CIVICUS - New report uncovers aid model failure in conflict countries

There is increasing attention being given to countries in situations of conflict, as donors, governments and civil society organizations (CSOs) prepare for Aid Effectiveness negotiations at the end of 2011 in Busan, South Korea.

More Than Good Intentions - How a new economics is helping to solve global poverty

The publisher’s gushing blurb, suggesting that Dean Karlan has developed ‘an entirely new approach’ to making aid effective, may embarrass the economist in years to come, but nonetheless this is an important book. First, through a series of case studies the book illustrates what most development practitioners know and many funders forget: one size does not fit all.

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‘Troublemaker’ Gates takes up cudgels on behalf of world’s poor and sets sights on polio

Much of Bill Gates’s third annual letter, which was published on Monday, is devoted to polio, a disease which it was claimed in 2003 would be eradicated within the next few years. He admitted this had been too optimistic. The disease still exists in more than a dozen countries and has in fact started to spread again since 2003. Click here to read ...

Living Proof that development aid works

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and global advocacy organization ONE have announced the launch of the Living Proof campaign, which is designed to challenge scepticism about the effectiveness of development aid.

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The Aid Trap: Hard truths about ending poverty by R Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan

Since the success of the Marshall Plan in reviving the economies of western Europe after the Second World War, it has been assumed that large-scale aid programmes will kickstart economic development in poor countries. For 40 years, aid was an important weapon of the Cold War, where allegiances could be bought and sold on the basis of aid packages. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the aid industry changed tack and used morality to market itself. Books like The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs and the bully pulpits of rock stars hammered the message home.

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Interview - Farhana Faruqi Stocker

'We've never left' proclaims the website of the charity Afghanaid, highlighting a running total of almost 9,700 days – well over 26 years – of continuous operation in the war-strewn country that has proved a tough challenge for so many. Leading Afghanaid's work in sustainable rural development with half a million people is its managing director, Farhana Faruqi Stocker, who has two decades' experience of the region and its problems of poverty, conflict and human rights. Click here to read ...

GlobalGiving Act of Kindness competition

Online giving portal GlobalGiving.co.uk is launching an 'Acts of Kindness' competition, a travel writing competition which aims to highlight ways in which people can give something back to the places they visit. Entrants have to write a paragraph about an act of kindness they have experienced while travelling in a developing country. The prize is a trip for two to visit a GlobalGiving project of the winner’s choice. The competition is open to residents of the UK and the Republic of Ireland aged 18 or over. The closing date is 22 July.

Indonesian radio station gets KBF International Development Prize

KBR68H Radio agency in Indonesia has been awarded the 2008-09 King Baudouin Foundation International Development Prize for ‘its contribution to sustainable development based on strengthening democracy, tolerance and citizen participation, and for promoting professional ethics in the media world’. Based in Jakarta, it provides eight hours a day of independent information and educational programmes to 630 radio stations all over Indonesia and to ten countries in Asia.

Foundation partnership boost to think-tanks in developing countries

The Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Canada’s International Development Research Centre announced in May a $90 million effort to bolster think-tanks in poor countries. The so-called think-tank initiative aims to provide governments and philanthropies with research and policy recommendations that are based on the needs of poor countries. Gates and Hewlett are each giving $40 million, while the IDRC is providing the other $10 million.

Private giving boosting funding for global health, but inequitably distributed

Funding has soared for global health, largely because of unprecedented levels of private giving, of which the Gates Foundation is one but not the only example, says a new study. However, the study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) also finds that the funding is unevenly distributed and that 12 of the 30 countries with the highest incidence of disease are not receiving as much as healthier, and sometimes wealthier, countries.