whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1.
(Comments)

...ng the computers? If so, I would genuinely be interested in any points you may have. Otherwise, I could care less if his answers and purpose seem like a vanity project, if the product is a good and us...

2.
(Comments)

...ke is no more effective than a war. Sooner or later an agreement requires dialogue. Any example you care to name, where untrammelled brutality has been exercised in the name of profit (most recent...

3.
(Comments)

In my opinion the top-down approach where millions are spent trying to reach people who couldn\'t care less if the taxi-driver they are commuting to work with drives recklessly as long as they make it

4. The Revenge of the Markets
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ver $ 50 billion into its three largest banks to try and avoid a run. The Russian army may be able to scare its neighbours, but the markets are scaring everyone. Over $ 3 trillion in value has been ...

5. Trade Liberalisation isn't only between Rich and Poor
(Analysis/Analysis)

...of West African traders struggling to get into the country to sell their goods. The Chinese government carefully denied Africans access to the games. If only there were an internationally recognise...

6. The Remarkable Power of Remarkable People
(Analysis/Analysis)

...utomatons. They will react to protect themselves from silly and victimising pieces of legislation. A careful politician may consider it an equitable tax, but, if it is at all targeted, then those w...

7. The errors of selection and confirmation bias
(Analysis/Analysis)

...driven – if people feel happy, they tend to spend and invest more than if they're worried or scared – it makes sense to consider whether or not the conversation taking place in the med...

8. Xenophobia and the end of the African Renaissance
(Analysis/Analysis)

...pective of whether they are here legally or not. Over the next weeks and months, after this episode is carefully contained, South African leaders are going to have a great deal of relationship-buildi...

9. Taxing the Future, Confusing the Present
(Analysis/Analysis)

...other 40 million who require social grants, housing, subsidised electricity and water, education, healthcare and so on. As Winston Churchill said, "Never have so many owed so much to so few.&quo...

10. Overcoming the Conservation of Energy
(Analysis/Analysis)

...n to their consumers. The Health Minister has declared that this is outrageous, that the private healthcare industry is profit-driven, not accessible to the poor majority and must be regulated. It i...

11. When no-one is held accountable, everyone suffers
(Analysis/Analysis)

... invest in new energy capacity a decade ago could possibly result in all the chaos today. Plus, having carefully promoted only the most incompetent people into positions of command in both government...

12. Funding departments instead of people cheats everyone
(Analysis/Analysis)

The entire private hospital sector, including Netcare, Life and Medi-Clinic, is worth about R 63 billion a year. Yet this large number is only 4.6% of the total South African economy. State spendin

13. Perlemoen and the Tragedy of the Commons
(Analysis/Analysis)

...a-food will end. As did the "tradition" of gas-light lighters, chimney-sweeps and many other careers fallen by the way-side by the march of social and environmental change. It is clear tha...

14. Killing the Golden Goose, a lesson in Economic Freedom
(Analysis/Analysis)

...those who take unearned wealth that is not freely given. It is a lesson few governments in Africa have cared to learn. Last week saw Robert Mugabe's thuggish regime claim ownership of Olivine, a ...

15. Black Diamonds and the trouble with statistics
(Analysis/Analysis)

...with this category.  Research all over the world shows that, as women become middle-class, their careers become more important and reproductive rates fall.  Any study that shows an explo...

16. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

... them. But the truth is that it effects the investors more than the employees. Investors should be more careful about who they invest in. One of Rand's characters, Francisco d'Anconia, is tra...

17. Zimbabwe: the Hollow State
(Analysis/Analysis)

... and retraining. There are few entrepreneurs willing to take that on in Africa. Without exceptionally careful and extremely pro-business legislation few new businesses will be attracted to Zimbabwe ...

18. "Be sure, we will be watching you," the other GB and the pursuit of social justice
(Analysis/Analysis)

...e most loquacious men in South Africa." The Rivonia Trial was central to the making of Bizos' career. He would go on to embarrass the Apartheid government on a regular basis. He revealed th...

19. Two Frontiers: wars of liberation and of determination
(Analysis/Analysis)

...f that soldiers won't simply massacre the participants. It was Mao who said, "Kill the one to scare the millions." Every now and then a protest turns into a massacre and the dictatorship...

20. The Golden Pen, Yahoo, and the worst country in the world to be a journalist
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ave an obligation to ensure that the basic human rights of their users will be protected, and they must carefully guard against becoming accomplices in repression." Shi's mother then read a ...

21. Do you hate the poor enough to be charitable?
(Analysis/Analysis)

... in anyone without question and, in exchange, pay as little as possible. Everything in a restaurant is carefully worked out. The food will be 15% of the bill, rent 10%, labour 10%, taxes, utilities,...

22. Islam, Shari'ah Law, and Cultural Capitalism
(Analysis/Analysis)

...That leaves industrials (like mines and industrial processing), telecommunications, oil and gas, health care and consumer goods.  Still a lively investment portfolio. So how is Albaraka doing?&nb...

23. Have you paid your car guard today?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...s of others in danger when you speak on your cellphone while driving.  But you don’t seem to care.  Do you honestly believe that you will stop informal traders by legislating against t...

24. The Jimmy Wales interview: Wikipedia and Lessons in Globalisation
(Analysis/Analysis)

...gning a restaurant.  We don't want to build it around the worst-case scenario where we're scared to give people knives because they may attack each other.  We want to build around go...

25. Unlearning helplessness: how donors reinforce poverty and dependency
(Analysis/Analysis)

...This regularly happens with everything from sugar, to soap. Companies that allow this surely don't care about their reputations with the poor or about the integrity of their products. And the en...

26. Hedging and bundling; improving the efficiency of microlending
(Analysis/Analysis)

...h they will use to buy the things they need (usually personal expenditure, like treats, clothes, health care and the like). The model works well. It is a way for the banks to hedge their risks by le...

27. Demonstration Health HIV / AIDS Orphanage B
(Ratings Demonstration/Demonstration)

... Infrastructure - Managerial, Recording and Fund-raising Capacity: A Infrastructure - Care-givers Capacity: BBB Physical Infrastructure - Quantitative (Childrens' / Clust...

28. Demonstration Health HIV / AIDS Orphanage A
(Ratings Demonstration/Demonstration)

...bsp; Infrastructure - Managerial, Recording and Fund-raising Capacity: AA Infrastructure - Care-givers Capacity: AA Physical Infrastructure - Quantitative (Childrens' / Cluster...

29. The US$ 5 trillion market at the bottom of the pyramid
(Analysis/Analysis)

...the way in which expensive services and products can be reinvented to serve the poor.  Aravind Eye Care in Madurai, India, is a pure example of what is possible.  Cataract surgery in the de...

30. While no-one was watching
(Analysis/Analysis)

We have recently started rating AIDS children’s care facilities (the term “orphanage” is anathema).  We received a report about an organisation that was neglecting the children

31. Making money, doing good
(Analysis/Analysis)

...nabled cellphone. Prahalad certainly didn’t originate the idea of letting market conditions take care of poverty.  Adam Smith in 1776 coined the phrase, “the invisible hand” to...

32. Rating to create a market; questions and answers
(Analysis/Analysis)

...hieved in an objective and uniform way. Poverty only becomes entrenched when you genuinely don’t care what you give away to those less well-off than yourself.  That is what entrenches pove...

33. A story of an African Orphan
(Analysis/Analysis)

... is where children are housed in a dormitory-type facility. Meals, accommodation, and sometimes medical care are provided on-site. Usually there will be a house manager or a child care worker who will...

34. Cry, The Beloved Country
(Analysis/Analysis)

...tand unshod upon it, for the ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed. Thes...

35. "Heads or Tails" ... resolution to a difficult choice
(Analysis/Analysis)

...nvestment, we must choose those that are best placed to deliver. So too, in development, must we choose carefully from the targeted group and then stick by them long enough for the individuals to grow...

36. Western Cape economic development support agencies lack the capacity to halve unemployment
(Analysis/Analysis)

...sessment, business process / systems / product development, introduction to finance, and implementation care and support. To provide such designated business support services the organisation: i) acc...

37. World Cup 2010 asks for big sacrifices from the poor
(Analysis/Analysis)

...tle result for all our investment. Cape Town will become the proud owner of a stadium so large, and so carefully situated, that it will block out views of Table Mountain from the harbour.  And t...

38. Coffee, the miracle of poverty, and other wonders
(Analysis/Analysis)

...rah Winfrey or Bono, European and US citizens are astonishingly wealthy (on average) by any measure you care to name.  There are certainly pockets of poverty and deprivation – and these are...

39. The Martians Really Care: four points to govern development
(Analysis/Ideas and Challenges)

It was Ronald Reagan who said, "The scariest words in the English language are: 'Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" Without a sense of where it is going or w

40. How do we prepare nonprofit organisations for the long term?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ped during the first process remain – for every society will forever require education and health-care, skills development and the nurturing of talented aspirants or hapless victims of fate; and...

41. May I have the bill, please? A lesson in wilful ignorance ...
(Analysis/Analysis)

...in local newspapers or blogs.  Development organisations can get away with even lower standards of care since their clients, on the whole, are desperate and uneducated (otherwise they wouldn&rsqu...

42. The other losing battle: Africa's war on talent
(Analysis/Analysis)

...job of exporting their best and brightest to other countries. For those who say, “What should we care about talent, we have all these unemployed people, let them work.”  The simple a...

43. The lack of feedback and accountability is fatal to aid effectiveness
(Analysis/Analysis)

...There is very little.  Because it’s free, because it’s donated, somehow we don’t care for accountability as much.  And so, despite spending a total of $ 568 billion on aid ...

44. Government rewards the worst schools for poor performance
(Analysis/Analysis)

...y don't deserve to be propped up if all they can do is ruin the futures of those entrusted to their care. ...

45. AIDS-related illnesses cost South African businesses up to R 2.2 billion per year
(Analysis/Analysis)

...es, are uniquely placed to provide a range of quality HIV-related services (from training of home-based caregivers to provision of antiretroviral therapy) to those in need." "However, the v...

46. Milton Friedman 2
(Analysis/Quotes)

When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on ... And when a man spends someone else'

47. PJ O'Rourke
(Analysis/Quotes)

...a person's "fair share" of wealth. The gross national product is not a pizza that must be carefully divided because if I get too many slices, you have to eat the box. The economy is expa...

48. Milton Friedman 1
(Analysis/Quotes)

The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what colour people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It

49. Is the $ 100 laptop no more than a really expensive light-bulb?
(Analysis/Analysis)

..., or book - not the least of which being that these belongings will be well-maintained through love and care.” Negroponte’s naïve faith in humanity extends to the governments he expe...

50. School vouchers offer the poorest an opportunity to learn at better schools
(Analysis/Analysis)

...aise fees – in essence punishing those who can afford to pay – or offer a lower standard of care as class sizes increase and resources become stretched. Parents will respond either by mov...