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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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 Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development researching the demand side of development, the role of technology in quality of life improvements, and governance and anticorruption in aid. Full Bio Follow @charlesjkenny
Showing posts on the Views from the Center blog. View author posts on: Why Don’t They Want What We Know They Need?May 16, 2012By Charles Kenny in Technology Tags: Technology
I’ve been blogging a little about technology adoption of late. It’s a subject close to my heart: my last book was pretty much all about how new technologies and the spread of ideas were behind much of the global progress we’ve seen in the quality of life over the last fifty years. 9 Comments »Coming Clean on Publish What You BuyApril 23, 2012By Charles Kenny in Transparency Tags: Transparency
A couple of weeks ago, CGD hosted a workshop on a transparency proposal we’re calling (at least for the moment) Publish What You Buy. In the spirit of openness, I meant to blog about it straight after –but where would have been the irony in that? So, two weeks later, (still) faster than a speeding freedom of information request denial, here’s a brief write-up. 1 Comment »Coming Clean on CookstovesApril 18, 2012By Charles Kenny in Global Health, Global Warming Tags: Climate Change, Rural Development, Technology
The Washington Post on Monday highlighted the latest results from a randomized study of a development intervention by the folks at MIT. This time, the subject of the study was clean cookstoves. As the Post noted, that’s timely because Hillary Clinton has been a strong advocate, backing the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and pledging $105 million in support. In addition, the UN Secretary General has pushed access to improved cooking technologies as part of his Sustainable Energy for All Initiative. And the upcoming Rio+20 Earth Summit is likely to focus on the cookstoves as well –see Nigel Purvis and Abigail Jones’ report on the subject for CGD, Energizing Rio+ 20, issued this week. 16 Comments »Breaking the Addiction to a Failed PolicyApril 18, 2012By Charles Kenny in Global Development Tags: Cartels, drugs, War on Drugs
My column for Foreign Policy this week was on the global war on drugs. It recounts how the war, begun four decades ago by President Nixon, has failed to raise drug prices or reduce consumption in the US. Yet the spillover effects at home are grim: spending on enforcement and imprisonment along with the huge social costs of a bulging prison population. And the impact on the rest of the world has been even worse. Tens of thousands have died in the conflict between drug cartels and police –many of whom were innocent bystanders. Increasingly, international drug rings threaten whole states with narco-kleptocracy. 1 Comment »Sustain Rio through Measuring Commitment?March 5, 2012By Charles Kenny in Climate Change, Millennium Development Goals Tags: Climate, Millennium Development Goals, Rio +20
Despite protestation from all sides that there should be only one development agenda post-2015, the Rio process continues on what appears to be a parallel, overlapping track. Not least that’s because the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are facing the same issue as the process to come up with new Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) –everyone with a sectoral agenda is arguing that their topic is vital to sustainable development. Many of them are surely right. But if poverty reduction, gender, infrastructure access, human rights, jobs and so on are all sustainable development issues that therefore should be in the SDGs, it is hard to see how what emerges differs from MDGs. Comment »Goals Need Numbers. Otherwise They’re Just Warm Feelings.March 1, 2012By Charles Kenny in Global Development, Millennium Development Goals Tags: Millennium Development Goals
I’ve spent the last few days immersed (drowning?) in MDGs 2.0. First, CGD hosted a discussion of Washington-based folks interested in the issue (thanks to ODI’s Claire Melamed for headlining), and then I went to New York for a meeting organized by UNDESA and UNDP –the Experts Group Meeting to Support the Advancement of the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda. We met, we supported, we grouped and agendized. It was very interesting indeed and I’m grateful to have been invited. But to be honest, and with the caveat that I had to leave early, I couldn’t tell if we advanced. 1 Comment »Do We Still Need Development Goals?February 16, 2012By Charles Kenny in Global Development, Millennium Development Goals Tags: Millennium Development Goals
As we look ahead to 2015 and the potential for a new round of MDGs, there’s a growing chorus of people arguing that, given how much the world has changed since 2000, the new set should look completely different from the last lot. The 2000 vintage was about rich and poor countries, focused on where donors would help recipients, based on the DAC Development Targets (which drew in turn from a range of UN Conferences). In a world with large emerging donor-recipients like China and India, where poverty levels are declining and where the urgency of dealing with global commons issues are mounting, surely whatever is agreed in 2015 should be ‘global’ rather than aimed at poor countries and focus more on public goods like climate. 1 Comment »Take Learning Out of the Schoolroom?February 13, 2012By Charles Kenny in Education Tags: Education, global development
The gap between schooling and learning is under the spotlight of late –and a new book by CGD’s own Lant Pritchett (draft chapters available here) is sure to increase the wattage. The story that Lant has to tell is not the happiest –widespread evidence from across the developing world that many kids who sit in classrooms for years often learn almost nothing for their time. One big factor behind that low return to class time is the grim quality of teaching. Educators often absent from the classroom, who fail tests on the material they are meant to be instructing, using syllabi designed for only the most able (and well prepared) students. Reading Pritchett’s draft makes you somewhat skeptical about the speed with which such quality problems are likely to be fixed. And one response to that grim quality is to look beyond the teacher –and the classroom—to technologies that can help learning. 1 Comment »Universal Joy As a New Goal for the Millennium?February 9, 2012By Charles Kenny in Economic Development, Global Development Tags: Happiness, Millennium Development Goals
As we ramp up to 2015 and (maybe) a new set of Millennium Development Goals, people are proposing things to include: universal energy access, freedom from violence, a learning goal, stronger language on sustainable development… and happiness. The Japanese government is pushing for the inclusion of a ‘happiness/well-being measure’ as part of the Rio Sustainable Development Goals, building on Bhutan’s push to include happiness as ‘the 9th MDG’. There will be a meeting in New York later this year to discuss the idea, bringing together some of the leaders in the field. 2 Comments »Could Solar Lighting Be the Next Mobile Phone?January 31, 2012By Charles Kenny in Environment, Global Development Tags: Clean Energy
Between 2000 and 2010, the number of mobile phone subscriptions in developing countries increased from 215 million to 4.1 billion. From a luxury for the rich, the mobile has become a ubiquitous presence in rural and urban areas alike, even in some of the most fragile countries in the world. Afghanistan saw 38 subscriptions per 100 people in 2010, an average of more than one phone per household. And while ubiquity in Afghanistan is evidence enough that mobile phone access hardly guarantees quality of life or sustainable development, mobiles have proven themselves powerful tools to improve livelihoods –associated with higher prices paid to farmers, improved job seeking opportunities and (more recently) direct payments to those in need. So what’s going to be the next mobile phone –the technology that spreads rapidly to improve the lives of even the poorest people in the developing world? One possibility is solar power. Comment »Build Back Better: Great Slogan, Bad Idea?January 11, 2012By Charles Kenny in Global Development, Migration and Disaster Recovery Tags: Haiti
Over at Foreign Policy, I have a column this week about Michael Clemens’ work on migration as a tool for disaster recovery. On the second anniversary of the Haiti quake, there has been some progress towards reconstruction and recovery, but it is slow. And one big reason for that is the snail’s pace rate of disbursement of international donor funding for reconstruction. The US, for example, has only disbursed about 30% of the resources it promised back in 2010 –and there’s a big gap between donor disbursement and impact on the ground. Furthermore, only about 2% of US aid actually went to the government of Haiti –and a similar trifling amount went to Haitian firms as direct contractors. In contrast, as Michael’s work shows, migration can be a powerful –and rapid—tool to get money in the hands of disaster victims and their families. 1 Comment »Earth Goals for the Earth Summit?December 12, 2011By Charles Kenny in Climate Change, Environment Tags: Climate Change, environment
A while ago, I blogged about the government of Colombia’s proposal for next year’s Rio + 20 Summit –that it should agree a set of “Sustainable Development Goals,” or SDGs for short. That blog raised the concern that having a set of SDGs agreed only three years before a new round of MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) might be a little confusing to… well… everyone. But if the Rio Goals could be an input to a new round of MDGs, that might work out very well for all concerned. After all, the last round of MDGs had ten years of UN thematic conferences to build upon and steal goal language from, while any 2015 round will have no such luxury. Rio+20 could provide valuable inputs for (much better) language on the environment in any new set of MDGs. Meanwhile, agreeing the Goals could provide an important outcome for a Rio summit that, at the moment, looks like it might be a little lacking in headline-worthy accomplishments (and has been ignominiously shunted so as not to clash with Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations). Comment »Visualizing Better Development (and/or Development Better)September 26, 2011By Charles Kenny in Global Development
On Friday, I spoke at a Tech@State conference on data visualization at the Kennedy Center. There were a lot of people with whizz-bang presentations that made Hans Rosling look like a newbie with an all-text PowerPoint. For example, Aleem Walji showed how the World Bank is using maps of where in a country the Bank is doing projects, mashed up with maps of poverty rates to see how well it is targeting poverty with its portfolio. 1 Comment »Go On, Hug a FailureSeptember 13, 2011By Charles Kenny in Aid Effectiveness, World Bank Tags: Aid Effectiveness, USAID, World Bank
Back in June, I blogged about a meeting with Dr Maura O’Neill Chief Innovation Officer at USAID, and a very interesting discussion of the importance of learning from failure. The possibility of a USAID FailFaire –or even Fail Summit— was mooted. We’re not quite there yet. And maybe we won’t be until there’s a grand bargain on foreign assistance and/or until the debt negotiation freeze’s over. But thanks to Wayan Vota at Inveneo, there is going to be a DC FailFaire at the World Bank on October 13th. It’s not just an opportunity to hear about that one time when one little World Bank project went just a bit wrong. Everybody who takes a risk fails once in a while –just ask Donald Trump. So, attend DC FailFaire, share a failure, learn from it, receive absolution –and go out and fail again! (Well, hopefully not the last bit). I can’t be there, sadly –which is a shame, because I could have shared my complete failure to sell more than three copies of a book which was all about failure in ICT for development projects. Oh, the bitter, bitter irony. 1 Comment »Of Penn, Pigs and CodSeptember 2, 2011By Charles Kenny in Cash on Delivery Aid, Global Development Tags: Cash on Delivery Aid, Haiti
If there is one thing that Development Experts hate, it is celebrities acting as if they know something about development. Of course, if there’s another thing that at least some Development Experts hate, it is other Development Experts acting as if they know something about development. The good news for those folks, at least (and you know who you are): if Development Experts are as clueless on how to promote development as the celebrities, maybe the celebrities aren’t the big problem. 3 Comments »Rio +20: Now Also + A New Set of Development GoalsAugust 31, 2011By Charles Kenny in Global Development, Millennium Development Goals Tags: Millennium Development Goals, Rio +20
CGD hosted a meeting yesterday with Ambassador Brice Lalonde, UN Executive Coordinator of Rio +20 as well as representatives from the US Government, NGOs and the private sector. It was an opportunity for Lalonde to give an update and ask for feedback on preparations for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development to take place in Rio next June. Comment »What Does It Mean to Be Low Income?July 27, 2011By Charles Kenny in Poverty Tags: IDA, Poverty
Andy Sumner and I recently wrote about the fact that the number of low income countries in the world is rapidly shrinking –which is great news because it suggests poor countries are getting richer. But how much does graduating to ‘middle income’ mean? Here’s how the original income classification came about, according to the World Bank’s website: 1 Comment »Famine Is a Crime – Blame the Criminal FirstJuly 26, 2011By Charles Kenny in Food Crisis Tags: Food Crisis
My Foreign Policy column this week suggests that in the Twenty-First Century, famines can only occur with the active engagement of local leadership – taking away food from producers and/or denying access to agencies delivering emergency relief. In Somalia, the leadership that is denying access is al-Shabab – the group in control of the areas of the country where famine has already begun. 1 Comment »$100 Billion to End Global Poverty –Déjà vu, Déjà Dismissed?July 19, 2011By Charles Kenny in Aid Effectiveness Tags: Aid Effectiveness, cash transfers
My column for Foreign Policy this week has a theme that will ring familiar to anyone who has been around global poverty advocacy for the last few years. It puts a price tag on ending poverty. My price is $100 billion, based on just handing over enough money to everyone worldwide living on less than $1.25 a day to bring them up to that level. The World Bank’s Shanta Devarajan was kind enough to comment on the article: 3 Comments »Happiness as DevelopmentJune 16, 2011By Charles Kenny in Economic Development, Economic Growth Tags: development, Happiness, measures of development
CGD has just published my essay on using happiness polls to guide policy decisions. I’m a big fan of the economics of happiness –it throws up some very interesting findings. For example, take the coefficients from this paper. They suggest that people are a lot happier than average during moments of intimate relations and somewhat less happy than average every minute when commuting. But the average person spends a lot longer commuting than they do being intimate. So, overall, people are made about three times more unhappy by commuting than they are made happy by intimate relations each day. I’ll leave it to you to think about the potential personal and policy implications of this conclusion. Perhaps more relevant to CGD’s work, there is a growing number of papers looking at subjective measures of the quality of life in developed and developing countries alike that are suggesting some of our traditional objective measures miss a lot of what is going on. Carol Graham at Brookings notes the paradox of happy peasants and miserable millionaires–a number of those people who have benefited most in terms of income gains are some of the least content. Surveys of Dalits in India suggest that a whole raft of (positive) social changes are going on that are missed by traditional poverty analyses. So, three cheers to subjective wellbeing analysis for opening up some exciting new approaches to old questions. 2 Comments » |
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