April 2013

DataDive Q&A with Data Ambassadors: Tackling Poverty with Technology

This post is part of the Q&A Series with the Data Ambassadors from DataDive2013. You can also read an interview with the poverty data ambassadors, a recap of Data Dive 2013, and watch the presentations from the weekend.

Carlos Teodoro Linares Carvalho

Data Ambassadors posing at the end of DataDive 2013. Photo Credit: Carlos Teodoro Linares Carvalho.

During DataDive 2013, each project had an assigned data ambassador, a leader to guide and direct the research and efforts of the teams. In the days following the DataDive, we spoke with four of the data ambassadors from the poverty projects to learn more about their experiences. Read their responses below and join the conversation in our comments section.

Monique Williams is an independent consultant and a statistician at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. She led and represented the UNDP Resource Allocation team.

Nick McClellan is the web production editor for the New America Foundation and he represented the Night Illumination team.

Max Richman is an independent consultant who provides research and technology services to non-profits, foundations and governments focused on international development. He led the Website Scraping team.

Tom Levine works in data analysis and he represented the Arabic Tweets project.

Urban Careers and the Twenty-Ninth Day

Lily pads on lake A helpful way for young math students to grasp the concept of exponential growth is to look at water lilies growing on a pond. They grow exponentially and double in area each day. If they will fully cover the pond by the 30^th day, on what day is the lake half covered? The twenty-ninth day^[1].

This year I had the honor of teaching 4^th year energy systems students who will graduate later this month (their blogs on energy issues will be presented on this site over the summer). These graduates are particularly essential. During their careers they will be part of the world’s largest ever city-building spree. Their task will be to again double the world’s cities.

Growing after the Crisis: Boosting Productivity in Developing Countries

Spring in DC draws more than just tourists. Last week, government officials, policy makers, civil society representatives and other thought leaders converged to take stock of the global economy during the IMF-World Bank spring meetings. The tone in the hallways was optimistic, but cautious. Growth in advanced economies still remains tepid, weighed down by lingering effects of the global financial crisis, demographic challenges, as well as weakening innovation and productivity growth. At the same time, there are encouraging signs that developing countries are in good shape, thanks to fiscal buffers that helped them to weather the storm.

Nevertheless, we must be mindful of the work ahead: the IMF warned of a ‘3-speed recovery’, where emerging markets are growing rapidly, the United States is recovering faster than most other advanced industrial countries, but Europe continues to struggle. Where does this leave developing countries? At a meeting with the G24 – a group of developing countries - I had the privilege of discussing the prospects for growth, and policies needed to achieve productivity growth essential for eliminating extreme poverty and for creating shared prosperity.

Pick Your Celebrity!

You know those pictures of Angelina Jolie hugging a starving child in Chad? Elton John singing at AIDS fundraisers? Bono being everywhere all over Africa in campaigns against poverty? There is a very good reason why celebrities lend their names and faces to development causes: it works. By the sheer force of their fame they draw attention to issues that would normally not be on our radar screen and they are able to mobilize parts of the population that does not always have access to information about development issues. So all you need to do is put a famous face on your cause and you’re set for success – increased awareness, increased attention, increased funding, and sometimes even behavior change? It’s not quite as easy as this. Picking the right celebrity is important, or the whole thing can backfire. Here are a few dos and don’ts when involving celebrities in a cause.

How India’s Unique ID System is Changing Lives

Aadhaar Card

When it comes to ID systems, India's Aadhaar initiative sets a high bar for the rest of the world. Aadhaar is a state-of-the-art online system that provides unique 12-digit ID numbers to residents of India. These numbers can be used for a wide range of public and private services.

IFC Joins the Open Finances Platform

Where are IFC’s SME clients located? How much has IFC invested in infrastructure projects in Africa? How have IFC’s investments in different sectors changed and grown over time?

For the first time, users will be able to find the answers to these and many more questions about International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) work on the World Bank Group’s Open Finances website. Eight data sets with detailed information on IFC’s financial commitments and projects are now available for the public to slice, visualize and share in the ways that they choose.

What is Social and Solidarity Economy and Why Does It Matter?

UNRISD Deputy Director Peter Utting introduces the theme of his organization’s big conference in May.

Having had my professional and political interests shaped during the somewhat heady days of the 1980s in Sandinista Nicaragua, I’ve long been interested in the potential and limits of collective action—of people organizing and mobilizing through associations, unions, cooperatives, community organizations, fairtrade networks and so on. The Sandinista “revolution” soon gave way to the “neoliberal” 1990s. As in much of the world, collective action went on the backburner or assumed new forms via NGO networks and identity politics. Fast forward two decades and we are witnessing a significant rebound in collective action associated with workers, producers and consumers. Whether in response to global crises (finance and food), the structural conditions of precarious employment or new opportunities for cultural expression and social interaction afforded by the internet age, old and new forms are on the rise.

The term social and solidarity economy (SSE) is increasingly being used to refer to a broad range of organizations that are distinguished from conventional for-profit enterprise, entrepreneurship and informal economy by two core features. First, they have explicit economic AND social (and often environmental) objectives. Second, they involve varying forms of co-operative, associative and solidarity relations. They include, for example, cooperatives, mutual associations, NGOs engaged in income generating activities, women’s self-help groups, community forestry and other organizations, associations of informal sector workers, social enterprise and fair trade organizations and networks.

Prospects Daily: Euro falls on rate cut expectations, German and US consumer confidence picks up, Croatia IP rebounds

Financial Markets…U.S. stocks rose to fresh records on Monday, with the S&P’s 500 Index climbing 0.7% to close at all-time high of 1,593.61, as investors cheered a better than expected report on pending sales of U.S. home and remained firmly on the prospect of an extension of the current stimulus programs by the Federal Reserve. The S&P has gained 1.6% thus far in April, and it surged 136% from a 12-year low in 2009.

Brown University President Christina Paxson on Higher Education in the Developing World

In the 1980s it was considered a given that most low-income countries over-invest in tertiary education. But that tired assumption is being upended in today’s world of borderless universities and globe-trotting skilled workers. A higher education undoubtedly generates a positive return for most people, whether in advanced or developing countries. However, policymakers should heed the warning about not jumping too fast by focusing on higher learning when in many countries, getting a solid secondary education is the key to climbing the ladder toward prosperity. Also, the importance of getting the organizational structure of universities right is often undervalued, with the result that far too many academic institutions fail to graduate people who are equipped to compete in the global workforce, or, aiming even higher, who are qualified to change the world for the better.

These were some of the takeaways I gleaned from Brown University President Christina Paxson’s lecture on April 26 at the World Bank.

Single Window Systems: What We Have Learned

//www.flickr.com/photos/nuzz/4183802267/ The clearance of imports and exports by customs and other agencies are among the most problematic links in global supply chains. They are frequently blamed for undermining the capacity of developing countries to compete on global markets. As a result, the Bank and other development organizations have devoted a great deal of attention to supporting reform and modernization of border clearance processes. In spite of significant effort, border management inefficiencies continue to impact heavily on the competitiveness of developing countries.