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Aid & development links: Timor-Leste, vale smallpox hero, ideas trump experts, and more

Aid & development links: Timor-Leste, vale smallpox hero, ideas trump experts, and more
Published 5 Sep 2016   Follow @jonathan_pryke

  • Recently appointed Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong has called for Australia to commit to dispute resolution with Timor-Leste in a post on The Interpreter. Stephen Grenville provides an update on the conciliation process here.
  • Government funding makes up approximately 20% of all revenue to Australian development NGOs, but does this silence their advocacy? Not according to new research from Terence Wood and Sachini Muller.
  • Devpolicy's Ashlee Betteridge assesses Australia’s aid communications efforts in a new Policy Brief (summary here), arguing that they are a far cry from what they once were under AusAID.
  • The Economist has an excellent obituary of Donald Henderson, the epidemiologist who led the herculean 10-year effort that led to the eradication of smallpox in the 1970s.
  • Deirdre McCloskey writes about the roots of prosperity for the NY Times, arguing that development is caused by ideas, not experts (h/t William Easterly)
  • India is rapidly shifting its subsidy and welfare schemes towards direct benefit transfers straight to the bank accounts of 300 million beneficiaries. The CGD assesses its progress.
  • Alan Wheatley has profiled Nancy Birdsall, who co-founded and has led the Centre for Global Development for the past 15 years.
  • Ahead of the UN General Assembly this month, the World Bank has released a paper arguing for the role that the World Bank can play in advocating for international migration for development (summary here).

 



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