Sunday Links

1. New evidence on Gender and attitudes to risk - nurture is more important than nature

2. New evidence on African exports - "While improvements in ports and customs and less bureaucracy will help exporters, the impact of improved inland transit is roughly five times greater."

3. An aid success story - the original M-PESA pilot was funded by DFID (via David Roodman's optimistic take on the future of microsavings)

4. Not a resolution - but my plan for 2010 is getting a "personal mba" (i.e. buying lots of business books). Partly inspired by the likes of Mootbox. Partly by excellent quotes like this:

"Maximum tolerance to failure" v. "idiot-proof". The second is some much pithier. Leave it to 'development' as a whole to over-complicate things. Leave it to business to get things done. 

It's one more reason why the methods of most modern NGOs are hopelessly unsuitable to making things happen: it takes a veteran author coining an elaborate phrase to sum up an idea every mediocre businessperson already knows.

A New (Old) Development Idea for the Conservatives in 2010

When the Conservatives take over the British government this year, how about solving the issue of domestic opposition to immigration and creating exciting new development opportunities in one stroke?

Paul Romer's Charter Cities (hailed as a top ten breakthrough idea for 2010 by Harvard Business Review) - creating new city-states on uninhabited land, governed by advanced democracies, have a little history in the Conservative Party.

According to recently released papers, first Margaret Thatcher, then Oliver Letwin both wanted to create "Asylum Islands."

Mrs Thatcher even bizarrely proposed to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, that they jointly buy an Indonesian island to resettle all the boat people. This forerunner of Oliver Letwin's 2003 idea for an "asylum island" to take all of Britain's asylum seekers was only blocked when Singapore complained that it would set up a rival entrepreneurial city

Lee Kuan Yu was no idiot, and saw the potential of a British-Australian-run Charter City in his neighbourhood.

How about it Cameron do you have the balls?

2000-2009 - A Great Decade

via The Monkey Cage, apparently Paul Krugman has been whining about the "naughties" and how nothing good happened in America. This is why I don't read Paul Krugman. He focuses too much on America.

Erm Paul, the continuation of the WORLD'S GREATEST ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMME EVER? NO? NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?!!
 

Never mind the Tebbit test...

I met a friend of a friend a few days ago in Leeds. He's from Zimbabwe, and came to the UK to study just before the shit hit the fan around 1999/2000. As the shit had thoroughly hit the fan, he decided to stay in the UK, and is currently seeking asylum.

I wouldn't have known he's from Zimbabwe. He has a stronger Leeds accent than I do.

How about this for a new rule for immigrants: if you've got a stronger local accent than a local, you're allowed stay.

Val T'odmorden, Yorkshire, UK

Yorkshire's Premier Ski Resort. In, er, my mum's backyard. And I had been resigned to not snowboarding this year! Now I'm going to make a seven foot snow dinka and some snow cows.

Merry Christmas!

Cracker Jokes from the Guardian

Made me smile...

What's worse than finding a worm in your apple? 

9/11 

Jon Holmes

What's pink and wrinkly and hangs out your pyjamas? 

Your mum 

Jeremy Dyson, The League of Gentlemen

Why has Noddy got a hat with a bell on it? 

Because he's a twat. 

Ricky Gervais

Copenhagen Quote of the Day

Well, it was actually yesterday, and I heard it in the car on the radio, so it might not be word for word, but Ban Ki-Moon at Copenhagen did actually use words very very similar to:

"negotiations are difficult and there are lots of competing interests. So we can't always get exactly what we want, but if we all try, we might just get what we need"

Otherwise, I am paying approximately zero attention to Copenhagen. Aid and development are complicated enough for my little head. There is no space for the environment. Hopefully the Rolling Stones have this one covered (hey, Bono has aid...).

Wednesday Links

1. Dear White House, All I want for christmas is a global development strategy (UK too please!)

2. The Twelve Days of Christmas (Aid Edition)™

3. The Secret Diary of a Kampala Call Girl

4. Assorted on Samuelson (but missing Dixit via Rodrik:

"If there is a heaven and if I am fortunate enough to make it there one day, I hope to take classes from him again. I am sure that, with his brilliant and precocious mind, he will have developed a beautiful heavenly model of it all, and will be able to say "God has it almost right, but..."")

5. The entire Eritrean national football team disappear whilst at a tournament abroad so they don't have to go home to Eritrea. FOR THE THIRD TIME!

Research Roundup

1. It wasn't the Sun wot won it

2. An economics education makes you selfish

3. Not saying that anyone is racist, but... "racial attitudes are strongly associated with hostility to immigration"

Should Developing Country Governments Contract Out Service Provision?

....that depends on whether they can design a decent contract, is the message of a recent case study on Southern Sudan (which is also a fascinating recent history of the establishment of a new government).

"Fragile states" are stuck in a catch-22, where it might be nice in theory to compensate for weak government structures by contracting out for key services, but capacity doesn't exist within government to design an effective contract without getting ripped off.

Government has supported the process of contracting out key services, but has had limited capacity to design and manage contracts without external support. Even with World Bank administered contracts, Government has had limited capacity to ensure that the contract design and performance meet its own needs.

I'm not even so sure this is a problem of fragile states. I'm reminded of Private Eye, a British magazine usually full of stories about private sector contractors running rings around government.

Good Sentences

1. "There is never a "Povertygate" scandal, because "Povertygate" is the norm rather than the exception."

2. "We've known for many decades how to help the world's poor while actually benefiting us in the process: allow more immigration."

3. "Knowing the future just increases our sample size – it doesn't fix our identification issues."

Friday Links

1. The Ibiza of East Africa.

2. Hundreds of free sample chapters from Princeton University Press (via Marginal Revolution). This could keep me busy for a while.

3. Lesotho 2010: Bringing the World Cup to Lesotho.

4. "I was wrong." You don't hear academics say that every day. Kudos to Alex de Waal.

5. Fuck!  Iranian immigration officials are stopping returning Iranians at the airport, making them log into their Facebook accounts, and confiscating their passport if there is anything critical.

6. Microfinance in Southern Sudan

7. Easterly knows how to write. Keep it simple, stupid.

8. Julian Gough on the Best Albums of the Noughties (there aren't any)

And to add insult to injury...

Monday 30 Nov: UK commits 500 new troops to Afghanistan

Tuesday 1 Dec: US commits 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan

Why do we even bother?

Markets not in everything

Not content with blocking MSN messenger, facebook gifts, oh, and my linkedin account...

The U.S. Government has in place export control and economic sanctions laws and regulations, which prohibit U.S. companies, like LinkedIn, from engaging in certain transactions with persons from several designated countries, including <<INSERT COUNTRY HERE>>.

...it seems US sanctions have now blocked Ethiopian Airlines from accepting online credit card payments from Southern Sudan (I managed to do this in March). So I can't book my flight home to the UK for christmas.

Thanks America. Happy Christmas to you too. I hope those sanctions are working.

America, with a population of 300 million, is one of the fattest countries of the world, with a frighteningly awful perception of poor countries, aggravated by a befuddled, profit-driven media.