Having worked so close to Dupont Circle for several months, I wish that I had spent more time at Kramer Books/ Afterwords Cafe.
Today, I was there browsing with Fed and we had a discussion for my distaste towards William Easterly’s White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, and I debated buying the new Amartya Sen book, Violence and Identity: The Illusion of Destiny. This evening, while googling, I came across this review by Sen of Easterly’s book. What can I say, I feel a little vindicated. Enough so to share.
Read it in Foreign Affairs. Hurrah Foreign Affairs!
I will be updating this with my own thoughts on international development, and with critiques of both Sen and Easterly presently.
In the meantime, if this seems fascinating, be sure to also read about Ashoka: Innovators for the Public and the Grameen Bank. Both of these organizations and their work over the past 25+ years provide the fundamentals of Easterly’s work.
2 responses so far ↓
Fed // 28 June 2007 at 2:49 am
Sen is right as usual, Easterly makes all the right connections and criticism during his analysis of Global Aide flows, the only thing he gets wrong, is his conclusion. I am speaking of course of his policy recommendation to halt off foreign aide, which is not only is a pipe dream (it plays bad politically speaking and would never gain popular support), but would also harm more than help, the peoples whom have become dependent on this aide, and have already fallen into as he so eloquently puts it “the aide trap”.
Searcher programs however are awesome, and Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) an offshoot of the InterAmerican Development Bank, is another one that I think deserves special mention… but mostly I know about it, because my mom works there =P
nice blog.
Shivangi // 28 June 2007 at 3:33 am
Easterly’s only good for cracking a good but not great Bono or Angelina Jolie joke.