By Chloe Hickey-Jones, an intern in the Lowy Institute's Melanesia Program
- 2015 aid statistics from the OECD show development aid increased last year while spending on refugees by host countries doubled. Australia’s spending on aid, however, declined sharply.
- The recently launched 2016 Aid Transparency Index shows most countries, including Australia, are still muddling in the middle with relatively few rated as 'very good' or 'good'.
- Owen Barder has written a good commentary about how the aid transparency initiative has advanced, highlighting the healthy competition a transparent aid industry can create.
- Do women in leadership lead to greater advances for gender equality and wellbeing of all women? ODI’s new report ‘Women and Power: overcoming barriers to leadership and influence’, tries to answer this and more.
- Duncan Green provides a summary on the report and its future recommendations for aid agencies here.
- The value of remittances sent to the developing world grew by just 0.4% in 2015 but, at US$431.6 billion, this is still three times larger than global aid flows. The World Bank explains why it expects this figure to grow by 4% pa in 2016-17.
- Bill Gates explores the growing threat of inequality, labelling it a new map of poverty.
- In the Secret Aid Worker series in The Guardian, one worker explores the problems of the humanitarian and development divide and the practical complexities of this two track approach.
- Finally, GiveDirectly is launching a new project; Basic Income. This will provide 6000 Kenyans with a constant flow of cash for a decade, pulling them out of poverty.