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A small pilot project between the US and Haiti showed that the US could directly and effectively assist Haitian families to earn dignified livelihoods—at negative cost to US taxpayers. That is, the two countries could cooperate for development in a way that actually adds value to the US economy. It did this with short-term work visas.
How can we know when an aid project ‘works’?
How can the rural poor of Uganda achieve lasting opportunity, health, and security?
One vision for this goal is the laudable enterprise of external charity, such as the efforts in Uganda encouraged by U.S. celebrities Tommy Hilfiger and Katie Holmes or the controversial work of Invisible Children.
Documents recently made public by the UK government reveal the cost of poverty reduction in the Millennium Villages Project, a self-described "solution to extreme poverty" in African villages created by Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs. The project costs at least US$12,000 per household that it lifts from poverty—about 34 times the annual incomes of those households.
As the international response to Haiti’s earthquake shifts from emergency rescue to longer term reconstruction, things are inevitably going to get harder.
How long should presidents rule? On Tuesday, Colombia’s senate approved a national referendum to amend the constitution—again—to allow the popular president Alvaro Uribe to stand for election next year to yet another term in office.
You should care because this is representative of a big phenomenon that spans the whole developing world. For good reasons, many developing countries built presidential term limits into their constitutions—the contracts that govern how people agree to be ruled by each other.
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