While Elie’s been investigating the Carter Center, I’ve been scanning literature (mostly academic) on general questions about aid: what has worked in the past? What’s promising for the future? etc. Rather than trying to come to an independent conclusion on each debate, I’ve been trying to establish which beliefs are supported by evidence that is…
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Malaria “success story” questioned
Aid Watch on questionable claims of success against malaria: Real victories against malaria would be great, but false victories can mislead and distract critical malaria efforts. Alas, Mr. and Mrs. Gates are repeating numbers that have already been discredited. This story of irresponsible claims goes back to a big New York Times headline on February…
Financial Times on microfinance (and the need for better info about it)
PDF here (via Innovators for Poverty Action, whose research is featured). After discussing the Karlan/Zinman study showing benefits for loans (which we summarize here), it continues: Karlan is the first to warn against extrapolating too much from a single experiment. “This is the last thing in the world that I would use to develop policy,”…
Microfinance/education program didn’t work as expected
A reader was good enough to send in a Lancet article (free registration required for full text) about a well-designed study of a combination microfinance/education program in South Africa. Study design, strengths and weaknesses A program consisting of both loans and group meetings was rolled out to 8 villages in rural South Africa, but the…
Antiretroviral treatment (ART): Things to look out for
Antiretroviral treatment (ART) is one of the more well-publicized ways to help people in the developing world. The (RED) campaign puts it front and center, and the Gates Foundation places heavy emphasis on it as well. It seems at first glance like a fairly straightforward, if expensive, intervention: directly treat HIV-positive people with proven drugs…
Publication bias: Over-reporting good news
As we look for evidence-backed programs, a major problem we’re grappling with is publication bias – the tendency of both researchers and publishers to skew the evidence to the optimistic side, before it ever gets out in the open where we can look at it. It sounds too scary to be real – how can…