More ranting about aid

This is going to sound a bit schizophrenic after my rubbishing of the sideshow the other week, but seriously, if we're going to do aid at all, then lets do it properly ey? Talking about sustainability in general terms, and training in specific terms, is one thing, but exit strategies and handovers? In a country 4 years out of war? Probably one of the poorest countries in the world?

Who are these people?

I'm with Owen Barder on this one, the cult of sustainability hides the fact that the poorest countries are going to be needing support for a long long time. And that is fine. But lets be realistic about it, acknowledge that capacity building takes longer than a 3-year project, and that as a matter of social justice rather than charity THE POOREST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD probably deserve some support for at least the next 50 years.

Secondly, on community participation. Fine, ask around, make sure that your intervention isn't completely stupid. But expecting voluntary contributions for public services????!!!!?!!!!

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!!??!

Because community contributions is how we finance local public services in Britain isn't it? Why bother with coercive taxation to solve the collective-action problem inherent in public good provision when we can just spout some patronising nonsense about communities. Reminds me of a C4 TV show which took a bunch of hard-nosed capitalist self-made millionaires to work on a project in an African village. The millionaires were then surprised that the lazy villagers weren't willing to donate their free-time to build some kind of community centre. Did the millionaires get rich through community participation? Or through relentlessly pursuing their own self-interest?

WHO. ARE. THESE. PEOPLE!!??!!!

'Ave it

Right so CHRIS frickin' BLATTMAN is reading. I'd better think of something clever to say.

Erm...

err...

Come on!....

You can do it!....

.....Nope. Nothing. Too much pressure.

Instead I'm just going to post this AWESOME photo from The Citizen of H.E. Salva Kiir Mayardit, President of Southern Sudan, looking very cool as he opens the first ever international football tournament in Juba last week.

If you're interested Your Excellency, we normally play on Tuesdays at the UNMIS pitch. You are more than welcome.

Monday Links

1. Forget the conspiracy theories, when Britain does neo-colonialism, it does it properly. What are the alternatives when faced with "clear signs of political amorality and immaturity and of a general administrative incompetence"?!!

2. Hasn't been updated in a while, but when MTEF does links, MTEF does links

3. The first issue of "Unknown Soldier", the comic about the LRA set in Northern Uganda is available for download from DC Comics

4. Things I have done on the back of a boda-boda (HT: Uganda Talks)

5. This is what happens when political scientists play "Risk"

All of Political Economy in one picture

North and South Korea at night. OK not quite all of political economy, but a pretty compelling case for the importance of politics for economic growth. From Paul Romer's TED talk about Charter Cities.

More jigy-jigy

According to Google Analytics THIS is my most visited post. You filthy people.

Anyway I've been meaning to post a follow-up since I was sent this story by a friend about a new Steve Levitt paper based on

"detailed and real-time transaction data for over 2,200 tricks performed by about 160 prostitutes in three Chicago neighborhoods that the authors collected with the help of pimps and prostitutes."

She suggests that Juba's "unmarried businesswomen" could learn from it how to reach a more realistic price per ejaculation / night. Well economics works in Juba too, according to the Khartoum Monitor. It's only $2 if you want to have "jigi jigi" with the ugly girls, but of you want a moderate girl it'll cost you $4, and for the beautiful ones it's a whole $8.

Analogue Blogger goes Digital

Sadly here comes more evidence of the usefulness of twitter. White African notes that the Blackboard blogger of Monrovia, a guy who writes the news on a big blackboard for people who can't afford newspapers, now has an actual online blog. Awesome! Here's the link.

In other cool media news, I've just discovered that The Citizen, probably the best (offline) English-language Southern Sudanese newspaper, seems to be building a new office directly opposite the Ministry of Finance. Now I'm just waiting for the website. How about a link-up with the online-only Sudan Tribune?

There was also a great discussion on the World Service about Tolo TV the other day, Afghanistan's most popular private-owned TV station. Although they are downplaying it for obvious reasons, the station was created with seed capital from USAID, and is now hosting Presidential candidate debates and making social progress through Afghan Idol.

In which Scott Gration visits the Ministry of Finance in Southern Sudan

Me leaving the (deserted) office at 6pm

"hmm, I wonder what those 2 khawajas in sharp suits are doing hanging around. hmm, I wonder why there are 6 big fancy cars in the carpark. hmm, I wonder why there are police in riot gear all around the Ministry."

The Torit Mutiny

Today is a public holiday in Southern Sudan in commemoration of the 1955 Torit mutiny which led to the start of the first war.

Yeah nice one Enough

Really? Who on earth came up with the idea of gambling for Darfur? Darfurians are mainly Muslim right? And gambling is haram......?

UNFG

"The UNFG developed the Program for Capacity-Building in the Field of Language Transparency Impact. The program assists in dispensing with harmful idiomatic practices, and promotes the use of a standardized international framework for document authoring. Designed as a Public-Private-Sector Partnership within the Framework of the Global Compact, and supported through supplemental grants from individual donors, the program has made a significant contribution in this field."

That would be the United Nations Fund for Gobbledygook, supported by the Plain English Campaign.

HT: Good Intentions

Oboe'n'bass Hip-hop Jazz

I'm addicted to this new Speech Debelle Single (is it even new? At some point, I'm not quite sure when, I went from being a music-collector-geek to an economics-collector-geek, and I haven't quite gotten over it yet).

She's nominated for this year's Mercury Music Prize (a nice way of keeping a bit up to date with new music for people who don't have time to follow new music properly because they spend all their time reading economics), and there's a Guardian interview here.

Hut-Count

Marginal Revolution picked up on a clever idea by some economists to measure economic growth in places where statistics are unreliable by looking at satellite images of light at night. If any donors are listening, this could be a great way of looking at the economy in Southern Sudan, where we have very few statistics.

It also got me thinking, couldn't we also measure population by satellite? The Census results have been heavily disputed here for political reasons. Surely an alternative estimate could be gained by just counting the number of buildings on Google Maps and multiplying by an estimate of average household size? Has anyone tried this anywhere before?

Thundercats Ho?!

According to UNDP's latest security alert there is a leopard out and about in Juba. I of course work for an organisation with slightly lower overheads than UNDP, so the only security alerts I get are when friends think they are funny enough to be forwarded on, or posted on their blogs. Kelsey even went to the trouble of googling 'what to do if being chased by a leopard,' after deeming the official UN advice of "be extra vigilant and careful" to be insufficient.

I'm going to listen to my girlfriend Karuna who is normally right about these kind of things:

"OH MY FUCKING GOD!! don't ever leave your car!! i TOLD you you need to get a gun then you could just go and shoot it. what the hell is it doing in a town???! it must be up to something..."

Cross-town Traffic

In the UK or US it's normally a pretty big deal when a politician switches party. Not in Southern Sudan.

Southern Sudan is divided into ten states, and one of these states, Warrap, just had the whole National Congress Party defect to the SPLM. That is 120 people.

"The NCP office is closed down because we have gone away with all members of the National Congress Party in the State. No one is left. All our youth and women have come with us," said Abur.

My SPLM colleague in Juba just shrugs and says "there weren't that many of them anyway".