Digital Archive....

From the archive: Another country Baobab With a referendum on the secession of the southern part of Sudan scheduled for January 9th, the time seems right for a trip into the archives (specifically, the leader pages in the print edition of April 24th 1993), to reexamine what our thoughts were in advance of Eritrea's vote for independence, and on the merits of secession in Africa in general: Africa should welcome Eritrea, not resist it WITH referendums enjoying something of a vogue, the one taking place in a remote corner of Africa this weekend may not grab many headlines. Between April 23rd and 25th the inhabitants of Eritrea, a little wedge of territory beside the Red Sea, will vote on whether to secede from Ethiopia. The place is small, but the symbolic value of its vote is not. When Eritreans say Yes to independence, as they surely will, they will deliver to Africa the first country born through secession since decolonisation. Many fear that if Eritrea...

Evaluating Millennium Villages Revisited Africa Can... - End Poverty Although the members of the Millennium Village Project were unavailable (but have offered to hold a follow-up seminar in January), we held a seminar on the Clemens-Demombynes  paper to discuss different approaches to evaluating rural development programs. read more Sent with Reeder  

    Aan u verzonden door VanStokkom via Google Reader:     The Dragonfly Effect via SSIR Articles op 18-11-10 Sameer Bhatia was always good with numbers. When he was in his 20s, the Stanford University grad came up with an innovative algorithm that formed the foundation of MonkeyBin, his popular consumer barter marketplace. By 31, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur was newly married and running a mobile gaming company. Then, on a routine business trip to Mumbai, Bhatia started to feel under the weather. He lost his appetite and had trouble breathing. Bhatia chalked it up to the 100-degree weather and unbearable humidity. After a visit to a doctor at one of Mumbai's leading hospitals, however, blood tests showed that Bhatia's white blood cell count was wildly out of whack, and there were "blasts" in his cells. His doctor instructed him to return home to seek medical treatment. Upon entering the United States, Bhatia was admitted to the Robert Wood Johnson Univer...

Paul Krugman: Deep Hole Economics Economist's View I've been worried about this as well. Let's Hope against Hope that policymakers don't pursue "economically harmful spending cuts": Deep Hole Economics, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times : If there's one piece of economic wisdom I hope people will grasp this year, it's this: Even though we may finally have stopped digging, we're still near the bottom of a very deep hole. Why do I need to point this out? ... What particularly concerns me is the risk ... that policy makers will look at a few favorable economic indicators, decide that they no longer need to promote recovery, and take steps that send us sliding right back to the bottom. ... Jobs, not G.D.P. numbers, are what matter to American families. And when you start from an unemployment rate of almost 10 percent, the arithmetic of job creation — the amount of growth you need to get back to a to...

Een gedragscode moet niet alleen voor particuliere initiatieven gelden Vice Versa - vakblad over ontwikkelingssamenwerking Moet er wel of geen gedragscode voor ontwikkelingssamenwerking komen? Het WRR-rapport 'Minder pretentie, meer ambitie' pleit voor een gedragscode voor particuliere initiatieven. Marc Broere is voor een gedragscode, maar die moet breder zijn dan alleen voor particuliere initiatieven. In twee eerdere bijdrages (' Ontwikkelingswerker in opspraak ' en ' Gedragscode moet ook ontwikkelingswerker beschermen ') heb ik teruggeblikt op de discussie over een gedragscode voor ontwikkelingswerkers zoals die in de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw woedde. Na alle negatieve publiciteit destijds verdween het idee van een gedragscode in 1994 weer geruisloos van tafel. Bij ontwikkelingsorganisaties was geen draagvlak om de code ook werkelijk status te geven, bijvoorbeeld als aanhangsel bij het arbeidscontract of in de CAO. Nu komt h...

Pay Attention to the Mobile Web White African In 2008 we saw the scales begin to tip with imports of data enabled phones being larger than that of non-data enabled phones. In 2009 we saw the undersea cables hit East and Southern Africa in a big way. In 2010 we saw the mobile operators get serious about data availability and cost packaging for everyday Africans. 2011 is upon us, and with it brings a new type of data-enabled mobile user in Africa. It also brings the mobile web to center stage. Mobile web content has been defined as any internet-connected or browser-based access to the internet and as digital content connected to a database that passes through a handheld device connected to a wireless network. Simply put, the mobile web is the same data that the web layer brings to you on a computer, just now on your phone. The mobile phone is the most ubiquitous instrument there is in the market. Usage is no longer limited to sending and receiving calls ...