Tag Archives: news

Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” started three weeks ago, with truckers converging on Ottawa to protest a law requiring that they be vaccinated to come back into their own country. Given that well over 80 percent of the truckers are vaccinated, what exactly are they protesting? As one reporter who talked to dozens of demonstrators put it, it’s less about mandates per se and more about “a sense that things will never go back to normal, a sense that they are being ganged up on by the government, the...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. A quick note, my posting frequency has slowed down in 2021, thanks for sticking with it. One reason has been that I’ve been co-authoring another set of links with my brilliant IPA colleagues, Luciana Debenedetti & Rachel Strohm, every other week focused on new research on COVID and social protection (this week’s is here). Among other, I think I also hit what I now realize was a quarantine burnout. If it’s helpful to anybody...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in as Tanzania’s first woman president, following the death of John Magufuli, known for his denial of COVID-19 in the country. Some speculate the virus was the cause of his death rather than the official announced cause, heart failure. A nice article from Dani Rodrik about how economists can get along with other fields. Known for their breadth and willing to take on many kinds of questions,...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. My colleagues in the methods department at IPA have an RFP out for awards of up to $20,000 for studies to improve methods, generalizability, transparency and the like. Deadline Feb 28th. 26 co-authors published a paper using 16 samples of household surveys of 30,000 people in 9 countries to assess impact of last spring’s COVID disruptions. As you can imagine, it was grave, with losses of income, and hunger—including in...

The latest I’ve seen on the Uganda election is that ballot counting continues, I thought I saw police had disrupted counting at at least one location, and opposition candidate, singer Bobi Wine says the military has stationed themselves in and around his home without explanation. My boss, Annie Duflo, is profiled in the Wall Street Journal this weekend. Charles Kenny has a new paper and blog post out arguing aid would help the most people if it prioritized the poorest places first. He also...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action First a plug – my colleagues at IPA have done amazing work this year quickly pivoting a big research organization to tackle the covid crisis head-on, studying hunger, refugee issues, education and 80+ other topics, and staying up late into the night, over and over again. Not all of our expenses are covered directly by research grants, so we rely on donations for the rest. If you donate here BEFORE TUESDAY you gift will be...

Pretty good piece in SSIR by Kevin Starr and Sarah Miers of the Mulago Foundation, why don’t big NGOs scale up other social entrepreneurs’ solutions? They spoke to a bunch of leaders and once they got past the laughter and disbelief at the idea, found “Not created here syndrome” that everybody knows about Big funders like government aid agencies prioritize project-based work Differing priorities at country vs. headquarters Hard to replicate someone else’s idea and get it to work They...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. You can register for the big NEUDC development conference, featuring an opening address by Penny Goldberg, held Fri Nov 6 – Sat Nov 7, now all online! You can also still submit an abstract (500 word limit) for a lightning round session, deadline Monday! Cool paper comparing 150 education interventions from Noam Angrist, David Evans, Deon Filmer, Rachel Glennerster, F. Halsey Rogers and Shwetlena Sabarwal. They use a common...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action I’m working on a new email newsletter, with colleagues including Rachel Strohm (who has been a well-respected dev blogger for years). IPA’s tracking studies on COVID related issues in low- and middle-income countries (along with survey instruments and funding opportunities) on our RECOVR research hub (please submit yours, and let colleagues know). Every other week we’re highlighting some new results from there and elsewhere we...

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action Planet Money’s new resource for educators pairs podcast episodes with lesson plans, cataloged by topic. It’s a big week for findings from cash studies including: publication of Chris’s study with Fiala and Martinez showing cash benefitted Ugandan participants, but by 9 years later the control group had caught up; Universal Basic Income in Kenya buffered against hard times when COVID and the agricultural lean season hit...