Egypt’s transition to democracy. Is the Arab Revolution a women’s rights revolution? Yes argues Soumaya Ghannoushi – Exhibit A: International Women’s Day in Cairo’s Tahrir Square [h/t Caroline Sweetman]. And protests in Burkina Faso – is the ferment spilling over into sub-Saharan Africa? Rich in misery? Wellbeing v GDP in China Not only has the IMF acquired a redistributive urge (see previous posts), but it now appears to have acquired a sense of humour as well. Check out What Can International Cricket Teach Us About the Role of Luck in Labor Markets? By Shekhar Aiyar and Rodney Ramcharan [h/t Chris Cramer] In Bangladesh ‘the Reality Check has field teams visit and spend quality time with ordinary households living in poverty in different parts of the country. Each year, teams spend five days and four nights living with the same families, listen to their stories, and document their experiences. These are written up into am annual report for policy-makers and widely circulated’. Interesting longitudinal research effort to keep aid donors and others in touch with the lives of the people they are trying to help. India’s new geek city hits some snags and anyway is probably a terrible idea – have they not been to Brasilia? An enjoyably patronizing Indian take on the heated ‘should DFID give aid to India’ debate that so enrages the right-wing press in the UK , from Swapan Dasgupta in the Times of India (where else?) [h/t Michel Anglade] Yet another of those animation + voiceover thingies, this one quite good – US evangelical aid worker meets African villager. Tt’s a grotesque caricature, right?………[h/t Nicholas Colloff] ]]>
Re. China, I recently heard the following story from a well-known China watcher, as symbolising the extent to which materialism has taken hold in modern Chinese culture. A young woman was taking part in a reality TV programme in a Western Chinese province. She was asked how she would rate love and money in looking for a husband. Her reply: “I would rather be crying in the back of BMW than smiling in a bicycle”. Certainly the received wisdom is that China must grow at 7-8% a year to avoid political upheaval. Is this cover for enrichment by the elite? And will it reach its limits as a strategy?
Cheers for the link to the IMF cricket paper, it’s brilliant! Trying to think up an excuse for citing it in my dissertation