Category: Development

development in dangerous places: more military intervention?

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Given my own (past, all in the past) propensity to find danger in developing places, I was drawn to this Boston Review Forum on Development in Dangerous Places, in which

I completely recommend it all, and especially Nancy Birdsall’s comments.

state-sponsored dishonesty (about a cough)

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This morning, as I came off a plane in Rio de Janeiro, health authorities gave me a short form to fill out.  At the top it said SWINE FLU in Portuguese.

In the last ten days, have you had

COUGH             _____

FEVER              _____

NONE                _____

As a matter of fact, I have had a cough during the last ten days, a leftover from catching my dear son’s case of croup.  Do I have any other swine flu symptoms?  No.  Do I want to spend time in a quarantine or get sent back to the USA?  No.

I decide to be honest and check the COUGH box.  When I get to the health authority, she says, Do you have a cough?  No, but I’ve had one in the past ten days.  Do you have one today?  No.  Then let’s fix this: You don’t want lots of trouble.  She scratched out “cough” and marked the “none” box.

As I waited for my bags, I coughed.  [Oops; but I hadn’t as of when she asked me.]  But why didn’t they make the question for the day, then?

the non-consensus on Moyo’s new book Dead Aid

David Evans6 Comments

The Complete Review – which is the Rotten Tomatoes for lucky books – brings together snippets of major reviews on Dambisa Moyo’s critique of current foreign aid, Dead Aid, together with links to the reviews. 

I get very tired of overstaters.  So the Economist review turned me off:

“Dead Aid does not move the debate along much. Yes, she has joined the chorus of disapproval — and that in itself might surprise a few diehards who think that Africans should just be grateful for the aid and shut up. But her arguments are scarcely original and her plodding prose makes her the least stylish of the critics. Moreover, she overstates her case, almost to the point of caricature.”

cell phones help the poor in Niger, India, and … DC

David Evans1 Comment

I’ve been impressed by how cell phones have helped poor farmers in Niger find the best prices to sell their grain and helped poor fishers in India to find the best markets for their fish.  So I was interested to see how the homeless of Washington, DC, are using cell phones to help their situation:

“Having a phone isn’t even a privilege anymore — it’s a necessity,” said Rommel McBride, 50, who spent about six years on the streets before recently being placed in a city housing program. He has had a mobile phone for a year. “A cellphone is the only way you can call to keep up with your food stamps, your housing application, your job. When you’re living in a shelter or sleeping on the streets, it’s your last line of communication with the world.”

And here is one story about how a cell phone transformed employment opportunities for a homeless guy:

Chris got an entry-level job at Verizon Center last year. He tried to get back on his feet, but each time, he missed calls from his boss, who often dialed a soup kitchen or shelter switchboard. Eventually, he was labeled unreliable and lost the job.

This time, he got a pay-as-you-go cellphone and gave his boss the number. “I live up near the Capitol — give me a call anytime if you need extra hands,” he told his employer, being vague about where he bedded down each night.

He received numerous calls to come in early or to work an extra shift. After less than a year on the job, he was promoted. “No one there knows I’m homeless,” he said. “I would never have been able to do this without the cellphone.”

Just as with conditional cash transfers which were proven in Mexico and now are being tried in New York, some of the same solutions work all over.

just dumping computers in schools might not help

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In The Use and Misuse of Computers in Education: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Colombia, by Felipe Barrera-Osorio and Leigh L. Linden, the authors examine a program that

aims to integrate computers, donated by the private sector, into the teaching of language in public schools. The authors conduct a two-year randomized evaluation of the program using a sample of 97 schools and 5,201 children. Overall, the program seems to have had little effect on students’ test scores and other outcomes. These results are consistent across grade levels, subjects, and gender. The main reason for these results seems to be the failure to incorporate the computers into the educational process. Although the program increased the number of computers in the treatment schools and provided training to the teachers on how to use the computers in their classrooms, surveys of both teachers and students suggest that teachers did not incorporate the computers into their curriculum.

Two thoughts on this:

  1. This reminds us – and I’d say “as if we needed reminding” except that we do – that you cannot just dump inputs into schools and expect changes.  If inputs don’t get used well, they don’t matter.  Even though this seems like a no-brainer, many development programs are very narrow: build a school or give some books or ….  Same problem, I’m afraid.
  2. That said, a quick look at the tables suggests to me that the authors may be confusing a noisy result with a narrowly bound zero result.  In other words, there seem to be differences in outcomes between kids who got computers and those who didn’t, but there is so much variation in both groups that we cannot be sure.  What this really means is that we don’t know if there is an effect, that there might be a heterogeneous effect, or there might not.  (Either way, clearly this program wasn’t a raging success.)

There is also some evidence from India (I haven’t evaluated the quality) that if you just let kids play with the computers, they’ll learn some stuff.  (One question is, Do they learn things that will help them?)

resenha de filme: Terra Estrangeira

David Evans2 Comments

tierraMy first review in Portuguese!  I’m watching Brazilian movies to try and improve my Portuguese comprehension.  I really enjoyed this gritty, noir Brazilian flick about the loss of identity for immigrants in Portugal, an early film by the director of Central Station.  The version I watched had non-optional Spanish subtitles, which meant I actually knew what was going on.  A version with English subtitles – Foreign Land – also exists.

[Note on content: Not rated in the USA, but would be R for one sex scene plus adult themes.]

Um filme «noir» de suspense sobre a desesperança e a perda

Neste filme, do mesmo diretor que fez Central do Brasil, a mãe de um jovem Paco de São Paulo morre de repente e o jovem, sem saber o que fazer, se encontra metido com comerciante que o envia a Portugal para entregar um violino. Entretanto, a mulher Alex – garçonete brasileira em Lisboa – tem o namorado assassinado por comerciantes do mercado negro. As suas vidas se cruzam, os dois perdidos tanto fora (na cidade estrangeira) como dentro (sem saber como sobreviver).

É um filme «noir» (escuro), filmado a branco e preto. É um filme de desesperança e da perda. Gostei muito e o recomendo.

O ruim desta versão é que tem legenda em español que não se pode apagar. Mas o diálogo está no português. Também existe uma edição com legenda em inglês chamado Foreign Land.

[Uma nota sobre o conteúdo: Não tem classificação nos EUA, mas teria classificação de «R» por uma cena de sexo, algo de violência, e também por ter temas adultos.]

reseña del libro (ok, audiolibro): El corazón de la noche, por Cristina Pacheco

David Evans2 Comments

corazonMe gustó bastante este libro pero he comenzado con su próximo libro – El oro del desierto, también en audiolibro – y comienza con un prólogo que me impresionó mucho.

cuentos cortitos que captan una gran diversidad de experiencia

La autora de esta conjunto de cuentos busca explorar cada aspecto de la vida mexicana. Casi no se pueden llamar cuentos sino cuentitos; cada uno es cortito pero se trata de algo completamente distinto. Desde lo político [la policía corrupta en la capital, la tortura a parte de los militares] hasta lo doméstico [el patriarca de un gran familia se da cuenta de que sus hijos sólo quieren su pensión; una señora lamenta haber quedado una noche con un hombre que ahora la llama esposa pero nunca su amor] hasta los asuntos del medio ambiente [una señora busca los restos de su esposo después de un gran terremoto; varios personajes buscan manera de sobrevivir a pesar de la falta constante de agua].

Sé que suena deprimido, y de verdad no es el asistir el circo, pero Pacheco de vez en cuando alivia la tensión con un humor irónico o una situación absurda.

En verdad, me encantaban muchos de los cuentitos y recomendaría el libro a cualquier. Creí sentir el tono de la vida mexicana, especialmente para los de la capital y las partes cercanas. También me dio perspicacia a la simple vida humana.

Nota con respeto a contenido: Este libro tiene unas palabrotas y unas referencias (no muy explícitas) al sexo. Escuché el audiolibro narrado por Mariana Carreño y publicado por Recorded Books y la narración fue muy buena.

teaching like the world’s favorite father figure

David Evans2 Comments

Last week I was in Peru for a workshop, and I taught two sessions in Spanish, one on “sampling and power calculations” and another on “data collection.”  we had participants from around the continent.

Today I saw the teacher evaluations.  My favorite positive comment: In response to “What did you like most?”, one participant wrote

que a veces hable como Homer Simpson [sometimes he talks like Homer Simpson]

And – as to be expected – the main “what suggestions to improve the session?” was “menos rápido [slower]”.  Story of my life.

super grover as development metaphor

David Evans2 Comments

My favorite Sesame Street character while growing up was Super Grover, who my wife recently pointed out is quite an anti-hero.  Anyway, as I showed some clips to my son, I wondered if sometimes the international development community is like Super Grover: sideshow while people figure out their own solutions.  Could be worse!  (And might be.  And at other times, it’s probably better.)

In fact, I think this is a stretch, but (a) I wanted an excuse to post a video of Super Grover (who needs an excuse?) and (b) this did occur to me as I watched this.