This seems awfully (in all senses of the word) relevant right now.

The purpose of this Working Paper Series on Crisis Mapping is to briefly analyze the current use, and changing role, of information communication technology (ICT) in conflict early warning, crisis mapping and humanitarian response. The authors demonstrate that ICTs have the potential to play an increasingly significant role in three critical ways by: facilitating the communication of information in conflict zones, improving the collection of salient quantitative and qualitative conflict data, and enhancing the visualization and analysis of patterns.

Download the PDF here.

Bill Easterly and Peter Singer…agreeing? Or, more likely, Bill Easterly saying stuff, and Singer nodding his head knowingly? Yes, that’s better. Any way you slice it, a good watch.

Here’s the New York Times 6-minute version.

Here’s the full 46 minute bit.

I watched the full one, because I have time on my hands. The one takeaway message I got was that something like Charity Navigator really does the development community a disservice.

Read the rest of this entry »

Think I just finalized my “vision” for what my database will look like for my research here. It helps me to visualize it:

I’m posting a paper I wrote for Ricardo Godoy in the Spring of 2009 for his course, “The political economy and measure of income inequality, social capital, and empowerment in developing countries.” If the title of the course seems a bit long to you that’s because it is. It’s ridiculously long. I’ve never seen a course with a title like that.

Anyway, you can download the full PDF, or read it here. Enjoy.

PDF Download: Development, Aid, and Inequality: Relationships in Haiti 1987-2007

It should be noted that, while this paper makes some interesting points, and I was pleased with a lot of the graphs (scroll down to the end if you want to skip the writing), ultimately this paper was a failure in that it did not prove its central thesis, which is that external shocks such as hurricanes cause more foreign aid, which in turn creates greater inequality in Haiti. I got the first connection between external shocks and foreign aid, but could never really establish a strong link between foreign aid and inequality. Still, the paper does have value. I hope.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re interested in doing research on education in Haiti, I’ve uploaded some useful PDF’s for ya. I would highly recommend the following (please don’t be intimidated by fancy titles or dense language–PHD’s love using both these tactics as a way of retaining power over those with fewer degrees, and as a clever method of covering their own ass):

Monetary Consumption Benefits and the Demand for Primary Schooling in Haiti

Factors Impacting Youth Development in Haiti

Equity and Quality in Private Education- the Haitian paradox

Testimony of Dr. Paul Farmer on Haiti