Philanthropy Action

Category: Foreign Aid

There are 59 entries in this category.

May 22, 2008

Silver Linings and Dark Clouds Surround the Food Crisis

It seems that everyone except for the US Congress has woken up to the food crisis. The topic has made the cover of many magazines, and is featured almost daily in major national newspapers. Most debate has now turned to the causes and solutions, if any, to the situation. While there are some silver linings, the biggest dark cloud of all is centered over Washington, DC this week where the US Congress will overturn a presidential veto and pass the 2008 farm bill.

May 20, 2008

Interview: AIDS Journalist Helen Epstein on The Invisible Cure

Philanthropy Action sat down with Helen Epstein, author of The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West and the Fight Against AIDS, to discuss her book, Uganda, and how Western dollars could best make a difference in the African AIDS crisis.

Apr 16, 2008

Global Food Inflation: What Can Be Done?

Rapidly rising food prices around the world are capturing front page headlines daily. The problems in the agricultural sector of been decades in the making and will take several years to fix.The biggest danger is that in the rush to short-term fixes, we’ll simply create more distortions that don’t deal with the real issues and make future food crises even worse.

Apr 07, 2008

Grim News From Afghanistan

Poppy cultivation and wasted foreign aid are like twin sisters perpetuating the cycle of poverty within Afghanistan.

Mar 27, 2008

Are they Venture Philanthropists, Philantropreneurs or Philanthropcapitalists? Ask the Times

The debate about how business thinking should be applied to philanthropy has been circulating in the nonprofit sector for nearly a decade.

Mar 17, 2008

Top Five: Books on Foreign Aid

The listed books provide a complete picture of the good and bad of foreign aid. They are readable and contradictory, alternately scathing in their reprobation and hopeful in the possibility of improvement. Though some are shriller than others, the collective take-away is that foreign aid is simultaneously necessary and deeply needful of improvement.

Feb 25, 2008

China’s Role in African Infrastructure Development

It’s important to understand the reasons for the differences between Western aid/philanthropy and Chinese aid in Africa. While “fashion” in aid plays a role, Western donors have largely moved away from infrastructure projects because of the way in which they have been historically mired in deep corruption; and Western-funded buildings and roads have rarely been maintained once they’ve been built. Because of Chinese insistence on using Chinese firms and labor and the lack of transparency in many of these deals, there is reason to be concerned that China is undermining Western philanthropy’s investment in good governance and human development.

Dec 04, 2007

Cheetahs, Free Trade, Growth and Subsidies: Is this African Boom Different?

There is plenty of good news coming from Africa these days—not least of which is that average economic growth on the continent exceeds the world average growth. Much of the growth in sub-Saharan Africa is being driven by a new generation of African entrepreneurs, powered by business reforms, access to credit and such programs as the U.S.‘ African Growth and Opportunity Act (which allows for free trade with U.S. for African manufactured goods). George Ayittey, a Ghanain economist, refers to these entrepreneurial leaders as “cheetahs”—fast, flexible, and aggressive in exploiting newfound opportunities.

Nov 05, 2007

Will more agriculture in Africa help Africans eat?

The importance of a well-fed population to growth and prosperity is obvious. What does not seem clear, however, is the direct link these reports – and the reporting done on them – seem to draw between agriculture as a sector and large-scale decreases in poverty.

Oct 10, 2007

Commodities and their Discontents

The American farm bill is perpetuating a deeply broken system that hurts everyone. There is some hope that the subsidies system will be curtailed as the Senate modifies the current version but we have a long way to go before the farm bill does what it is meant to: protect both farmers and those who consume their products. 

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