International development

WCVB-TV spotlights two MIT startups, True Moringa, a beauty and wellness company that uses the oil from Moringa trees grown in Ghana to directly benefit farmers in Ghana, and Sourcemap, which traces supply chains and provides transparency about where goods are stemming from. Says Kwami Williams ’12, co-founder and CEO, of his inspiration for True Moringa: “I started to ask myself, if aerospace engineers can help put a man on the Moon, then what can I do to help put more food on the table for families” in Ghana.

Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo speak with PBS NewsHour’s Paul Solman about their use of randomized control trials to address global poverty. “[T]hat's what the Duflo/Banerjee research is all about, trying to reduce the guesswork of economic development policy by seeing what seems to work, and what doesn't, at least in its current form,” explains Solman.

Profs. Abhijit Banerjee and Benjamin Olken speak with NPR’s Jason Beaubien about their efforts to improve Indonesia’s Raskin, or Rice for the Poor, program. "There's a certain tendency among both social scientists and policymakers to assume that the solution to a complex problem has to be complex,” says Banerjee, “and I don't think that's always true."

In an opinion piece for The Boston Globe, Alex Amouyel, executive director of MIT Solve, explains how the initiative is ‘crowdsolving’ thorny global problems through open innovation. “We need to source ideas from innovators all around the world to find the next breakthroughs,” argues Amouyel. “We know talent and ingenuity exist everywhere.”

John Tirman, executive director of the MIT Center for International Studies, contributes to a HuffPost article regarding Kurdistan’s attempt to gain independence. Tirman writes that independence “is not only the right thing to do for the Kurdish people, but could provide several possibilities for a stabilizing U.S. presence in the region.” 

Noah Smith of Bloomberg writes that the foreign trade theory proposed by Prof. Cesar Hidalgo and his research team suggests that a country’s future growth is determined by how many different products it makes. This forecasting method is based on “the level of regulation or the amount of investment in education,” explains Smith.

Wall Street Journal reporter Jason Bordoff writes that MIT researchers have produced a map of the Nairobi bus system using GPS data collected from riders’ mobile phones. “With these networks now mapped, users can access the system more easily and efficiently, and local officials can plan bus and train routes around it,” writes Bordoff. 

Financial Times reporter Tim Harford writes that a study by MIT researchers explores how a country's exports can influence income inequality. The study shows “a relationship between inequality and lack of economic complexity. Holding other things constant, the simplest economies tend to be the most unequal.”

BBC News reporter Atish Patel reports on a new study, co-authored by Prof. Abhijit Banerjee, that found informal health care providers in India can improve with modest training. The researchers found that those who had undergone training were more likely to “adhere to checklists after training and made big improvements in providing correct treatments.”

MIT researchers are collaborating with the Self-Employed Women's Association to identify how women in India use technology, reports The Times of India. "There are lots of innovations in the name of the poor, but nobody knows what works," explains Prof. Bishwapriya Sanyal. 

A study conducted by Prof. Esther Duflo found that when women were offered financial support through livestock and educational training, they were able to climb out of poverty, according to The Economist. “Seven years after the programme began their average monthly consumption was almost one-third higher than it had been after two years.”

In a Financial Times article, John Aglionby writes about the impact of social media in Africa, highlighting how MIT researchers have developed a comprehensive map and application for Nairobi’s bus routes. The app allows users to “plot their way across the capital easily.”

In collaboration with Columbia University and the University of Nairobi, MIT researchers have created a map of Nairobi’s informal matatu (or mini-bus) transit system, writes Shara Ton for Wired. Ton explains that, “Just as New York commuters can plot their subway routes on the service, residents of Nairobi can now jack into the matatu system on their smartphones.”

Wall Street Journal reporter Jason Zweig writes about anti-poverty research, highlighting an MIT study that showed intervention methods can be effective at alleviating poverty. Prof. Esther Duflo says that, “We are trying to promote a culture of learning that will permeate governments and NGOs and businesses to such an extent that it will become par for the course.”

Tina Rosenberg writes for The New York Times about a study by J-PAL researchers examining the effectiveness of a poverty intervention program.  Researchers found that participants in the program, “ate more, were more certain about access to food, held more assets, had more income and savings, spent more time working, and enjoyed better mental and physical health.”