The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Alleviating poverty is more guesswork than science, and lack of data on aid's impact raises questions about how to provide it. But Clark Medal-winner Esther Duflo says it's possible to know which development efforts help and which hurt — by testing solutions with randomized trials.
Esther Duflo takes economics out of the lab and into the field to discover the causes of poverty and means to eradicate it. Full bio and more links
Continue reading “Water Overview from the Bottom of the Pyramid”
Related:
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Poisons, Toxicity, Trash, & True Cost
“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”
—Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises
Exhibition on view National Geographic Museum, Washington, DC through September 6, 2010
Imagine connecting item & service-requests to those lacking basic needs into a global online and mobile market forum like a Craigslist.org merged with Kiva+ SMS/txt message capabilities, something like Ushahidi, Wikimapia, as well as GoogleEarth-like & SecondLife-like 3D map to post photos and messages of requests and successful transactions without a centralized “middle-man” who manages everything.
Example: An African farmer needs a part for 1950’s Romanian pump. An aid worker posts need via UNICEF Rapid SMS. A Romanian engineer volunteers to make the part; a German pays for FedEx from Romania to Nigeria; a tourist commits to personally delivering it and posting a photograph of the farmer and repaired engine online to close out need.
It would be designed so that anyone could add “affordable” items (that meet a particular criteria) to the list. Please email earthintelnet |at| gmail.com if you have suggestions. For more info on the concept, see page 7 of the Earth Intelligence Network overview draft and this global range of nano-needs graphic. On 7/21/10 Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org sent this email: “..a number of people say they're working on similar efforts,” but he did not specify. Another great example is Practical Action's “Practical Presents” store where a goat, fish cage, farm tools, and many more products can be purchased for donation.
Global Range of Needs Index/Map/Forum could include the following items:
+ Cheap colloidal silver-treated water filters: see Potters Without Borders & Potters for Peace
+ Lifestraw, the one person water filter that can be worn around the neck
+ Saline water condenses into drinkable water using the WaterCone (video) (product info)
+ Various water storage products (bladder & plastic lined pond)
+ Peanut butter project (child malnutrition) connected with UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, USAID, etc and PlumpyNut
+ Affordable burn-proof stove | Guatemala Stove Project | stoves fr the Congo | Darfurstoves.org
+ Hand-Crank Battery-Free Dynamo Flashlight | “Light Up the World” solar powered battery L.E.D. lighting
+ List of innovations here from the Honey Bee Network
+ Cell phones (regionally compatible) / One Mobile per Human / One Mobile per Child / instead of just One Laptop per Child (see the $12 computer project) There are phone donation campaigns but the closest one found so far aims only at health care workers. And this wireless, local, do-it-yourself, telephone company toolkit.
+ KICKSTART water pumps for crop farming
+ Micro-irrigation systems for small plots (mentioned in this video at the chapter 6 mark), also called PEPSEE systems (also see DripTech)
+ Moringa seeds/leaves (nutrients + water filtering)
+ “Pot-inside-Pot Cooler” filled with sand and water (see 36 sec video). When that water evaporates, it pulls heat from the interior of the smaller pot, in which vegetables and fruits can be kept. See this African “refrigerator” called Zeer Pot (also: link1 | link2 | link3) which can keep meat fresh for five days mentioned in the book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
+ Shoes (Soles4Souls.org)
+ Shelter (mini-domes) and Architectureforhumanity.org (video in Haiti), Open Architecture Network, rammed earth, tires, and plastic bottle innovation, Earthship Biotecture, Grassroots United, and Uber Shelter (video).
+ 10 cent blood-type test, 99 cent ovarian cancer blood test
+ Toothpaste & toothbrushes or teeth-cleaning twigs | African twig brush/chew sticks (sell to Westerners, sold here) | traveler feedback on chewsticks | Miswak | Other African info and some historical perspective on chew sticks
+ Solar dynamo radios + Farm Radio (African rural poor)| Healthy Radio
+ Bicycles / bicycles for humanity (and locks!) ONE | TWO
+ Devices powered by bicycle (Global Cycle Solutions)
+ Durable versatile safer wheelchairs Video 1 | Video 2 | Whirlwind Wheelchairs International (open source)
+ Affordable prosthetics, eyeglasses, mobile eye exam lense
Other needs: medical supplies ($3 negative pressure pump, telemedicine microscope, Rice Univ project list), seeds & fertilizer, toilets (see this loo, & one-time use bags), electricity and medical equipment in Afghan hospitals, products for the elderly, games for children, and services such as the needs for software to be developed where there is a desire for “Code in Country” (CIC), and a global “classifieds” tool for job-hunting via mobile SMS (Craigslist.org but with more reach and aware to those without a web connection). Continue reading “Design for the Other 90% Exhibit + “Micro-Giving” Global Needs Index to Connect Rich to Poor/Fullfill Global-to-Local Requests”
“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”
—Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises
Exhibition on view National Geographic Museum, Washington, DC through September 6, 2010
Imagine connecting item & service-requests to those lacking basic needs into a global online and mobile market forum like a Craigslist.org merged with Kiva+ SMS/txt message capabilities, something like Ushahidi, Wikimapia, as well as GoogleEarth-like & SecondLife-like 3D map to post photos and messages of requests and successful transactions without a centralized “middle-man” who manages everything.
Example: An African farmer needs a part for 1950’s Romanian pump. An aid worker posts need via UNICEF Rapid SMS. A Romanian engineer volunteers to make the part; a German pays for FedEx from Romania to Nigeria; a tourist commits to personally delivering it and posting a photograph of the farmer and repaired engine online to close out need.
It would be designed so that anyone could add “affordable” items (that meet a particular criteria) to the list. Please email earthintelnet |at| gmail.com if you have suggestions. For more info on the concept, see page 7 of the Earth Intelligence Network overview draft and this global range of nano-needs graphic. On 7/21/10 Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org sent this email: “..a number of people say they're working on similar efforts,” but he did not specify. Another great example is Practical Action's “Practical Presents” store where a goat, fish cage, farm tools, and many more products can be purchased for donation.
Global Range of Needs Index/Map/Forum could include the following items:
+ Cheap colloidal silver-treated water filters: see Potters Without Borders & Potters for Peace
+ Lifestraw, the one person water filter that can be worn around the neck
+ Saline water condenses into drinkable water using the WaterCone (video) (product info)
+ Various water storage products (bladder & plastic lined pond)
+ Peanut butter project (child malnutrition) connected with UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, USAID, etc and PlumpyNut
+ Affordable burn-proof stove | Guatemala Stove Project | stoves fr the Congo | Darfurstoves.org
+ Hand-Crank Battery-Free Dynamo Flashlight | “Light Up the World” solar powered battery L.E.D. lighting
+ List of innovations here from the Honey Bee Network
+ Cell phones (regionally compatible) / One Mobile per Human / One Mobile per Child / instead of just One Laptop per Child (see the $12 computer project) There are phone donation campaigns but the closest one found so far aims only at health care workers. And this wireless, local, do-it-yourself, telephone company toolkit.
+ KICKSTART water pumps for crop farming
+ Micro-irrigation systems for small plots (mentioned in this video at the chapter 6 mark), also called PEPSEE systems (also see DripTech)
+ Moringa seeds/leaves (nutrients + water filtering)
+ “Pot-inside-Pot Cooler” filled with sand and water (see 36 sec video). When that water evaporates, it pulls heat from the interior of the smaller pot, in which vegetables and fruits can be kept. See this African “refrigerator” called Zeer Pot (also: link1 | link2 | link3) which can keep meat fresh for five days mentioned in the book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
+ Shoes (Soles4Souls.org)
+ Shelter (mini-domes) and Architectureforhumanity.org (video in Haiti), Open Architecture Network, rammed earth, tires, and plastic bottle innovation, Earthship Biotecture, Grassroots United, and Uber Shelter (video).
+ 10 cent blood-type test, 99 cent ovarian cancer blood test
+ Toothpaste & toothbrushes or teeth-cleaning twigs | African twig brush/chew sticks (sell to Westerners, sold here) | traveler feedback on chewsticks | Miswak | Other African info and some historical perspective on chew sticks
+ Solar dynamo radios + Farm Radio (African rural poor)| Healthy Radio
+ Bicycles / bicycles for humanity (and locks!) ONE | TWO
+ Devices powered by bicycle (Global Cycle Solutions)
+ Durable versatile safer wheelchairs Video 1 | Video 2 | Whirlwind Wheelchairs International (open source)
+ Affordable prosthetics, eyeglasses, mobile eye exam lense
Other needs: medical supplies ($3 negative pressure pump, telemedicine microscope, Rice Univ project list), seeds & fertilizer, toilets (see this loo, & one-time use bags), electricity and medical equipment in Afghan hospitals, products for the elderly, games for children, and services such as the needs for software to be developed where there is a desire for “Code in Country” (CIC), and a global “classifieds” tool for job-hunting via mobile SMS (Craigslist.org but with more reach and aware to those without a web connection). Continue reading “Design for the Other 90% Exhibit + “Micro-Giving” Global Needs Index to Connect Rich to Poor/Fullfill Global-to-Local Requests”
Six months after the earthquake that devastated Haiti on 12th January 2010, this report describes the evolution of MSF’s work during what is the organisation’s largest ever rapid emergency response. It attempts to explain the scope of the medical and material aid provided to Haiti by MSF since the catastrophe, but also to set out the considerable challenges and dilemmas faced by the organisation. It acknowledges that whilst the overall relief effort has kept many people alive, it is still not easing some of their greatest suffering.
Related:
+ The sad math of U.S. aid in Haiti: 6 months, 2 percent (Washington Post, July 13)
+ Haiti Rolling Directory from 12 January 2010
AidData attempts to capture the universe of development finance and foreign aid, increase the value of data by providing more descriptive information about development activities, provide data in an accessible format, and strengthen efforts to improve donor and recipient strategic planning and coordination. The PLAID Project — the predecessor to AidData — benefits from significant support given by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Richard and Judy Finch, and the National Science Foundation. PLAID is a partnership of the College of William and Mary and Brigham Young University. Its successor, AidData, is a merger of PLAID and the Development Gateway's Accessible Information on Development Activities (AiDA) Additionally, our work would not be possible without the institutional support of the College of William and Mary, Brigham Young University, and the Development Gateway Foundation.
The AidData team is committed to building an easy-to-use, comprehensive, and timely resource describing the universe of development finance project-by-project, including all grants and loans committed by all major bilateral and multilateral aid donors. We currently have the most comprehensive database on development finance, but have plenty of additional work to do. Better data will help increase aid targeting and coordination, and it will enable better measurement and evaluation of aid effectiveness. AidData is currently developing a publicly-accessible interface that will enable researchers, field workers, and policy makers interested in development finance to access detailed project level data in order to increase transparency, accountability, and effectiveness.
