Published daily by the Lowy Institute

Aid links: Ebola strikes, donations drop, and Gates debates

The case for a woman to lead the World Bank, the poverty paradox, and stories from the aid and development sector.

Scanning of an electron micrograph of Ebola virus budding (Photo: NIAID/Flickr)
Scanning of an electron micrograph of Ebola virus budding (Photo: NIAID/Flickr)
Published 6 Feb 2019   Follow @AlexandreDayant

  • Ebola is back. Photographer Kate Holt documents efforts to contain the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, challenged by conflicts and the fear of treatment centres.
     
  • On Tuesday, the United Nations and its aid partners, together with the Government of Libya, launched a humanitarian response plan appealing for US $202 million to bring urgent life-saving assistance to the local population.
     
  • In this piece, Terence Woods identifies two reasons for the fall in NGO donations of the past two years: the state of the economy, and fewer high-profile disasters close to home.
     
  • Jason Hickel, anthropologist and author, writes an open letter to Steven Pinker and Bill Gates about their misconception of global poverty.
     
  • The Economist examines the negative correlation between fertility and education, especially in developing countries, and makes concerning projections on the World’s population in 2100.
     
  • Nancy Birdsall, a Senior Fellow at Centre for Global Development, makes the case for a woman to become the President of the World Bank.
     
  • In India, there has been a new proposal for a minimum income guarantee, supported by Piketty and Deaton. According to Tavneet Suri, this proposition is welcomed but needs to be studied in more detail.
     
  • Rohini Pande, Vestal McIntyre and Lucy Page write about the paradox of aid, and how foreign assistance fails to reach the majority of the poor.
     
  • And to finish, here is the nice story of Seif Sakate, a Tanzanian who met his Australian wife in Africa and moved with her back to Port Fairy, where he co-founded a charity to build a school and a kindergarten back in his home village.
     

 

 



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