Comments

I agree this is a big deal, the rankings are quoted extensively by a range of actors so to critique them in such harsh terms is really significant - thanks for highlighting this

Great to read about Helen's contribution to all of us former students. She pushed, shoved and bullied us through our PHDs - and we are all so grateful for that. Part of her legacy is a vast alumni across many developing countries, all pushing and shoving in our own way for sensible economics.

I completely agree Joel. I also particularly like that all of the data inputted into it is in the IATI standardised format, meaning that you could technically use the same software platform to show all of the data that has been published to IATI over the years from the 150+ organisations that have published (some not as rigorously as others) so far. Whether DFID wants to tread on that many toes is another question!

Thanks for the correction Jo, I'll amend the text above.

Sam, well done.

Thanks for highlighting this important issue and it is good to note Julie Bishop's response. For the record, the Family Planning Guidelines still exist - they were just rewritten.

It looks fabulous, well done

This is a very naive post. Belinda has never worked with India or China as they deliver their "aid." She have not experienced the way a developing country needs to deal with these two big players first hand, versus the much, much easier to work with EU, Australia. There are heavy consequences for not working with China the way they wish, and they replace local labor with foreigners, so bad things happen.

Wow. DfID's 'Development Tracker' is very impressive. That level of transparency (project documents, business cases, logical frameworks) for each project being publicly available is great to see. And relatively easy to navigate. Hope this spurs others to do the same. Wonder if USAID is close behind... haha...

Hi Ian, thanks for raising awareness about some important points. As Jo pointed out however, we need to be careful to refer to the evidence base, and not make assumptions that can lead to poor public policy and aid policy. You may have a point about urban slums and the growth of obesity (though the evidence on this isn't clear), but your suggestion that 'The rich are eating too much to the detriment of their health, while poor children are missing out' is concerning, as is 'high-income countries certainly have the highest prevalence'. The Pacific Islands have the highest levels of obesity of any region in the world (75% in some countries, with accompanying diabetes levels as high as 40+%), and it's certainly not due to them being 'rich.' It's due to a host of factors including trade (like the importing of cheap, poor quality food), education (a lack of knowledge/effective health promotion about healthy eating and exercise), culture (the perception that big is healthier and better), a lack of infrastructure/good urban planning to foster incidental exercise and participation in sport, and a lack of readily and inexpensively available fresh fruit, vegetables and fish. <a href="https://theconversation.com/obesity-poverty-and-inequality-weighty-problems-for-all-of-us-7833" rel="nofollow">This article</a> by Kate Taylor talks about the common misconception that wealth = obesity. In fact, 'within a country, the wealthy are typically less likely to be overweight than other poorer segments of the population.' And the greater the level of inequality within a society, the greater level of health and social problems (including obesity). And <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257829/" rel="nofollow">this article</a> gives a pretty comprehensive overview of obesity in developing countries, including of the evidence regarding urban-rural prevalence differences; and the sorts of responses that can be helpful.

Hi Peter, Thank you for your comment and your added insights. It seems it is always a challenge to reconcile the often vastly different priorities of politics and policy -- especially when domestic issues/interests are of a higher priority to the majority of voters and hence MPs. Ashlee

Hi Joel -- thank you for your comment. Those figures really are quite staggering aren't they? I agree, this is absolutely something where momentum has to be stopped here in Australia. The challenges the US is facing in reforming food aid show that once these types of policies gain traction they are very hard to reverse.