How Africa Tweets – Portland and Tweetminster analyzed more than 11.5 million geo-located tweets sent across Africa during the last three months of 2011. Here’s what they found.
Source: pulitzercenter
In defense of industrial policy
A couple of days ago, Shanta Devarajan, World Bank chief economist for Africa, posted this interesting piece on industrial policy in Africa:
Like others, I have been skeptical about industrial policy in Africa, where the government selects certain industries for support in order to trigger a process of structural transformation. It’s been tried before—with disastrous results.
The selected industries were captured by political elites who continued to receive subsidies without generating anything close to labor-intensive growth (the Morogoro shoe factory in Tanzania never exported a single pair of shoes). Furthermore, most of the constraints to industrial growth in Africa are man-made: policies or regulations that stand in the way of poor workers’ employment prospects.
[…] A recent study by my colleagues Hinh Dinh and Vincent Palmade on light manufacturing in Ethiopia confirms the point that the constraints to the apparel and leather goods industries are largely existing policies and regulations—trade policies that inflate input costs by creating local monopolies, and land and financial regulations that favor large firms. But they also show that, should Ethiopia remove these constraints, it could expand employment in these industries by two orders of magnitude.
[…] This is the best case for industrial policy that I have seen. By focusing on particular sectors and showing the employment benefits of addressing some of the government failures, there is a better chance that the government will undertake these reforms.
I think he has a good point here. I agree that government failures are frequently more serious impediments for growth than market inefficiencies, since they are notoriously difficult to correct and its economic consequences may be dismal for the civil society. I am not sure, however, whether the expansion of employment is an incentive strong enough for a corrupt government to change its behaviour. It may well be (and I hope so), but I would like to see more empirical evidence of that. Nevertheless, like Mr Devarajan, I also have a feeling that the main cause of the low economic performance in developing countries is actually crony capitalism. In other words, it is not capitalism per se, but rather the lack of it.
Julian Sanchez of Cato Institute argues why the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act, apart from being morally criticizable, will simply not work.
Scientists call for global neglected disease database
Creating a new, open-access database is always a good idea. SciDev.Net wrote about the project a few days ago:
A global database for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) ”is feasible and should be expanded without delay”, the developers of a first ‘proof of concept’ for such a tool have said.
While efforts to eliminate NTDs have improved over the years, a georeferenced, global, open-access database is essential to boost the work, they said in a paper published last month (13 December) in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
“There is a paucity of empirical estimates regarding the distribution of infection risk and burden of NTDs at the national, district or subdistrict level in most parts of the developing world,” they wrote.
Such information is essential for planning and implementing cost-effective, sustainable control interventions in areas where there is limited knowledge of disease distribution.
You can read the full paper here, and access the database here (login required).
They probably don’t understand this, but it’s important for me to show them that their father is a man who dances—who saves lives and carries the wounded, yes, but who also does something completely pointless and beautiful, and in this at least he should need no explanation.
Source: the-final-sentence
Paul Collier: “Africa Must Liberalize Internally”
In a recent interview, Paul Collier discusses the pros and cons of trade liberalization in Africa, the efficacy of economic sanctions and the importance of solid democratic institutions to conflict-stricken countries. Since he is one of the most important authors in civil war studies, it is always good to know what he is thinking about.
You can read the interview on The European Magazine website.
Source: marginalrevolution.com
Next Year’s Wars: What conflict situations are most at risk of deteriorating further in 2012? Foreign Policy came up with 10 crisis areas that warrant particular concern.
Source: newsflick.net
Best Foreign Affairs Print Stories of 2011
From the Arab Spring to the occupation of Wall Street (not to mention Oakland, Tel Aviv, and Homs), 2011 has been a historic year, and Foreign Affairs expert contributors have been providing indispensable context and insight every step of the way. A handful of gems from the past year.
(via foreignaffairsmagazine)
Source: fam.ag
New data allows for unique conflict research
Which factors increase the risk for armed conflict and war? What circumstances make conflict resolution more likely to be successful? If work for peace is to bear fruit; these questions needs to be answered. Today, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) releases a new dataset which opens up new possibilities for the study of armed conflict. Using these data, useful findings relating to climate change and armed conflict have already been made.
Existing data on armed conflicts cover only individual countries or provide information only on a yearly basis. This has limited the extent to which the data can be used. One example is that such data do not permit studies of local issues of civil war. For this reason peace and conflict researchers have in recent years realized the necessity for more detailed data on armed conflict.
The dataset which is released today covers all armed conflicts in Africa from 1989 through 2010 and contains information on the precise date and place of individual instances (events) of armed violence. This allows for new research on the causes, dynamics, and resolution of armed conflict. Further, patterns and the geographic developments of conflicts can be analyzed using software for geographic information systems (GIS).
More information here.
The Best Data Visualization Projects of 2011
Nathan Yau from FlowingData has made a list of some of the most interesting infographics of 2011. Apart from effectively conveying their message, the images selected are also very visually appealing. You can see the full list here.
There’s just something that I need from you… is to meet my boys.
Source: the-weeknd.com
Master of Arts in Political Science at the University of São Paulo. 
