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Jul 24, 2008
Fertilizer No Substitute for Good Management
Providing fertilizers in parts of the world with poor soil quality will not only do little to improve agricultural productivity, and may do harm. A strategy more likely to be successful is to lay the groundwork for farmers to gain secure land rights.
Jul 21, 2008
Interview: United Way of America CEO Brian Gallagher
Recently we discussed United Way’s refocusing, the meaning of accountability, and the state of philanthropy in general with CEO Brian Gallagher.
Jul 21, 2008
The Thorny Problem of Donor Intent
It may seem that honoring donor intent in all cases is the right and obvious thing to do. But the recent revelation that before her death Leona Helmsley charged her multi-billion dollar charitable trust to attend to “the care and welfare of dogs” starkly illustrates that donor intent is a thornier question than it seems.
Jul 16, 2008
An Emerging Markets Cellular Behemoth Means Opportunity
A company the size of a merged MTN and Reliance Communications would have the potential to make capital investments in infrastructure that could drive faster subscriber growth in emerging geographies. A larger and more exciting possibility is the possibility of using cellphones to dramatically lower the cost of small transactions.
Jul 11, 2008
The Role of Genetically Modified Crops in World Food Security
Most discussions of the role of GM crops in the current food crisis fail to address whether non-technical solutions such as land stewardship and efficient water use have been fully explored.
Jul 07, 2008
Bush Proposes Tracking Mechanism for Aid Pledges
A mechanism for tracking whether members of the G8 are keeping up with their pledged contributions toward development in impoverished countries would be a step in the right direction for injecting more accountability into foreign aid.
Jul 03, 2008
More Young People Looking for Post-College Stints in the Volunteer Corps
More recent college graduates are applying to join volunteer organizations such as Teach for America or the Peace Corps. Yet in the last few months two relevant stories have come out about the Peace Corps specifically, both of which suggest that its historical reliance on young volunteers has played a role in the organizations’ reputation as a particularly ineffective conduit for humanitarian relief.
Jun 27, 2008
Use of Child Soldiers Still Common Despite Decrease in Conflicts
A recent report released by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers quantified a significant decrease between 2004 and 2007 in the number of conflicts worldwide involving child soldiers. But where conflict remains the practice continues unabated.
Jun 23, 2008
Putting a Price on Water
The huge underwater aquifiers that have sustained agriculture in water scare regions in India and the Southwest United States have run dangerously low due to decades of uncontrolled pumping and wasteful irrigation. Without intervention, this scarcity will become only more acute, as farmers and other landowners preemptively pump even more in an effort to get as much as they can for themselves before it is gone. Making water a trade-able commodity that costs something based on availability and price is one solution to the problem.
Jun 17, 2008
Doing the Right Thing is Not Always Easy
Message fatigue can come about for any number of reasons. For one, constant bombardment with information about how bad things are can cause people to feel that their individual actions are meaningless. Equally concerning, however, is that the information donors need to make good decisions often becomes contradictory as an issue gets more attention.