InterMedia

Celebrities, Politics, and Development: Is it a Good Mix?

The use of celebrities to promote causes and political campaigns has been around for some time. It’s nothing new, yet it's a fascinating topic. With the U.S. election just around the corner, celebrities seem to be popping up everywhere endorsing their preferred candidate, speaking out on issues they deem important, and raising money, lots of money, for the campaigns. As Sina mentioned in a previous post, there is not a doubt that celebrities are effective in attracting attention to issues, but as he said “noise is not the same thing as impact.” The level of influence celebrities have on policy-making and affecting change on the ground has long been debated.

Is There Support for International Development?

Foreign aid has always been a contentious issue – especially when donor countries are in recession or trying to struggle out of one, while (some) formerly developing countries emerge with a stable and growing economy. From the viewpoint of policy makers in donor countries, the issue certainly has two sides: allocating support to the poorest countries in the world or those plagued by hunger and conflict, or stocking up much needed domestic programs for the poor and disadvantaged at home. Pressure from national interest groups is likely to push policy-makers toward domestic programs.

Weekly Wire: the Global Forum

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.

OpenAid
This is how aid transparency could look like

"People who argue for more transparency in development cooperation are often eager to point out all the merits of transparency. Unfortunately, often we are not very sure whether our claims are well founded. Even worse, there are very few examples who can illustrate how exactly, "more transparency" could look like. The International Aid Transparency Initiative which will be implemented by the first donors in 2011 is a concrete example of governmental and multilateral donors representing a large percentage of global ODA making aid information available and accessible.

Also, in non-governmental development cooperations efforts are underway to increase accountability and transparency. The UK-based NGO OneWorldTrust even created a website to map over 300 NGO accountability initiatives around the world. But there are few concrete examples of making the information about work of more than one NGO transparent and easily accessible."

"If we miss the MDGs, who will punish us?"

You’ve probably heard that leaders from around the world have just completed a three day high-level summit on the Millennium Development Goals in New York. It’s been a decade since the international community signed up to the MDGs, and two thirds of the way to the 2015 deadline.

In a blog update posted from NY a couple of days ago, World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala cites statistics suggesting progress on various MDG priorities, such as gender parity in primary education, reducing maternal mortality, and access to safe drinking water. But Ngozi calls for more action, less talk, and points out that behind the statistics are people who continue to suffer from lack of the most basic needs. Among the various examples she provides, one in particular caught my attention: “Action is about saving lives – (e.g.) a Tanzanian woman who hears on the radio about bed nets at the local clinic. ”

This example highlights a necessary, albeit insufficient, condition for attaining development outcomes:

“Open Government”: Open to Whom?

The push for open government is not of course limited to Barack Obama’s White House or to the World Bank.

As part of the AudienceScapes project, InterMedia has been conducting quantitative and qualitative research in Africa, to better understand how people gather, share and shape news and public interest information. In Kenya, InterMedia conducted in-depth interviews with 15 senior members of the policy-making community.

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