Several years ago, a friend of mine< Wade Channell, wrote a paper for the Carengie Endowment entitled, “Lessons Not Learned: Problems with Western Aide for Post Communist Countries.”. The main ideas that I took away from the paper are that…
I am coming to the conclusion that poverty is influenced far more by macro economic policy than by antipoverty projects. I’ve just read Philip D Osei’s 2001 critique of the antipoverty programs in Jamaica. He asserts that although poverty did…
I’ve just read Paul Shaffer’s excellent article “New Thinking on Poverty: Implications for Globalisation and Poverty Reduction Strategies” (Real-world Economics Review, Issue no. 47, 3 October 2008, pp. 192-231). It is a great overview of the current thinking on poverty…
One of the intriguing aspects of working on a movement to end extreme poverty is that we should be able to quantify the progress. It should be possible to come up with a good estimate of the number of people…
The Dominican Republic is a fascinating country, full of amazing contrasts. On one hand, it is a modern country with good roads, a modern skyline (photo Miguel Calzada, Diario Libre). The new Metro train system is almost working and there…
One of the biggest questions for ending poverty in the Caribbean is whether or not it could be done in Haiti. I’ve lived in Haiti for six years and have worked with Haiti for twelve. I love the people and…
A few months ago, I read Dr. Sach’s book, The End of Poverty. Whereas, I was quite taken by the beauty of the idea that the world has enough resources to end extreme poverty, I could never imagine it succeeding…