Now going on almost 15 years, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Policy Studies have been picking away at a seemingly endless project. It is indeed ambitious:

The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project is a systematic effort to analyze the scope, structure, financing, and role of the private nonprofit sector in a cross-section of countries around the world in order to improve our knowledge and enrich our theoretical understanding of this sector, and to provide a sounder basis for both public and private action towards it.

Though nowhere near comprehensive, the body of research is some of the most far-reaching (and serious) out there–at least, of what’s available to us plebeians. It is an especially rich effort because it blends empirical data with the philosophical conversations swirling broadly around the theme of ‘global civil society’. Check out one their reports here, and you be the judge of whether those conversations are serious or not.  

From Bill “The Thrill” Moyers comes this interview with the Yes Men, a group of guerrilla political satirists of a rather Swiftian bent.

Full text, Youtube videos and relevant links are here.

From the WaPo comes this article which highlights, at the very least, the longterm difficulites of healthcare interventions in the third world. To wit:

A decade-long, global push to provide infant formula to mothers with the AIDS virus had backfired in Botswana, leaving children more vulnerable to other, more immediately lethal diseases, the U.S. team found after investigating the outbreak at the request of Botswana’s government.

The findings joined a growing body of research suggesting that supplying formula to mothers with HIV — an effort led by global health groups such as UNICEF — has cost at least as many lives as it has saved. The nutrition and antibodies that breast milk provide are so crucial to young children that they outweigh the small risk of transmitting HIV, which researchers calculate at about 1 percent per month of breast-feeding.

It strikes me as highly problematic that Botswanan villages became unwitting proving grounds for a heath initiative with unknown longterm results. At the same time, one gets the sense that there were some major oversights from the beginning. For example, the article points out that

Some international public health experts…cautioned that few Africans had the means to prepare formula in a sanitary manner — a process that requires access to clean water, utensils, formula powder and heat for sterilization.

In hindsight this seems obvious, but it’s just the sort of calculation that goes unheeded when the internal logic of such a program remains unquestioned. Full text can be found here. It may require a login, but it’s free and easy to obtain.

Uzodinma Iweala, author of Beasts of No Nation, wrote an article in the Washington Post on Sunday questioning the ‘noble intentions’ of the West’s humanitarian and development efforts in Africa. At the root of the article lies the question:

is aid genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one’s cultural superiority

Iweala argues the latter, referring to the new ‘Brangelina saving Africa’ phenomenon (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for those unfamiliar with the latest Hollywood buzz), and the Keep a Child Alive “I am African” ad campaign,which features photos of superstars (few of them African)  in ‘tribal’ face paint and decorative aluminum foil. Iweala points out the fact that Africans doing postive things for the continent are rarely glorified by the international community,  who would much rather dwell on the disease, corruption and conflict that seem to characterize the Western perception of the continent. Campaigns to “Save Africa” are easily recognized by the use of human suffering as a marketing tool (photos of emaciated AIDs patients for example); a tool in which, according to Iweala,

Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West’s fantasy of itself.

How do we, as part of this international community and development industry (guilty as charged, in my opinion) break this cycle of portraying Africa as the helpless victim in need of ’saving’? Iweala ends with his own solution:

I hope people will realize Africa doesn’t want to be saved. Africa wants the world to acknowledge that through fair partnerships with other members of the global community, we ourselves are capable of unprecedented growth.

What’s your opinion?
Click here to read the entire article

I must admit that I am not an avid reader of Vanity Fair. But the July 2007 issue, with its array of different cover photos, did peak my curiosity enough to buy a copy and read the whole thing cover to cover. This month’s issue contains everything from an enticing article about all that there is to see and do and learn in Tunisia to an in-depth feature on an ambitious Indian family in the Congo and the charismatic group of pilots who fly their resurrected airplanes. Interviews of influential African leaders lay next to spreads on Jeff Sachs and the Millennium Village Project, the African literature explosion and a piece on all of the positive African leaders and change-makers we don’t get to hear about on the news, among many other great articles. Meanwhile these are all well-positioned between ads for the Red Campaign and other such ‘Fair Vanities’ as Bono, the co-editor, puts it. The magazine is brimming with new innovative approaches to development and is itself informative, entertaining and very…shall I say it, multidisciplinary, using media, art, retail, political analyses, tourism, and good old fashioned journalism to shed some light on what is too often still portrayed as the mysterious, ‘dark continent’.

Check out this Vanity Fair website for more info on the issue:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/africa 

A recent article by Barry Meier and Jad Mouawad reports that, even before oil has been extracted from the newly discovered oil-rich wells of São Tomé and Principe, corruption has manifest itself in the small island country off the West coast of Africa. This opportunity for international development already needs revamping before the oil—and cash—really starts to flow.

The issues center around numerous investigations related to oil negotiations in São Tomé that have already sprung up internationally. These include the indictment of William Jefferson, a Democratic congressman from Louisiana, for soliciting a bribe to aid in an oil-related dispute, the investigation of a Houston-based company to determine if its large holdings in São Tomé were gained through bribes, and the investigation of the chairman of ERCH Energy, a Nigerian businessman, who is suspected of participating in insider oil deals. This sort of corruption, along with basic mismanagement of funds, has lead to the loss of at least $58 million in bad oil deals—and that is just the beginning, according to Martin Sandbu, a specialist in the political economy of natural resource wealth at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

That so much money has already been squandered or illegally handled does not bode well for the future of São Tomé’s oil industry, or the vast potential the revenue could have for development projects. The fear is that the country will become another example of the resource curse instead of a poster-child for how well planned international development can be beneficial. São Tomé’s hope for avoiding such a situation lies in the high level of international activism, especially by the development superstar, Jeffrey Sachs. The Earth Institute at Columbia University outlined its ‘Action Plan’ for São Tomé and Principe as focusing on the key areas of, “health, education, agriculture, physical infrastructure, oil revenue management, electrification, telecommunications, and fisheries.” While those focus points cover multiple disciplines, do they cover enough disciplines? The problems cited above stem from a weak political infrastructure, something not focused on in the ‘Action Plan.’ While new laws have been drafted, if the government is not capable of enforcing such laws, they will not be effective and there will be still more indictments and investigations. Though the project is already “multidisciplinary,” does it need to incorporate even more disciplines to ensure that there will be advantageous development for the people of São Tomé?

From the Times comes this article on HIV infection in Mexican migrant populations. Full text here.

The article itself is not entirely surprising, and yet it is a good reminder of the collateral costs of globalization. Of course diseases have a long history of ignoring international borders, but it is nonetheless worrying to watch the reciprocity between disease and poverty play out in real time.

Perhaps similarly relevant, but less grave, the new M.I.A. single, Bird Flu.

Globalhood is very excited to announce the launch of its photo gallery.

These photos from around the world are available for purchase as prints, and all net proceeds will go towards supporting Globalhood’s projects. Of course, you’re also more than welcome to donate directly to the project of your choice. And if you are a photographer who would like to donate some images, we would love that as well. Kindly direct all inquires to julia at globalhood.org.

Sorry, but the Talking Heads reference is too easy.

Last weekend, there was a wonderful piece on This American Life about provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) in Iraq. The amazing bits, aside from Ira Glass’ ultra-staggered cadence, are the lessons that development initiatives simply cannot function as a bandaid for misplaced bellicosity, and that even interventions with the best of intentions do not, in and of themselves, smoothe over the jagged edges of international relations.

Here’s the episode page; click “full episode” to listen in. The relevant part starts at 15:36, but really, the whole episode is worth a listen.

Amazing blog chronicling the construction of a homemade generator windmill in Malawi. (thanks to the nerds at Boing Boing)

For you urban warriors, why not try out a solar powered bag. You can also make one yourself.