Oxfam America will host a discussion on how we can improve aid to developing countries?  For more information go to Oxfam America.  Or watch the conference on our web site after Friday, May 21st at 9am.

Check out this short article that was posted on the Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) website about the screening at Dickinson College last week.

William Easterly's blog AIDWATCHERS has a great new article about Bono. Read the whole article on aidwatchers.com

"An expert commission of African leaders today announced their plan for comprehensive reform of music band U2. Saying that U2’s rock had lost touch with its African roots, the commission called for urgent measures to halt U2’s slide towards impending crisis.

“Our youth today are imperiled by low quality music,” said Commission chairman Nelson Mandela. “We will be lending African musicians to U2 to try to refurbish their sound to satisfy the urgent and growing needs for diversionary entertainment at a time of crisis in the global music and financial sectors.”

Concerns about U2 have been growing in Africa for a while. One Western aid blogger testified to the Commission that his teenage kids found U2’s music “cheesy.” The Mandela Commission proposed that U2 follow a series of steps to recover its Edge:

1) Hire African consultants to analyze U2’s “poverty of music trap”

2) Prepare a Band-owned and Commission-approved Comprehensive U2 Reform Strategy Design (CURSD)

3) Undertake a rehabilitation tour of African capitals to field-test and ground-truth proposed reforms

Read the rest on aidwatchers.com

The Beyond Good Intentions film series follows the round-the-world journey of first-time filmmaker, Tori Hogan, as she investigates how international aid can be more effective. Watch the series here!

Episodes include investigations of Disaster Relief, Aid workers, peace Corps, Faith-Based Aid, and Mirco-Lending.  Tell us what you think

The End Of Poverty?  is the name of a new film on a similar topic as
"What are we doing here?"  It is now showing in NYC at Village East Cinema.  Check it out - www.theendofpoverty.com

Great article in this months Forbes magazine. Slowly but surely the message of our film is making it to the wider public. 

"How to pull Africa out of its desperate poverty? The Gates Foundation attacks disease on the theory that debilitated people cannot become prosperous. Celebrities clamor for debt forgiveness. The UN has Millennium Development Goals that promise universal public education, aids containment and a reduction in extreme poverty by 2015. Amid all these competing approaches comes a backlash against the entire aid system. It started with Ghanaian economist George Ayittey in his 2005 book Africa Unchained. He was echoed by William Easterly, formerly of the World Bank, in The White Man's Burden (2006), and former Goldman Sachs economist Dambisa Moyo, in Dead Aid (2009).

Moyo says that $2 trillion (in today's dollars) has been transferred from rich countries to poor ones over 50 years, with most of that going to Africa. The U.S. has spent $300 billion on Africa since 1970. The result: GDP per capita in Moyo's home country of Zambia is under $500, less than it was in 1960. The most heavily aid-dependent countries, she writes, have negative or flat annual growth over the last 30 years. Moyo proposes that Africa be weaned off all aid in five years so that its economies can fend for themselves."