whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1.
(Comments)

...car guards are very different. Try not to confuse them. Hawkers run a retail business, card guards offer a service. The outrage over hawkers should be obvious: without control, hawkers cost jobs an...

2.
(Comments)

I think you\'re confusing 1Time and Kulula with SAA\'s cross-subsidised Mango service. Budget operators are amongst the only airlines making real cash internationally (think Ryanair, easyJet, Southwe

3. No way out; ducking the Eskom bullet
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ent. MTN, Cell C and Vodacom have invested vast amounts of cash in creating infrastructure to offer their services. They had to do this up-front and with no guarantees that we, the public, would buy...

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

...re the only way that the state can deal with large-scale tax avoidance. Despite the South African Revenue Service's ever-increasing budget (at a cumulative annual rate of 15.2% since 2000), they ...

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

...lar $1,900/oz. Private hospital administrators are in a similar fix. There is plenty of demand for their services, but, say hospital strategists, their key concern is the lack of staff. "Befor...

6. The hazard of market dominance
(Analysis/Analysis)

... little negotiating power, and even major manufacturers are frequently at the mercy of larger retailers or service providers. And let's mention again the power that both Telkom and Eskom have thro...

7. Netscape, the Internet and Creative Destruction
(Analysis/Analysis)

...graphic interface web-browser and, with their listing, started the Dot Com boom. In 1998 AOL, an Internet Service Provider, acquired Netscape for $4.2 billion in a stock swap. The froth of Dot Com f...

8. Electricity Redux - Electricity Quotas Will Work About As Well As Race Quotas
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ter Eskom's price increase of 14.2% will require that the state spend less money elsewhere, decreasing services to the poor, or raise taxes, making business a less efficient job-creator. It's...

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

..., as a proportion of total economic income, is 34.2%. If anyone has control over the economy and over the services that people receive it is the state. So, in the two most important sectors of state...

10. The Speculator: Pricing in the Future
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ry is 32%. Both sectors are in rapid decline, losing both jobs and investment. The flight is towards the services sector which now makes up some 68% of our economy. "The reason for the growth ...

11. Trevor Manuel and the "Plunder of Skills"
(Analysis/Analysis)

...gst us. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, our health minister, speaking about the profit motive of private health services, declared recently, "It has been recognised internationally as unsustainable, u...

12. The Miracle of Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

... cannot be maintained will be shut. Those that remain will be made profitable by reducing maintenance and services. New ones – such as the investment at the biscuit mill – will never hap...

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

...he minister of telecommunications gets to decide whether or not there is a market need for a new telephone service and lobbyists from existing businesses spend a great deal of money convincing her tha...

14. Africa, China and Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

...t in Africa to its third largest investor. China is prepared to build railways and ports and terminals to service its mines and oil interests. The advantage is that many African nations are now gett...

15. China, Toys And The Tragedy of Xenophobia
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ina and India have is their unskilled and low-wage population working in unsophisticated manufacturing and service businesses. If the developed world gets into the bad habit of seeing this as a threa...

16. The spectre of loyalty over ability
(Analysis/Analysis)

...t is Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin's belief that the private sector is incapable of delivering services. He has chosen to develop new broadband capacity via a state-subsidised monopoly ca...

17. Investment cannot happen if the market isn't private
(Analysis/Analysis)

... they buy? Our energy industry is highly regulated. No competitors are invited to challenge the sterling services provided by Eskom (thanks for the power-failures last week) or Telkom (thanks for th...

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

... These are big numbers indeed and are important for developers and retailers wanting to supply goods and services to a growing market. Yet there is a lingering concern about these figures.  T...

19. Ending poverty means abandoning charity and accepting reality
(Analysis/Analysis)

...st centralised economic policies and governments in Africa the informal sector is the largest employer and service provider in most of the continent. However the question conflates symptoms with caus...

20. Scrogues Converse: Open-space, Identity and the Missing Web
(Analysis/Analysis)

...w system. You have to give up your old friends on MySpace and make new ones on Facebook. I can change my service provider any time and keep my email address. No compromise necessary and it improves...

21. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

...xtending the range of government's violence to other businesses as well. Government does not sell any services that business wishes to buy. If they did then no threats would be necessary; they w...

22. The war of informal markets against central states; a bellwether of support
(Analysis/Analysis)

...n. Modern telecommunication systems allow them to send foreign currency via email, SMS or even money-wire services. Gideon Gono, the Zimbabwe finance minister, can raise interest rates to the moon b...

23. After Enron: the Corporate Governance of Corporate Social Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

When a financial services company recommends that you purchase a particular stock you need to be sure that their advice is based on impartial research. After Enron... So many justifications for the

24. Getting Home in Zimbabwe: The impossibility of public transport
(Analysis/Analysis)

...s now ranging from Z$ 1.5 to 2 million most Zimbabweans cannot afford the more expensive private transport services. Most people have no choice but to wait in ever lengthening queues. The working d...

25. Start your business in Johannesburg but hire your advisor in Cape Town
(Analysis/Analysis)

... are less likely to invest and three times more likely to remain unemployed post intervention. In addition service providers in Gauteng charge 250% more for their services than in the Western Cape. Ma...

26. The future of Newspapers, journalistic integrity and the battle for Google's soul
(Analysis/Analysis)

... trouble. Google "scrapes" news content from all over the world to populate its news aggregation service. The first concern expressed by unwilling content providers is that the content isn&#...

27. Guess which South African cellular company offers the best contract tariffs?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...he most expensive, while under most circumstances Cell C is cheapest. Cell C and Virgin don't offer 3G services and have weaker network coverage. More interestingly is that buying large-scale con...

28. One Laptop Per Child, now costing 75% more ...
(Analysis/Analysis)

... cash.  Given the poorly articulated purpose of OLPC, the incredible lack of infrastructure and basic services in the countries concerned, I can only hope that the donor community refuses. As for...

29. Internet Bubble 2.0: the future of dotcom depends on the mobile phone
(Analysis/Analysis)

...llphone. In South Africa, a nominally poor country, there are more users of MXit – a cellphone chat-service – than there are Internet users.  The vast bulk of MXit users are from the...

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

...s difficult.  Mobiled, a South African initiative, allows people to SMS keywords to Wikipedia and the service will then read back relevant entries. At this point, as the service is free, Wikipedi...

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

...er the impression that the poor are a market not worth pursuing. And so the poor are left paying more for services received by the rich. Transport costs are higher, food variety is poorer and signif...

32. What market is worth R 100 billion a year and is growing at 10.9%?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...n new products unless there is an overwhelming reason to do so Stokvels are complex and well-run financial services co-operatives that give the poor a hedge over short-term income fluctuations Spaza s...

33. Leveraging your good name; the power of a positive credit rating
(Analysis/Analysis)

...as a bargaining chip.  Your rating follows you from bank to bank and you can demand a better level of service than you would otherwise get if you were an unknown.   Ratings act to improve c...

34. From Linux to Mozilla: donations mean that open-source isn't really free
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ntain their technical advantage. CK Prahalad talks over the video, "The poor are prepared to pay for services and products. They want to. Real poverty is relying on permanent donations and han...

35. Demonstration Enterprise Development Consultant B
(Ratings Demonstration/Demonstration)

...inancial Reporting and Accountability: not rated Internal Policies and Procedures: A Client Service Perception: A Client Service Support: BBB Client Finance Solutions: A ...

36. Demonstration Enterprise Development Consultant A
(Ratings Demonstration/Demonstration)

... Financial Reporting and Accountability: BBB Internal Policies and Procedures: AA Client Service Perception: A Client Service Support: AA Client Finance Solutions: BBB ...

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

... CCC   Profile Contact Details Name: Demonstration Name Telephone: Demonstration Number Service Offering HIV / AIDS orphanage child-care; age 0 - 10 Geographic Coverage South...

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

...d environment: AA   Profile Contact Details Name: Some Name Telephone: Some Number Service Offering Cluster homes child-care facilities; children ages 0 - 12 Geographic ...

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

... a highly decentralised approach; partitioning of the task (on site / off site, decentralised payments and services); world class centralised facilities to aggregate and control the products as they a...

40. Demonstration Table of Ratings
(Ratings Demonstration/Demonstration)

...ment Grade (rating AAA - BBB) or Below Investment Grade (BB and below). Subscribers wishing to utilise the services of those below investment grade are advised to do so with caution. Each organisation...

41. Development organisations need to engage with ratings agencies
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ings reports in their quest for funding without having to contract in specialised, and costly, fundraising services. As with investment, so with charity; donors are spoiled for choice and those who w...

42. Aggregation and collaboration: a guide to making money and doing good in poor nations
(Analysis/Analysis)

...accommodate their own needs.  The subscribers are shared which significantly increases the power of a service that, by its very nature, requires a large pool of subscribers to be popular.  M...

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

...tion that was neglecting the children in their care. Moral hazard abounds.  The Department of Social Services will pay a foster parent a grant for every child in their care until their 15th birt...

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

... versus junk food. The development sector is a massive no-go area.  Who says that the products and services offered by NGOs and charities are any good?  You can give anything away, but th...

45. What happens when they hate you? The impact of charity.
(Analysis/Analysis)

...eting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom.” The development organisation ...

46. Joost minds the baby: what happens to state control when technology passes them by?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...medy Central and Paramount Pictures - has agreed on a distribution deal with fledgling Internet television service, Joost. Started by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, creators of Kazaa and Skype, Jo...

47. The best bridge out of poverty is over the future of cash
(Analysis/Analysis)

...vestors couldn’t read the JSE and so didn’t investigate.  Recently, the JSE and Financial Services Board (FSB) have introduced IFRS regulations from abroad, designed to harmonise all ...

48. Mama Jackie - the "Angel of Soweto" - assaults a journalist
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ty benefits when donors know that impartial scrutiny is taking place and ensuring a continuing standard of service and efficiency....

49. General Scorecard Overview and Summary
(FAQs/Rating FAQs)

... experience of key staff, as well as suitability of infrastructure of the organisation to deliver on their service areas. Finance & Sustainability: this score aggregates ratings for the financia...

50. "On your left is an Orc fighting a Troll" - travels in hyper-reality offer lessons for the poor
(Analysis/Analysis)

...reating millions of jobs both directly and peripherally in the supply chain.  In cities where no such services existed they became an exciting new addition to the entertainment scene. The invent...