings. Our best holiday wishes: (1)   To our readers and commentators, the smartest, most field-smart, sexiest group in the blogosphere

(2)   for ALL the people who work so hard around the world under difficult conditions (which includes getting grief from aid critics) trying to reduce poverty, disease, and illiteracy

(3)   For the growing number of African intellectuals and activists standing up to the aid agencies and campaigning for democracy and self-determination for Africans

(4)   For “the poor” themselves, who ignore labels such as “the poor,” and in this generation, have already achieved the greatest escape from poverty in human history