Can Technology Save Foreign Aid?

New America Foundation, Slate, Arizona State University
1899 L St NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036
Thursday, March 3, 2011
4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

The notoriously inefficient development-assistance complex is under siege. Two trillion dollars have flowed from north to south in the last half century, with decidedly mixed results. Current political and budgetary trends threaten the continuation of such flows. At the same time, however, technology offers a means of escape from present bureaucratic bottlenecks, and a means to revolutionize how aid is delivered.

Take mobile technology, point-of-sale devices, and biometric IDs. What if donor governments simply deployed these technologies to cut out the middleman, delivering electronic payments directly to the world's poor?

In an academic paper and accompanying article on Slate, Jamie Zimmerman of the New America Foundation and Henry Jackelen of the United Nations Development Programme are proposing just that. Future Tense invites you to a discussion of their provocative proposal, and of other ways technology can revolutionize foreign development assistance.

A wine and cheese reception will follow the event.

AGENDA

4:00 pm to 4:45 pm - Foreign Aid 3.0: Direct Deposits to the World's Poor

Jamie Zimmerman
Director, Global Assets Project
New America Foundation

Henry Jackelen
Director of the Private Sector Division, Partnerships Bureau
United Nations Development Programme

Moderator
David Plotz
Editor, Slate

4:45 pm to 5:45 pm - Global Development: Isn't there an App for that?

Charles Kenny
Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow and Global Assets Project Senior Research Fellow
New America Foundation

Priya Jaisinghani
Senior Adviser
USAID

Eric Werker
Associate Professor in the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit
Harvard Business School

Moderator

David Plotz
Editor, Slate

5:45 pm to 6:00 pm - Final Thoughts

Jamie Zimmerman
Director, Global Assets Project
New America Foundation

Henry Jackelen
Director of the Private Sector Division, Partnerships Bureau
United Nations Development Programme

6:00 pm to 7:00 pm - Reception

To RSVP for the event:
http://www.newamerica.net/events/2011/can_technology_save_foreign_aid

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net