Fortnightly links: evaluation and data, immunization, the ethics of aid, Ethiopia, and more

By Camilla Burkot and Terence Wood
9 September 2016

A blog, linked to longer documents, from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) offers some clear-headed thinking on just what sort of evaluation is needed and when.

A good post from Justin Sandefur discusses what we can, and cannot, use daytime satellite data for when it comes to measuring and assuaging poverty.

This BBC/Save the Children photo essay on the yellow fever emergency vaccination campaign in Kinshasa is intriguing and alarming in equal parts — due to a global vaccine shortage, people are being given 1/5th of a standard vaccine dose, evidently enough to stave off the virus for about a year. So far, the outbreak is estimated to have killed more than 400 people in Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Also on the topic of immunization, the global health community is mourning the death of Dr D A Henderson, a physician and epidemiologist who is best known for his role in the eradication of smallpox.

In the LA Review of Books, Matt Kennard and Clair Provost author a provocative essay on ‘how aid became big business’, on the interplay of the private sector, multilaterals, NGOs, and donor governments. As a companion read, this essay by Paul Collier looks at the ethical foundations for aid, and suggests that the idea that global poverty can be ended eventually through donor financing of governments is a “comfortable but unfortunate delusion fostered by NGOs and the Millennium Development Goals.”

Lastly, this New York Times Magazine profile of an economics professor-turned-Ethiopian rebel militia leader highlights some of the complex political challenges facing the country and its diaspora.

About the author/s

Camilla Burkot
Camilla Burkot was a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre, and Editor of the Devpolicy Blog, from 2015 to 2017. She has a background in social anthropology and holds a Master of Public Health from Columbia University, and has field experience in Eastern and Southern Africa, and PNG. She now works for the Burnet Institute.

Terence Wood
Terence Wood is a research fellow at the Development Policy Centre. His research focuses on political governance in Western Melanesia, and Australian and New Zealand aid.

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