Accelerating entrepreneurship in Africa
Friday, April 26th, 2013
The Omidyar Network believe that entrepreneurship can help close the ‘stubborn income gap’ faced in Sub-Saharan Africa, but only if it can evolve beyond its current state of ‘necessity-based informality’. Its new survey finds that cultural and regulatory factors are comparable to global peers, but access to capital and reliable infrastructure lag too far behind. It also suggests what governments, funders, civil society groups and socially-minded businesses need to do to fix this. READ MORE
Art and Science of Delivery
Monday, April 15th, 2013
To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Skoll World Forum, this McKinsey series considers the difficulties of delivering improvements in a range of public and social sectors. It looks at innovations in health, education, food security and how to replicate and scale these models. READ MORE
Billion Books Baby
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
Billion Books Baby is a crowdsourcing project that aims to get tourists to donate 1kg of their luggage capacity to transport diagnostic tests, clothes and other necessities to developing countries. The project is looking to raise £110,000 on Indiegogo. READ MORE
Bill Gates’s 5th Annual Letter
Monday, February 4th, 2013
The 5th Annual “Gates Letter” focusses on measuring progress (which we’re delighted to hear, given that our new team works on just that issue). He argues that anyone who wants to make progress against a difficult goal needs a way to measure how they are doing. He draws two specific conclusions: to shore up support for aid spending, people in donor countries need to hear about the impact their money is having, and that whatever replaces the MDGs needs to be meaningful, measurable and a tool for accountability. READ MORE
Post-2015 Climate, Scarcity and Sustainability
Friday, December 7th, 2012
Last month saw the first meeting of the UN High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The panel is due to meet again in February. This briefing from NYU’s Center on International Cooperation considers how to get sustainability into these conversations. With limited space to engage world leaders they recommend anticipating potential major shocks – such as resource price spikes – and having ideas ‘ready on the shelf’ to contribute to the discussion. READ MORE (pdf)
Development Labs
Friday, November 23rd, 2012
USAID has recently announced funding for a new education network that will apply science and technology knowledge to development challenges. Beginning with 7 universities – 6 in the US and Makerere University in Uganda – each institution will establish ‘Development Labs’ that work with USAID experts and staff to tackle problems like food security. The network also includes 98 other partners. All involved seem convinced of the mutual benefits of the initiative, with each university and partner contributing an additional $6.60 toward the network for every $10 provided by USAID. The network is pitched as an innovative way of developing solutions to key problems and scaling them up. READ MORE
Global Hunger Index 2012
Friday, October 26th, 2012
Launched last week in Parliament, the report highlights the scale of global hunger – with 20 countries continuing to suffer from ‘alarming’ or ‘extremely alarming’ levels of hunger. The situation is caused by a range of factors, including scarcity of water and quality farmland and rising global energy prices. The report calls for an increase in inclusive and sustainable agricultural production. READ MORE
The Why, When and How of Aid Exits
Thursday, October 18th, 2012
As some countries begin to transition away from structured aid programmes, donor exit requires careful planning. Effective exits are key to ‘graduating’ countries toward long-term growth. In particular, managing this change needs an understanding of the reasons behind exit. DfID is praised for its forward-looking mindset which, the article notes, is linked ‘consciously or unconsciously’ to Britain’s post-colonial transitions and imperial decline. READ MORE
How Academia Has Failed the Development Field
Friday, August 31st, 2012
Development author Seth Kaplan believes that the sector has become dominated by economists. ‘Hyper-quantified’ econometrics has led to a simplification of problems and solutions, and a marginalisation of the politics of policy. The solution? More academia. In particular the introduction of a new field focused on political development and the politics of development, and a reunification of economics and politics. READ MORE
Conversations on Complexity
Friday, August 17th, 2012
Complexity was a regular feature in the work of Elinor Ostrom, the first and only woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. In this conversation, Ostrom discusses the concept of complexity in the aid and development sector – from the social science curriculum to the work of international aid agencies. READ MORE