Digital Archive....

Eradicating poverty and the Buddhist dilemma: An Interview with Dean Karlan Financial Access Initiative Blog Is there a sure-fire solution to eradicating global poverty? The experts generally fall into two camps: those who believe what is needed is more money in more places; and those who think that too much has already been spent too inefficiently and ineffectively, requiring a new and smarter approach to aid. Hence the Buddhist dilemma that Dean Karlan and J acob Appel allude to in the introduction to their new book, More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics Is Helping to Solve Global Poverty . Karlan, a development economist at Yale and co-founder of FAI, and Appel, a researcher at Innovations for Poverty Action , founded by Karlan, argue that there is a third way ---combining behavioral economics with rigorous evaluation. Their new book takes readers around the globe –where economic theory collides with real life – and offers a new way to understand ...

Africa is a country Aid Thoughts No this post isn't about the excellent blog , it's about yet another shoes-for-Africa initiative . I really hate going back to this, but the map on their site is making my eyes bleed, and the only way to stop the pain is to share it with others: Hat tip to Texas in Africa Share Sent with Reeder  

Contrasting Two E-payment Success Stories: PayPal and M-PESA Financial Access Initiative Blog PayPal and M-PESA are two major successes stories, each an example of new e-payments systems taking root in the last decade. The early development of PayPal is described vividly by an insider in PayPal Wars , and my colleague Dan Radcliffe and I have attempted to categorize the reasons behind M-PESA's success in a World Bank case study . Their design and contexts are vastly different –developed versus developing countries, banked versus unbanked customer segments, e-commerce versus remittance applications— but they share two major similarities. The first similarity is that they both had a very specific function and powerfully targeted the proposition. At PayPal's inception, the main case was thought to be P2P (person to person) payments, with the typical scenario being friends settling the dinner tab with each other (one person puts the meal on their credit car...

Mostly good news for Africa's economy | Jonathan Glennie Global development news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk Report says growth rate set to rise and continent's trade with emerging economies offers more opportunities than threats The publication of the African Economic Outlook report (jointly published by the African Development Bank, the OECD, the UN Development Programme and the UN Economic Commission for Africa) offers an annual opportunity to review the continent's economic wellbeing. For the last few years the news has been fairly positive, and this year is no exception. Real growth in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to rise from 5% in 2010 to 5.7% in 2011, while in north Africa, political crisis has slowed growth considerably – down from 4.7% in 2010 to a predicted 0.7% in 2011. A range of interesting statistics and comments emerge from the report, but two points stick out for me. First, while growth remains impressive in sub-Saharan...

Holland Car-Ethiopia Timbuktu Chronicles HowWeMadeitInAfrica profiles the first made in Ethiopia automobile , the Holland Car founded by Tadesse Tessema in his words: Holland Cars 'Awash Executive' model At first the assembly plant was only able to turn out one car per day, but following additional investments and facility improvements, the company currently has the capacity to produce up to six units. Tessema wants to increase this to ten cars per day. He also has plans to go from assembling cars to manufacturing the parts as well. All Holland Car's models are named after rivers in Ethiopia , with names such as Abay, Tekeze and Shebelle. Tessema says this is to emphasize the cars' local credentials and to foster a sense of national pride.Plans are also underway to roll-out a biogas powered car. The goal is to not only assemble the vehicle , but to also produce the gas itself. Holland Car is, however, seeking further government assistance ...