Unearthing black money

Unearthing black money continues to be a big issue in Indian politics. The opposition political parties have been demanding strong steps from the government in confiscating black money stored in foreign banks while the government itself has done little to inspire confidence, while also pleading its inability to act in the face of international laws. An article by JNU's Arun Kumar poses some of the usual, simple questions - 

The government pleads that tax havens do not reveal names unless criminality is established and that the Swiss government does not treat tax evasion as a crime. The moot point is why did the Swiss government announce the immediate freezing of Hosni Mubarak's assets without the Egyptian government giving any evidence of criminality? Further, why did UBS agree first to give the names of 250 U.S. citizens and then another 4,500 names to the U.S. tax authorities in 2007-08 without any criminality being individually established? 

Answers to some of these questions would be nice, for a start... 

At least somebody loves World Vision...

Mr Mark Wayongo, Upper East Regional Minister lauded World Vision (WVG) Ghana for its efforts towards the development and growth of many rural communities across the country particularly Northern Ghana. Mr Wayongo cited the provision of hundreds of school infrastructure, potable water as well as the promotion of livelihoods empowerment among women and rural farmers...

..."In a region where poverty is our number one enemy, you have zealously complimented government to bring relief to the masses. Indeed, your interventions have reduced poverty drastically in the region", the Minister said, describing WVG as "a core development partner"...

See here

No, really. Why?

At the next India Today Conclave 2011 on Day 2

20.00-21.30 Ask Your Question

DINNER KEYNOTE ADDRESS My Vision of America Sarah Palin, First Female Governor of Alaska (2006-2009), 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential Nominee and Author Session Chairperson Aroon Purie

Asking the right question

Dean Karlan gives an online tutorial on the importance of identifying the real counterfactual, in response to the recent controversy about World Vision's NFL t-shirt donations to Africa 

The choice is not between (a) doing nothing — which, critics infer, would leave Africans to produce and sell 100,000 new t-shirts — and (b) shipping 100,000 t-shirts to Africa. Rather, the choice is between (a) selling the t-shirts in the U.S. as rags (or novelty souvenirs for delusional Steelers fans) and then sending to Africa the proceeds plus the money that would have been spent on shipping, or (b) shipping 100,000 t-shirts to Africa.

In other words, the NFL surely isn’t going to pay local producers to make 100,000 t-shirts after the Super Bowl. That option is not on the table. So in the end, the t-shirt migration has one pro and two cons, and we have no real data to tell us what to do. The pro: some people in Africa get some t-shirts, and hopefully those people extract some value from the t-shirts (either by wearing them or by selling them). The first con: market prices for t-shirtsmay go lower in Africa, and this adversely affects some. The second con: there may simply be a better way, such as selling the t-shirts in the US and sending the profits, as in (a) above.

Tom responds here. Also, other posts on this issue here - mostly critical of the view that we can't be sure if this instance of GIK is good or bad. 


My take - its hard to tell anyway, and more so if we get all ideological about it. So to begin with, one must ask the right questions, like what is the real counterfactual? 

Krishna's Chatur moment!

At yesterday's UNSC meeting, SM Krishna, the Indian External Affairs Minister had his Chatur moment when he started reading out from the Portuguese foreign minister's speech. Apparently, this is not the first time - here is a list of recent gaffes 


Meanwhile, the MEA website issued this clarification

...it was clarified that the initial parts of all formal addresses contain salutation and courteous references. While Addressing the UNSC yesterday, EAM used such expressions from the address of the previous speaker before moving to his prepared text for substantive remarks...

Yeah, right! 

Robert Chambers' paradigm

‘Rigorous’ impact assessment was increasingly demanded. The so-called gold standard for this became randomised control trials (RCTs). These can make sense for medical research where there are many highly standardised units (people and their bodies) and inputs (immunisations, medicines, treatments) but misfit the realities of the complexity of social and much other change, with their uncontrolled conditions, multiple treatments, multiple and indeterminate causation, and unpredictable emergence .

In such contexts, RCTs are liable to postpone and limit learning, and to be costly, slow and inconclusive. Another contested manifestation of this control orientation has been the logframe. Thought by many in the late 1990s to fit realities and programme and project needs so badly and to have so many defects that it would die a natural death, the logframe has to the contrary flourished and spread to become a methodological monoculture in donor requirements.

So in the name of rigour and accountability what fits and works better in the controllable, predictable, standardised and measurable conditions of the things and procedures paradigm has been increasingly applied to the uncontrollable, unpredictable, diverse and less measurable paradigm of people and processes

Robert blogged at Aid on the edge. 


I hold Robert in great respect and cherish every moment I have spent around him during my year at IDS. I fully agree with the problem with the 'things' paradigm and share his loathing for logframes.


But this does not convincingly explain to me why quantitative evaluation as represented by an RCT is inferior to an alternative research methodology. Yes, sole reliance on RCTs is not desirable - but the same holds for its possible alternatives. In fact, RCTs can be used to study the efficacy of qualitative participatory methodologies - as was the case in the Bandhan TUP study - and may actually validate the fact that a participatory selection mechanism is more equitable than a top-down follow-the-government-list eligibility criterion. 


Next, Robert has always told us that we should "ask them". A well-designed and well-implemented questionnaire will do exactly that. In large scale field surveys, all we do is to "ask them". We don't record our opinions or impressions and in fact, field surveyors are usually explicitly instructed to dumb down and record exactly what respondents say. Survey data does attempt to boil down people's responses to numbers - but that doesn't mean anyone should ignore what goes into a number. As I see it, RCTs are not the ultimate truth - but they also need not limit learning. Quite the opposite, an RCT, as a tool in the toolkit of evaluation methodologies help to push the limits of our knowledge and insights - and that cannot be a bad thing.  


This was Part 1/2 from Robert. Can't wait for the second half!  

Oops, Kristoff does it again...

"...About five Americans die a year from malaria, usually after travel to the developing world, so it’s worth taking it seriously"

said in response to a reader's question. Really? is that what it will take for the world to take malaria seriously? I can't even start to imagine what might happen if 10 Americans were to die of malaria next year...

Kristoff then finishes the piece with

"...And a shout-out to the mosquito that bit him in Sudan, because it ended up helping shine a light on a neglected disease" 

I am probably quoting him completely out of context. But still...Oops! 

What's in a word? Stereotypes, for one...

Sunyani Goes Gay as Mills Cuts Sod for Construction of New Varsity

okay...so, sometime back, I would not have paused to look at this headline twice. Why? because when I was growing up, the word 'gay' only meant 'happy'. Of course, blame that on a near absence of homosexuality from the vocabulary I was exposed to growing up - which was a definitely a bad thing.

Now, though, when I use/hear the word 'gay', it almost always refers to homosexuality. So when I read part of the headline above, my immediate reaction was to click on the link and then smile at the probably naive person who came up with the headline. The next moment though, I wondered, why did it catch my attention? why did I think it is naive of him? The author probably just used a word he was comfortable with; or he might just not care what the word 'gay' has now come to mean in popular parlance.

And that led me to think of how often I find around me, men who seem to be hyper-aware/cautious of being labelled 'gay'. This reflects in the part-mocking/part-horrified way in which some of my friends speak of having seen grown men holding hands as they talk or walk. Yes, I speak as an Indian and Indians get made fun of in this manner quite often. So do Ghanaians, from what I have heard around me here. Of course, often, the 'holding hands' bit is an exaggeration - driven by their own prejudice of how awkward it is to be seen 'touching' another man - and usually is a description from just a snapshot. Many amongst those who comment likewise, are all for equality otherwise. But if I (mistakenly or otherwise) touched one of them for a second longer than what is 'considered proper' while shaking their hand or patting their back, I would almost surely feel a jerky reaction from the other person pulling his hand off and/or moving clear off me. And that would be considered normal.    

My bigger point is this - it's great that more and more people seem enlightened and are willing to fight prejudices against homosexuality and rally against any discrimination based on sexual orientation. But, how real is this enlightenment if we continue to be hyper-aware/cautious of being misunderstood as being 'gay' in our daily lives. If being homosexual is normal, why would I care if someone saw me giving another man an affectionate hug or spotted me touching someone's hand or whatever! and labelled or speculated about me being 'gay'? If I did care, I am being fake. My activism is reserved for 'them', and doesn't translate into an attitude that has altered in 'me'.

The cruel water challenge

Importation woes; courageous IPA staff

We recently got a taste of the challenges in importing goods to the country when we imported 75 netbooks for field surveys (by air using DHL, not the Tema sea port). The duty applicable on this was 28% and could be waived if we secured the necessary clearances on the basis of their non-profit use. It took us about 5 weeks to secure the duty waiver and lay our hands on the goods lying in the customs warehouse. During this time, we had one staff member fully dedicated to this exercise; about ten days of a driver's time; several litres of fuel; plus sporadic involvement from other staff in following up on various leads. The papers had to go through countless officials in three different ministries of the Government of Ghana - and only the minister, the deputy minister or the top bureaucrat could sign off on them. 


The netbooks finally made it - to our hands in Accra and then by car to Tamale, where two survey teams had been waiting patiently amidst pressures of multiple deadlines. I have two pictures from the IPA Tamale office, courtesy Noompa's excellent blog

The netbooks - to the aid of survey teams who have bravely agreed to try/trust modern survey technology 

The brave man who took on the Government of Ghana for 5 weeks - and then, proceeded cheerfully to travel 700 km north by road to work day and night to get the netbooks up and running

Also, an excerpt from another excellent Noompa post

The truth of it is, we’re right here inside the sausage factory. And not every moment is going to be about cutting edge economics work; sometimes, you just do what you can to make sure that things get done. This is true everywhere, and as exciting as IPA is, it is no exception to the rule. Some (many) nights you just roll your sleeves up and dig in for the long haul. And it is all so worth it.

We are indeed inside the sausage factory and this is something that needs to be made clear to those who wish to work with IPA (and I believe this principle holds for all serious development work on the ground). Here, amidst the chaos of field work, staff experience the fear and excitement of heading into a field survey involving dozens of survey staff and a million pieces that need to be monitored constantly. Also working tirelessly behind the scenes, are those who ensure that field teams have (almost) everything they need to make their surveys happen. Every quality dataset that is generated is a testimony to the efforts of these men and women who make these numbers come together - one by one.

Your 'field' is different from mine

Recently, there have been a few blog-posts talking about the appropriateness of the usage - the 'field'. I agree with the central argument from Alanna that

the phrase creates a sense of otherness. Specifically, if you’re a local partner in a development project, how do you feel when your own home is referred to as “the field?” What does that say about the true nature of your partnership? 

In development, the 'field' is where the action is. Everything done from far is to support the implementation machine(s) in the 'field'. The 'field' need not refer to a place that is scrappy and tough, although it could, if appropriate. The question then is - how many of us really do field work? Does living in a developing country qualify as 'field work'? Is working out of a satellite office of one's own organisation that's outside of the headquarters 'field work'? Does working/visiting a partner's office in a developing country constitute 'field work'? Within a developing country, is visiting a project office outside of the headquarter 'field work'?

When I was working in Orissa, India, I was based in Mohuda, a village 10 km from a small town, Berhampur. The head office of the NGO I was working with was located in Mohuda. For any one visiting from even the state capital, Bhubaneswar, let alone New Delhi or from outside India, Mohuda was 'field' enough. But for those of us living in Mohuda, we had to take a few steps outside our compound to be able to make a claim to having gone to the 'field', and so on...

Naturally, I secretly smirked at everyone who arrived in Mohuda and proclaimed to have stepped foot on the 'field'. I am also sure my colleagues in project offices in various parts of the state would have smirked every time I arrived at their offices and announced my presence in the 'field'. So in sum, I think this game does even out from time to time.

What I find strange, on critical reflection, is the tendency to either complain or romanticise the food/culture/transport/clothes etc in a manner that establishes one's outsider-ness. The narratives are evidently for the 'non-field' audience who can then either sympathise or appreciate our experience in the 'field'. While I would love to say I have never done this myself, I am not sure and so cannot make that claim. But such stories or travelogues that seek to shout out - "look at me, I am in the 'field'" seem a bit flawed, at some level. And the fact still remains - your 'field' is different from mine.