African Development for the Completely Bloody Ignorant » Useful sources

Development: a Super Tuesday primer

Rav Casley Gera — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:51:01 +0000

The ONE campaign, the modern US incarnation of the Make Poverty History / Global Call to Action on Poverty campaign of 2005, has put together a handy comparison of the presidential candidates’ positions on key development issues. Of the major candidates, as a rule, Hillary Clinton’s are the most detailed and John McCain’s vaguest, with the similarities between Barack Obama and Clinton outweighing the differences.

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African history in ten seconds: New and improved!

Rav Casley Gera — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:06:46 +0000

This is becoming a wonderful, ever-growing saga, like The Land Before Time, although I think that ended after episode five, or Rocky, which I suppose will only end with Sylvester Stallone’s death. Having put together a spreadsheet detailing the history of African governance since independence, my friend John kindly put together a chart summarising the transition between governance classes over time. It was, bluntly, a hit, with several blogs around the world linking to it. Which was great!

Now John and my friend Pete have collaborated on this latest version. Like the previous, it shows the transition from colonialism to, in many cases, despotism, and more recently towards democracy. But now it’s weighted by population, so you can see just what proportion of the African population lived under each form of government at any one time. You can see a bigger version if you click through.

Want to see how it’s made, or play with the data yourself? Here’s the spreadsheet, and you can also get a detailed history spreadsheet from the original post.

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Sachs-obsessed

Rav Casley Gera — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:23:30 +0000

We are, it seems. As you may have noticed the author of The End of Poverty, Director of the Earth Institute and all-round celebrity economist recently served as the BBCs’ 2007 Reith lecturer. These annual lectures are the jewel in the crown of the beeb’s public-service current affairs broadcasting, so it’s quite a big deal. Better still, each lecture is followed by questions and answers, meaning you get to hear Sachs responding to some of the criticisms commonly put forward about his ideas.

They’re all worth listening to, but lecture 4 is the one focused on Africa and on poverty. It’s a useful summary of his view (as if our journey through his book isn’t enough), but more importantly it’s a chance to hear him respond to criticisms such as the charge that much aid is often wasted. We’ll be looking at criticisms of Sachs in detail once we’ve finished going through the book, but if you want an intro, start here.

The Americans, too, have been getting their Sachs dose, thanks to his pal Bono, who recently guest-edited an issue of the glossy mag for rich people who think they’re important, Vanity Fair. The issue is intended to broaden the view of Africa in the US and UK away from unremitting misery, but doesn’t ignore issues of AIDS and poverty: there’s a good-news story about AIDS treatment; a useful interactive map; and, yes, a story on Sachs. To be honest, it won’t tell you a thing you don’t already know about Sachs’ ideas, if you’ve been paying attention. But it gives some good detail about the Millennium Villages, where Sachs is trying his plans out on the ground (more on which soon). It also gives a good sense of Sachs the person - I’m beginning to suspect that he isn’t, actually, particularly nice. Have a read, listen to the lecture, draw your own conclusions, and tell us your thoughts below.

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Ghana: another perspective

Rav Casley Gera — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 22:55:01 +0000

The BBC World Service recently broadcast a two-part documentary about Ghana’s independence and history since, and it offers a nice intro to follow up on the previous post. It’s expired from the “listen again” function, but you can listen to it here by clicking the arrows below or right-clicking the links.

Episode 1:

[See post to listen to audio]

Episode 2:

[See post to listen to audio]

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Stats without the snoozing

Rav Casley Gera — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:26:45 +0000

I don’t normally tell you guys about individual information resources, preferring to distill them down into a meanigful melange of facts and theory. But this one’s so fabulous I’ll make an exception. This marvellous presentation uses a bit of Flash wizardry to make fifty years of UN Human Development Report statistics clear, compelling, and understandable. And it’s quite fun to play around with, too.

Bringing things bang up to date, this nifty animation shows the distribution of wealth around the world. Live in a coastal city? Lucky you.

Should you want to know more about what I’m reading and looking at, start with the “Finding out more” page.

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