via @cblatts

M7 being ludicrous again.

via @whiteafrican

This is sick.

An awesome, awesome set of papers on mobile phones and economic development.

I used to think PlayPumps were awesome. I was wrong. But here's how we can do better.

The World Bank released its 2010 World Development Indicators for free, accompanied by a gorgeous visualization tool

Rethinking the tens of thousands of dollars I dropped on SIPA.

"Uganda is one of a handful of African countries where the population, now 33 million, is predicted at the least to treble in the next 30 years. Yet like Mo Ibrahim, president Yoweri Museveni calls his country's population growth 'a great resource'."

"The new meme of Africa is unfolding in front of us. Technologically and culturally the future of Africa is absolutely refreshing."

How monitoring & evaluation of development programs has changed. Also: teaching social media documentation to a Somali mzee.

"What do they call ICT4D in developing countries? ICT?"

thinking of all kinds of ways to use this

Sadly, everyone else seems to sound exactly like a London investment banker, the books they read at Harvard or LSE, or (in Easterly's words) aid agency officials repeating their boring platitudes. And sometimes they just rehash Easterly. More people should rehash Easterly (and Friedman, and Tilly...), but I will always value the fresh voices most--African, Turkish, American, Peruvian or otherwise.

"Bad development work is based on the idea that poor people have nothing. Something is better than nothing, right? .... But poor people don’t have nothing. They have families, friends – social ties. They have responsibilities. They have possessions, however meager. They have lives, no matter what those lives look like to Westerners."

"technology transfer is much more complicated than bringing tools to people who previously lacked them"