Interesting articles and posts – January

Posted on February 4, 2011 at 7:24 pm

I’ve fallen behind on my regular links page, my apologies for such a long list of interesting links.

Show me the Impact! – Pulling for the Underdog – Takes off of a recent article from Africa Can End Poverty and proposes an alternative approach to the Millennium Villages Project for finding what works.

Millennium Villages Project continues to systematically overstate its effects – Africa Can End Poverty – Uses a very clear graph of cell phone ownership to make the point that the Millennium Villages Project is over estimating their impact.

Why development history matters for the Millennium Villages Project – Aid Watch – Looks at how the MVP faces the same problems that have been faced in the past in other development projects.

ANSWERS ON A POSTCARD, PLEASE – Owen Abroad – Owen answers a reporter’s questions on how, and if, there can be an end to poverty.

The
Determinants
of
Food
Aid
Provisions
to
Africa
and
the Developing
World (pdf) – Research conducted by researchers at Harvard and Yale – Looks at factors affecting food aid and finds that food aid from the US is more tied to domestic overproduction rather than need.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly - GirlsReport’s Blog – Discusses chartiable advertising and how it impacts people’s impression of women.

Voluntourism - The Global Poverty Project – One person’s thoughts and experiences mixing volunteering and tourism.

Grassroots = No Brains? – How Matters – Looks at issues with the relationships between international and local nonprofits.

Driving Development (closely related to the above post) – Shotgun Shack - Compares aid and development to driving a shopping cart.

NGO “Partnerships” – Some Thoughts from Kenya – Dochas – The findings from a study done by Dochas on how Kenyan nonprofits feel about the Irish NGOs they partner with.

Foundations Failing at Failing – Glass Pockets – Looks at how most foundations are unwilling to admit mistakes, a problem common to nonprofits as well.

Haiti: Pointing Fingers and Embracing Failure - Huffington Post by Tom Murphy – Looks at expectations and realities in Haiti.

A Tale of Three Schools - Voluntourism Gal - Looks at overbuilding of schools and underfunding of teacher salaries.

Career advice (from people smarter than me) – WhyDev – A great roundup of links on information and advice for building a career in international development.

Don’t bother donating expired drugs – Modern Medicine – A doctor wanting to do good finds out that good intentions are not enough.

Google Finds It Hard to Reinvent Philanthropy – NYT – Looks at Googles struggle to have an impact in development.

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This list of posts was compiled from my @Good_Intents twitter account.

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