TED talk by Esther Duflo here
and Texas in Africa has a few things to say about attitudes towards aid.
Cool map of eastern Africa over time.
links that i liked
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Tag Archives: Chris Blattman
Development and how to achieve it
A while back I argued for a move away form small scale, “pro-poor” development strategies to more robust development strategies aimed at economic innovation and large-scale job creation. This is not to say that micro-development should be neglected. What I am saying is that jua kali kiosks will not increase Africa’s per capita income to 10,000 USD. The most they do is enable people to cope without really changing their standard of living.
Alkags, a blog I just discovered, deals with this debate.
Aid watch also has videos from a conference at the Yale law school on development. Chris Blattman and William Easterly are some of the featured development experts. Blattman makes some interesting comments about micro-finance, industrialization (medium to large farms) and development.
Quoting Blattman: “I think we have gone too far in the pro-poor direction…… we don’t necessarily have trade-offs. Factories are pro-poor.”
more on economic development
In line with the theme of my previous post here is a link to Chris Blattman’s blog. This is the kind of stuff that should be bugging economic planners in capitals all over the Continent. How do we grow medium-sized to large corporations that are gonna create jobs? Of course corporations have problems too. But at least they are not as bad as those posed by abject poverty.
development issues
My promise to write a post on African development is almost becoming like Dr. Dre’s promise to release the Detox album. I promise it will come soon, after I settle on an opinion that is robust enough to withstand more than a few critiques.
For now we should be content listening to much wiser development experts – like Blattman, TN Srinivasan (the man who taught me intermediate microeconomics) and cynic in chief Bill Easterly.
A few years ago I used to conflate economic development with modernization. I thought that all it took to make vibrant economies in the global south was the importation of technology, material goods and ideas of governance from the more developed parts of the globe. But time has taught me that historical lock-in effects matter. The global south’s geography, historical poverty and social structures have created path dependencies that will take a lot of time to undo. This is not to say that we should give up on the idea of accelerated development. What I am suggesting is that as we do this we should have it in mind that certain things take time to change and that short-term failures disappear when you look at the long-term picture.
In other news, the conflict in Darfur has become less sexy and so it is no longer all over the news. But Darfurians are still suffering. The same applies to the Congo. Here is yet another reminder that the madness in the land of Mobutu continues unabated.
kenopalo.com 