Are IGAs reverse entrepreneurship?

One of the activities that’s become an important part of development programming are “income generating activities” or IGAs. They obviously range in type of activity and effectiveness, but basically they’re any activity – agricultural, small goods retail, crafts – designed to provide a source of income for the poor.
In my (limited) experience the IGA programs [...]

When does this critique become its own cliche?

With an indignation that can barely fit in 500 words, long time Der Spiegel East Africa correspondent Thilo Thielke writes an Easterly-esque crowd pleaser: “Development Aid Workers Are Killing Africa.”
It would have some valuable points if it wasn’t so predictably wrapped up in its own rancor. His basic argument is that the “planned economy” that [...]

OLPC, Microsoft, Opensource and customer questions

There is a really interesting conversation that started last week at outsourcing expert Steve Hamm’s blog Bangalore Tigers at BusinessWeek. The conversation is about the One Laptop Per Child program founder’s decision to agree to ship units with a version of Microsoft’s XP operating system rather than the open-source, Linux based system.
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/globespotting/archives/2008/06/olpc_the_open-s.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_bangaloretigers
For some, this is [...]