Will the Real Mobile Impact Please Stand Up

Images courtesy of Stefan Magdalinski

I’ve just finished reading Jenny Aker and Isaac Mbiti’s Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa. This is an excellent paper and well worth the read. The authors have done a great job in tempering a generally positive view of mobile impact with some hard questions about evidence of the impact of mobile phones on [...] [...]

African Women and American Academics

I find myself wondering if I am the only one dismayed by the “mudwrestling” going on among Dambisa Moyo, Jeffrey Sachs and William Easterly… and others. In case you haven’t heard, Dambisa Moyo has written a provocative book on the merits of development assistance. Her book, Dead Aid, challenges some of the accepted wisdom about [...] [...]

Good Evolution, Bad Evolution

This post is a little off-piste for me but what is blogging for, if not to occasionally skate on or over the edges of one’s knowledge.  This month is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the web is awash in articles about Darwin and the theory of evolution.  Having read many [...] [...]