- Three development specialists (MIT economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, and Harvard economist Michael Kremer) won the Nobel Prize in Economics for their groundbreaking work on global poverty, studying interventions in a range of areas: combating teacher absenteeism, direct cash transfers to the extreme poor, policing drunk driving, and studying the effects of access to textbooks on students, among others. Here is an interview with the three of them, while at VoxDev former colleagues comment on the work by the trio.
- A series of experiments in India looking at microfinance finds ways the program can be refined to strengthen its impact for the world’s poorest women.
- If you want to better understand China in the aid landscape, here is a useful reading list, covering Chinese aid, Chinese companies investing overseas, China’s status as a developing country, and whether the Chinese economic model can work for Africa.
- Speaking of Africa, Linda Calabrese has three tips for African countries if they want to avoid making strategic mistakes and to maximise the benefits of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: plan infrastructure carefully, think about the regional dimension of infrastructure projects, and learn from other countries.
- While we’re looking at guides, here are four thoughts about how to eradicate poverty, from empowering families to improve child wellbeing, to turning the poverty challenge in low income countries into an opportunity.
- Contrast this with three worrying trends Jesse Griffiths shares about the debt of low income counties: debt is rising, is more expensive, and the proportion of countries that are vulnerable to a damaging debt crisis is high and growing.
- Meanwhile, George Ingram and Sally Paxton look at the goals for the new US Development Finance Corporation, which include tracking impact and data transparency.
Aid links: development how-to guides, Nobel winners, more
A selection of links and stories from the aid and development sector.
Slicing tomatoes for sun drying in Bangar el Sokor, Nubaria, Egypt (Photo: Heba Khamis/FAO)
Published 23 Oct 2019
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