Charlie Hebdo dominated the week. Here’s the best reaction piece I’ve seen so far (h/t Chris
Blattman), and my two favourite cartoonist responses.
For UK aid wonks: Simon Maxwell summarizes the OECD DAC peer review of Britain’s aid, raising some tough questions for DFID.
Bloomberg Billionaires is tracking the wealth of the megarich. The world’s 200 richest gained $16.5bn in one day last week (yep, you read right). The 10 richest people on earth added $6.6bn You can disaggregate by region, industry, gender etc – lots of fun.
One of the largest ever payouts to a community after environmental damage. Shell accepts $84m deal on Nigeria oil spills.
This is Paul Krugman’s chart of the year – who benefited from global growth 1988-2008, by global income group [h/t William Moseley]
Amartya Sen on the case for (& benefits of) universal health care,
The end of Invisible Children (the Kony 2012 lot) and the danger of hollowed-out narratives (h/t Chris Blattman)
In praise of complexity economics – why isn’t it a Bigger Thing?
The weird world of spam king JP Monfort: ‘His prose is circular and nonsensical but coherent enough to pass for an NGO report.’ Now that’s a low bar.
CGD’s new Commitment to Development Index is out, assessing 27 of world’s richest countries. UK at #4 is in amongst the usual Scandiwegians, but how did Portugal make it to number 5? Switzerland, Japan and S Korea bottom of the heap.
