I was going to write about the problems I saw with Paul Romer’s idea for charter cities. However, I knew it would be a long-ish post, so have been procrastinating. Laziness, fortunately, paid off for me this time as Laura Freschi at Aid Watchers has written a better version of what I was going to say:

It has always been true that no matter where you go, you take yourself with you—culture, history, habits, attachments and animosities come along like a skin you can’t shed…

Early development economists working at the hopeful dawn of colonial independence believed that they really were starting from scratch. The last fifty years have shown us that they weren’t, and this has been—and remains—one of development’s biggest blind spots.

As the gang on King of the Hill would say, “Yep. Yep. Mmhmm. Yep.”

The Mikocheni Report has a spot-on post on the terrible traffic in Dar es Salaam. The city is seriously out of control: massive population growth + no new roads = traffic nightmare. Where I disagree is that the traffic situation in Dar is idiosyncratic. The traffic in Dar reminds me a lot of traffic in Nairobi a decade ago, or in Accra and Cairo today. Rather than being special, Dar es Salaam today is an excellent example of growth without government.

It seems the US has a novel model for export-led growth:

We show that following CIA interventions there was an increase in foreign-country imports from the US…This is consistent with US influence being used to create a larger foreign market for American products.

I wonder if USAID finances these types of programs abroad.

Aid Watch says Nicholas Kristof should stop being so preachy.

Bill Easterly comes out against social engineering:

…rigorous skepticism is a creative force because most of the damage is done by overconfident [aid industry folks] who thought they knew the answer when they didn’t.  And such skepticism doesn’t leave us empty-handed: it forces us back on what are our core values:  democracy, human rights, individual liberties, that we follow for moral rather than pragmatic reasons. Autocratic “pragmatic” claims to deliver development if you will just give up your rights don’t survive skeptical scrutiny.

I agree with Easterly whole-heatedly. Aid projects often do more harm than good because the people who implement them do not understand the social and political context in which the projects exist. Social engineering is not easy and if we are going to attempt it, we need to spend a lot more time thinking about context because one-size-fits-all, externally imposed projects are a recipe for disaster. Also, I love the dig that aid workers often act like autocrats (even while preaching democracy!). Too true, too true!

I am reluctant to pick a fight with Dani Rodi, but I think he is wrong. Writing on the global financial crisis, Rodrik asserts:

Deep down, the crisis is yet another manifestation of what I call “the political trilemma of the world economy”: economic globalization, political democracy, and the nation-state are mutually irreconcilable. We can have at most two at one time. Democracy is compatible with national sovereignty only if we restrict globalization. If we push for globalization while retaining the nation-state, we must jettison democracy. And if we want democracy along with globalization, we must shove the nation-state aside and strive for greater international governance. Read the rest of this entry…

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report last week on Afghanistan’s security environment. The verdict: not so good. From the report:

…total attacks against coalition forces between September 2009 and March 2010 increased by about 83 percent in comparison to the same period last year, while attacks against civilians rose by about 72 percent. Total attacks against the ANSF increased by about 17 percent over the same period…DOD data indicate that, overall, more than 21,000 enemy-initiated attacks were recorded in 2009—an increase of about 75 percent over the total number of attacks in 2008.

The report also helpfully reminds us that successful reconstruction and development projects are “contingent on improved security,” and thus, “the lack of a secure environment has continued to challenge reconstruction and development efforts.” In English, I think this means that most development projects in Afghanistan are pretty much a waste of money.

Huh, didn’t see that one coming.