(photo from http://www.bevoda.ca/photos.htm)
The Canadian International Development Agency react to Minister Bev Oda's statements to the Ottawa's newspaper, the Embassy (article here). These comments include the lack of health experts in their programs as well as their focus on spending money and not on measurable results. Wow.
In the same edition, the Embassy reports on seven African diplomats in Ottawa speak out to the Senate Foreign Affairs committee on the drop of African countries from the priorities of the upcoming aid spending (article here).
Other new publications:
Portfolios of the Poor:
How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day
Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford & Orlanda Ruthven
How the poor are able to find solutions on $2 a day. I love this type of research as it is very very difficult to build systematic research that records what low income individuals spend everyday. At one point in my research, I tried to record six households and ask them to record their last ten phone calls and SMS. First of all, the tool must be super easy to understand and second, you need to have a contingency plan when an individual is illiterate. The first chapter of the book is free of the website, but can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this book.
Here is the link to the website: Portfolios of the Poor and Financial Access Initiative.