Aid & development linkage

• The BBC World Service (The Forum) interviews former World Bank economist Dambisa Moyo on how to reverse the decline of the West; podcast here.
• The murder of Uganda's renowned gay right activist, David Kato, has sparked calls for the US to stop funding faith-based organisations in Africa.
• Foreign Policy magazine's Paul Miller asks the all-important question – what is foreign aid for?
• Last week, South Africa announced plans to establish its own foreign aid agency in 2011. Interesting blog discussions have emerged on The Guardian, UN Dispatch and Foreign Policy magazine on the rise of new donor countries, particularly in the south.
• On 19 January, USAID Administrator Dr Rajiv Shah delivered a powerful speech entitled 'The Modern Development Enterprise, at an event hosted by the Center for Global Development (a development think tank in Washington). Shah was very frank and came out with some rather extraordinary lines, one of the best being:

In many instances our project evaluations have been commissioned by the same organisations that implement them. Often what passes for evaluation follows a 2-2-2 model: two contractors spending two weeks abroad conducting two-dozen interviews. For about $30,000 they produce a report no one needs and no one reads.