Poverty Inc ~ Moving Beyond the Aid Industry...

Check out trailer for Poverty Inc documentary expose...

"The film examines the rise of the multibillion industry of charity and aid through the lens of developing world entrepreneurs and working parents, who can often be displaced in their roles as the rightful protagonists of their own story of development. The West has positioned itself as the protagonist of development, giving rise to a vast multi-billion dollar poverty industry -- the business of doing good has never been better. Yet the results have been mixed, in some cases even catastrophic, and leaders in the developing world are growing increasingly vocal in calling for change. The film has earned over 40 film festival honors and has been selected to the "Best of Fests" category in the upcoming IDFA Amsterdam -- the biggest documentary festival in the world."

Root Capital ~ Growing Agri-Impact Finance...

Check out Root Capital, a financing and connections-making social venture which helps small and growing rural agri-businesses thrive long-term, socially, economically, and sustainably. See especially their Timeline and here's founder Willy Foote sharing how it all started... And a summary of their approach... And a Skoll World Forum Uncommon Heroes mini-docu on Root...

Effective Lessons ~ J-PAL on Edu Investments...

From last year's Science special issue on Grand Challenges in Science Education here's MIT J-PAL Executive Director Rachel Glennerster speaking about her teams piece on The Challenge of Education and Learning in the Developing World summarizing lessons from randomized control trials (RCTs) of programs that aim to improve the learning outcomes of school-age children...

Profitable Migration ~ Studying Remittance Capital

Michael Clemens at the Center for Global Development says It’s Time to Learn More about How Poor Families Use Migration...

"Remittances are huge -- about triple the size of foreign aid flows. That’s a big opportunity for development. But much of the research on remittances focuses on why they are primarily spent on consumption, and how governments and NGOs can get people to invest remittances. [...] Remittances are not a windfall like lottery winnings. For many low-income families, they are a return on investment. Migration is one of many financial tools they juggle to smooth income and consumption. Migration often involves a family member moving to access a different labor market, and that household is investing in an asset, bearing up-front costs for uncertain future benefits. Remittances therefore are part of the family’s [ROI]"

Fantastically important to study more! See further research.

Mobile Stratification ~ Rich vs Poor Phone Picks...

DailyMail spots maps showing that iPhones are favoured by the rich, while poorer users prefer Androids...

"Developed by Gnip, MapBox and tech-data expert Eric Fischer, the maps reveal that the iPhone are overwhelmingly used in the most densely-populated urban areas while the Android is more popular in the suburbs. Mapbox CEO Eric Gundersen said: 'The patterns of usage in each city often reflect economic stratification. 'For example iPhones, in red, are predominantly in wealthy sections of the city while Android phones, in green, have more coverage in poorer sections."

Here's New York Metro centered on Manhattan... Texan sprawlcity Houston... Indonesians in Jakarta prefer Blackberry, colored purple...

Stealing Africa ~ Why Poverty? on What's Right...

Why Poverty? shares Stealing Africa documentary...

"Zambia’s copper resources have not made the country rich. Virtually all Zambia’s copper mines are owned by corporations. In the last ten years, they’ve extracted copper worth $29 billion but Zambia is still ranked one of the twenty poorest countries in the world. So why hasn’t copper wealth reduced poverty in Zambia? Once again it comes down to the issue of tax, or in Zambia’s case, tax avoidance and the use of tax havens. Tax avoidance by corporations costs poor countries and estimated $160 billion a year, almost double what they receive in international aid. That’s enough to save the lives of 350,000 children aged five or under every year. For every $1 given in aid to a poor country, $10 drains out. Vital money that could help a poor country pay for healthcare, schools, pensions and infrastructure. Money that would make them less reliant on aid."

Right to Stay ~ Fighting Kenyan Slum Evictions...

MIT Urban Africa's Ben Bradlow spots The Right to Stay...

Township Cinderellas ~ AlJaz on SAfrica's Youth

Al Jazeera's Witness spotlights South Africa's challenges in Township Cinderellas, a documentary film by Paul and Sam Sapin...

"...about teenagers from the Cape Flats area of Cape Town in South Africa preparing for their high school graduation ball on the biggest night of their lives. Most of these students were born in 1994, the year Nelson Mandela became president, apartheid ended and South Africa became a democracy. This means that the high school graduating classes of 2011/2012 are the first generation of apartheid-free South Africans. These are 'Mandela’s Children', and they were promised a bright future. But 17 years on from the birth of democracy in South Africa, the outlook for many is far from bright. In the town of Manenberg where we made this film, only a quarter of the children who began school together at Manenberg High School made it to their last year of school and only about 50 per cent of those passed the exams required to graduate."

Disasterous Drought ~ Troubles in Horn of Africa

The Guardian's Global Development section highlights that Africa drought pushes Kenya and Somalia into pre-famine conditions...

"UN says that more than 10 million people are affected in areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. [...] "Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told a media briefing. "There is no likelihood of improvement until 2012". Food prices have risen substantially in the region, pushing many moderately poor households over the edge. A UN map of food security in the eastern Horn of Africa shows large swathes of central Kenya and Somalia in the emergency category, one phase before what the UN classifies as catastrophe/famine -- the fifth and worst category"