Project-Level Aid: A Closer Look At Development Assistance

In the Spotlight: PLAID

PLAID Holds Data-Vetting Workshop

September 17-18, 2009 | Stimson Center, Washington, DC

Last week, the PLAID project hosted a successful data-vetting workshop at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, DC. Researchers and development practitioners from the U.S., Europe, and Africa provided the PLAID team with feedback on data quality in a beta version of the PLAID database. Further, the PLAID team demonstrated a preview version of what will soon be the public interface of the PLAID database. Several prominent scholars presented research based on the PLAID dataset. UVA’s David Leblang presented a paper entitled, “Knockin' on Heaven's Door: International Aid Flows and the Demand for Asylum,” Georgetown’s James Vreeland presented a paper entitled, “Buying influence at the IMF,” and Duke’s Sarah Bermeo presented a paper entitled, “The Curse of Aid? Re-Examining the Impact of Aid on Regime Change.” Stu Hamilton, of William and Mary’s Center for Geospatial Analysis, provided workshop participants with a taste of the sort of data visualizations that PLAID data can be used to produce (his presentation is available for download here). Hamilton compiled a number of these visuals into a time-lapse video:

Also during the conference, PLAID announced that the PLAID database will soon merge with Development Gateway's AiDA database to form a new database and website called the AidData portal. The Development Gateway website has more details on the merger. PLAID researchers at William and Mary, Brigham Young University, and Development Gateway are now working to address the issues raised by workshop participants and are eagerly anticipating the public launch of the database in March 2010.

Too Late for Latin America to Adapt?

May 2009 | By J. Timmons Roberts and Guy Edwards

Rainforests could dry up and die back; semi arid regions like the Brazilian Northeast and much of Central America risk becoming useless for agriculture; hurricanes and flooding increasingly pound Caribbean coasts and villages, leaving roads and bridges smashed in their wake. As the region warms, diseases carried by tropical insects spread to new areas. Urban smog and asthma are multiplied by heat waves.

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PLAID on the Cover of Envrionment Magazine

January/February 2009 | "Has Foreign Aid Been Greened" By J. Timmons Roberts, Bradley Parks, Michael Tierney, and Robert Hicks

Since the first major international conference on environment and development in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972, environmentalists, voters, and policymakers in the developed world have faced a vexing dilemma: with some of the richest stores of biodiversity, natural resources, and carbon located in developing countries, the greatest potential for damage to the global environment resides in places outside the sovereign control of the countries most able, financially speaking, to prevent it...

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Oversees Development Institute Hosts PLAID Project for Discussion of Greening Aid?

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008 1:00-2:15 p.m. | 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7JD

The Oversees Development Institute and the Oxford University Press hosted a discussion of the PLAID project's new book Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance. The discussion featured co-authors J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley C. Parks. Other discussants included Camilla Toulmin, Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, and Seán Doolan, Environmental Advisor for the Africa Division of the Department for International Development. The discussion was chaired by Neil Bird, a Research Fellow at the Forests, Environment, and Climate Change Program at ODI.

Tor read about and listen to audio from the event click here. View the event slides here.

Wilson Center Hosts PLAID Project for Discussion of New Book, Greening Aid?

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 @3:00-5:00 p.m. | 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, 6th Floor Auditorium

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Environmental Change and Security Program and the World Resources Institute hosted a discussion of the PLAID project's new book Greening Aid. The discussion featured co-authors J. Timmons Roberts, Michael J. Tierney, and Bradley C. Parks. The event also featured comments from Robert Goodland, former Environmental Advisor at the World Bank and opening remarks were provided by Manish Bapna, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, World Resources Institute.

The power point slides from the event are available here.

Greening Aid? Eve Celebration

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 6:00 p.m. | The William & Mary Washington Office, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Building, Choate Room, 1st Floor, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW

Professor Timmons Roberts, Professor Rob Hicks, Professor Mike Tierney '87, and Brad Parks '03 celebrated the publishing of their book Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance. Reception began at 6:00 p.m, followed by a brief program. W&M alumni, students, friends, and guests attended the event.

Greening Aid? Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance

By Robert L. Hicks, Bradley C. Parks, J. Timmons Roberts, Michael J. Tierney

Every year, billions of dollars of environmental aid flow from the rich governments of the North to the poor governments of the South. Why do donors provide this aid? What do they seek to achieve? How effective is the aid given? And does it always go to the places of greatest environmental need? All of these questions and many more are addressed in this groundbreaking text, which is based on the authors' work compiling the most comprehensive dataset of foreign aid ever assembled. Order Now