World Bank and transparent data #worldbank #development #data

I continue to find that Twitter is an excellent source of timely information about current trends in the field.  I came across this New York Times article discussing the World Bank’s recent efforts to reinvent the  global financial giant’s internal and external operations and processes.  Here is a snippet from the NY Times article:

So it might come as a surprise that the president of the World Bank, Robert B. Zoellick, a career diplomat and member of the Republican foreign-policy elite, argues that the most valuable currency of the World Bank isn’t its money — it is its information.

As part of this measure, last April, the World Bank has made its vast fields of data available to the public.  If you are looking to understand changes in income classifications or access the latest world development indicators the World Bank’s data website has it all.  One only hopes that similar efforts done at its struggling counterpart, the I.M.F.

If you don’t have time to read the news article – you might want to check out this app mentioned in the article and this map website which provides information on all World Bank projects.

Poor Economics: A Must Read #smartaid

I just finised an excellent book titled Poor Economics by MIT professors  Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.  Using a number of examples of randomized control trials from the all over the world, Drs. Banerjee and Duflo present an excellent case on the ways that aid can effectively help poor people.  While they admit that randomized control trials cannot answer large questions, the accumulation of the results from these studies present the reader with what does and does not work in international development aid.  In addition, if you are Indian or do work in India, you’ll like this book.  Some of the studies they embed throughout the book come from their research projects in India.

While they write about the results about the various randomized control trials they and other scholars have conducted, the book is not a book solely for the development scholar or academic.  It should be read by those who are concerned about effective philanthropy (this includes all of us), nongovernmental workers and policy makers who want to understand how aid projects can be made effective and how that effectiveness can be measured.  In addition, if you are interested in other work which studies the economics lives of those who make no more than $2, I would suggest you read this article which Banerjee and Duflo published back in 2006.  In addition, Drs. Banerjee and Duflo wrote an excellent piece in the Foreign Policy magazine, which you can find here.

Their book is receiving a lot of positive attention from many media outlets.  For example, this week, the book was featured on NPR’s Planet Money podcast and the UK’s The Guardian blog, Poverty Matters gave it a glowing review.  Check out this review by the IndiaRealTime.

You should also check out the Poor Economics companion website, which has teaching tools, access to their data sets, and a list of organizations which are currently making a difference.

Open #Philanthropy #pdf11

Between completing course assignments, I listened to a talk by Lucy Bernholz, at the Personal Democracy Forum.  Lucy blogs at 2173,  and you can also follow her on Twitter here. Her talk centered on the need for foundations to make the information they store more open and transparent to the world.  He underscores the importance of sharing the vast amount of data stored in the numerous grant applications they receive each year.  The talk was incredible!

Here are the major points of her talk:

Philanthropy is much more efficient — there are a number of tools that donors can use to connect their resource to  worthwhile organizations. Tools such Guidestar, Charity Navigator, Kiva, etc. are now available to the millionaire as well as to the retired public school teacher.  Access to organizations is not hierarchical, but flat.  These information sharing platforms are easy to use, they allow for feedback from the user, are shared over and over again and incorporate effective due diligence procedures.

However, we see an entirely different picture when it comes to foundations. The grant is sent to a foundation “vault”. Once the application enters the vault, no information is shared between the funder and the grantee.  Unfunded grants are kept in the vault.  Limited to no feedback is provided.  In addition, compared with the due diligence that is done by Charity Navigator, foundations conducts due diligence through the use of a foundation officer.  The due diligence conducted by this officer is also not shared with the outside world.

This picture needs to change!  We need to demand the piles of unanalyzed data stored in the vaults of foundations. This data is rich resource of information which, if shared, could help us tackle some of the world’s major problems. Some foundations are releasing data: Packard Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Mott Foundation. You can find these data resources on their websites.

The need for innovation and knowledge sharing needs to applied to the information stored in these foundations — the data should be analyzed and unfunded and funded proposals if made available may open up information on programmatic models, opportunities for collaboration or insight into trends.

Foundations glean so much information from nonprofits — now we need to obtain information from them.

Therefore, she calls for a public demand on transparency of information held within foundations.

She ends with 4 easy things that the public can do:

1. Ask the foundation for the data
2. Give foundations permission to share your information with others
3. Show them what their data looks like – show them the value of the data they are sitting on
4. Foundations need to be held accountable for how they use the data they receive in grant applications

Update on dissertation – DDRG funding

After a busy end to the semester, I am grateful to have the summer to focus all of my energies on my dissertation. Currently, I am awaiting final approval from the Institutional Review Board.  However, as I wait to obtain the final approval, I’ve found a grant through the Housing and Urban Development’s Office of University Partnerships (OUP).  The grant is called the Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (DDRG).  While OUP wasn’t sure if the grant would part of the final federal budget, we received word that applications are now being accepted last week.  If you are a doctoral student, defended your proposal, and plan to study housing and urban development issues for your dissertation, you should consider this grant.  One can receive up to $25,000 for data collection related costs, stipends, etc.  The grant must align with HUD’s policy priorities.  You can find out more about this grant on the OUP website.  If you have questions, please send them an e-mail or call them. They respond to e-mails!

Reflections of an ABD/ Third Year PhD student Part 2

Well..it took longer than a week to get back to this post.  During the last few weeks, I’ve been working on my proposal and my proposal defense presentation.  Our school does the proposal defense this way:

1. I presented my proposal for about 30 minutes to committee members.

2. Committee members asked questions concerning my conceptual framework, sampling strategy, literature review.  Many of the questions helped me to understand some of the additional limitations that my study will possess.  It’s good to acknowledge as many of these as you can at this stage.

3. I stepped out of the room after the questioning period was over for committee to discuss my proposal.

4.  I was ushered back in after about 10 minutes.  The committee unanimously approved the proposal, pending some minor changes.  This was such a relief!

In my first post, I discussed the importance of gathering a committee who will push you to the finish line.  The ideal committee should have a content expert, a methodologist and other committee members who might add their expertise to your study, possibly from other disciplines.  In my opinion, your chair should be an organized and detailed-oriented person, someone who is willing to guide you through the maze of university documentation and paperwork.  In addition, while they do not have to be a content expert in the area you are studying, they should facilitate a committee environment where the integrity of your dissertation process is paramount.  This can be difficult, especially, in some elite, research-heavy institutions.

One of the things that stood out to me during the defense was this: “Rukshan, make sure you take the time to reflect on your work.”  Because I work full-time, and have two small kids, I tend to be very focused on producing and/or achieving the various doctoral milestones in this process.  However, with this comes the loss of deeper learning that takes places when one reflects.  Remember this.

Reflections of an ABD/ third year PhD student Part 1

Part 2 of this post will appear next week!

Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted.  I’ve been determined to be focused on moving forward on my dissertation proposal.  I’ve been reworking it over the last four months, receiving the careful and detailed feedback from my chair.  While I’ll mention this later on in the post, make sure you have a chair who is willing to invest the time and energy into your work.  My chair is an  Assistant Professor and is therefore very motivated to ensure that my work is up to a standard he would feel comfortable being associated with…while this can be a problem (over-involved chairs can be a challenge) I’ve not had this experience.

After a summer of intensive study on my comps, I hear back in June that I had passed.  What a relief.  In my program, students develop a pre-proposal which is the final paper of the final dissertation seminar course.  This 25 pager is an outline for the full-proposal.  Challenging me to craft this pre-proposal as part of my course work was so helpful and it kept me moving on my work.  It’s so easy to be come paralyzed!

In this next part 2 of this post, I thought I would share some thoughts with you as an ABD:

1.  Choose your committee members carefully. Doctoral committees can be spaces where politics and ideological battles can occur — you can be left in “no man’s land” as you watch the grenades being hurled back and forth between committee members.  (Sorry for the military metaphor…)  I’ve been fortunate to have a committee who is eager to work with me.  In addition, because my program is being phased out due to the economy, they understand that time is of the essence.  ”Get your PhD done and then do your life’s work” is an important reminder I hear from many  who have walked this path before. This might not be true for you, but in my case, I’ve had to let go of my dream topic for my dissertation.  This has made things easier as I tend to have some emotional distance from my writing and are more open to critique and reorganization.

2. If you are in the social sciences, your idea and methodology might be splendid, but if you cannot find a data set or collect a large enough sample, things grind to a halt.  While my sample consists of Indianapolis community development practitioners, is small but generalizable, I did have challenges on obtaining buy-in from participants and will continue to do so.  Make sure that you develop an memorandum  of agreement with the respective agencies or groups from which you are collecting the data.  This makes the purpose and outcomes of the study as it relates to participants clear.  It tells participants what your study can and cannot do.  Most groups welcome this.

3. Electives/minors/cognates. Different schools expect you to take course in a specialized area in addition to your course work.  While I’ve enjoyed these courses, I’ve made sure that the papers for these courses can be linked or dumped into my literature review in some way. This greatly helps with your writing process.

4. Use Twitter. I’ve found a whole community of doctoral candidates on Twitter.  If you are in a non-traditional program and are writing in isolation, connect with fellow candidates within and outside your discipline.  Such connections create support for you as you write.  In addition, if you plan to be on the academic job market soon, this allows you to have pre-existing networks as you hunt for  a position.  If you are interested in connecting on Twitter, please follow me at Rukshan @ Fr (no spaces).

More to come on this post in part 2…

Microfinance Crisis and other stuff

As you can see on the right side of the blog, I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. It took me a while!  I am thoroughly enjoying it. I find Twitter is a easier  tool for me to obtain information from sources when compared to a RSS aggregator.  If you would like to “follow” me – no biblical pun intended – you may find me  atRukshan (space used for spam projection) Fr.   Also, if you have people on your Twitter list that you think I should follow – please feel free to comment on these.

As many of you have heard there is a significant microfinance crisis in India.  I thought I would share the following links which can provide you with some introductory and in-depth understanding of the crisis:

1. Daniel Roodman has an excellent open book blog. Mr. Roodman is a fellow at the Center for Global Development and is writing a book online on microfinance.  He recently convened a panel of experts of microfinance and India on December 9.  You can find the video of the panel here.  I would also recommendfollowing him on Twitter or following his blog posts using your RSS reader.

2. NPR hosted Mr. Roodman and Vijay Mahajan about the microfinance crisis.

3.  I also found a mapping tool created by  Brookings Institution. The mapping tool has been around for a while.  The tool – called the MetroMonitor – most recently tracks the impact of the financial recession in the top 100 metropolitan regions in the United States.  You can find about this project here.

Wrongful Foreclosures

One of my new favorite sites, is a nonprofit journalist group called ProPublica.  Over the last year, I’ve used a number of their resources (specifically on the mortgage crisis) for my classes and other research.  I also listen to their podcast which provides ProPublica followers with an understanding to the rationale and background of their investigative reporting.  Recently, I watch a documentary ProPublica did along with Frontline on the BP Oil Spill.  It is an excellent piece, one that I suggest you watch concerning the background and nature of the BP corporation.  It is eye-opening.

Now: as you’ve heard on the news, many banks have been engaged in the use of what is called “robo signers” – short cuts which allowed many homeowners to endure wrongful disclosure.  If you need to understand what a robo-signer is or what might be considered a wrongful foreclosure, Propublica just posted this news article which is a helpful resource.

In addition, on their site, you could find useful tools and data on the Home Loans modification program which was initiated through TARP or the complex ownership web of CDOs - collectivized debt obligations.  Finally, if you would like to keep track of how TARP money is being spent across the country or in your own county, check this resource out and this one.

Debunking Theories of Change

Last winter, I took a evaluation research methods course and taught a nonprofit management course.  During both of these courses, I spent a significant portion of time learning and teaching about a program “theory of change”.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, I suggest you reading this classic by Carol Weiss — Evaluation.    In any event, there are two recent posts on a blog I follow called  White Courtesy Telephone that I suggest those of you who are more familiar with the “program theory of change” model read.  It’s an interesting spin on this concept which changed the nature of nonprofit work in the 1990s. The post comes in two parts. Check them out.

Guidestar report on the effect of the economy on nonprofits

Guidestar.org  published a report which documents the effect the economy has had on the nonprofit sector.  Some of the results mirror the doom and gloom that we expect, while some of the data is a bit more uplifting.  According to Marion Conway,  a consultant to nonprofits, the report reminds us that nonprofits who receive a vast majority of funding from individuals, smaller foundations and government-related contracts are experiencing serious cash flow challenges.  Moreover, the majority of nonprofits surveyed are cutting back their services in order to keep in line with their reducing financial margins. You can read more about her insights into the report using this link.

If you like to receive a copy of the Guidestar report, you can find here on their website.