February 2013 – Heather E. Lanthorn

question: why do well-educated people from sub-Saharan Africa often seem not to have taken any courses in African history?

i admit that i am working from an n of 2, purposively selected from Ghana and Nigeria. nevertheless, it seems worth asking, how is national history *not* part of the standard middle or high school curriculum, insofar as knowing history is an important part of educating citizens?

causes, explanations, & getting stuff done

@edwardcarr, i also have a confession, which is that i have a small crush on you right now for the post in which you make a confession about causality and try to disentangle causes, mechanisms, and information that can be used to understand, revamp, and scale programs. i‘d like to try to tweak the argument, especially in lightContinue reading “causes, explanations, & getting stuff done”

targeting vaccine teams: and now nigeria

this seems to be the first time workers were killed in nigeria, despite previous opposition to vaccines. on thursday, a controversial islamic cleric spoke out against the polio vaccination campaign, telling people that new cases of polio were caused by contaminated medicine. more on targeting vaccination workers here.

‘where the streets have no name’

that’s the title of a short article in the jan/feb 2013 atlantic— and i couldn’t think of a better one. i have written previously about the joys of getting and giving directions in lower-income countries – specifically for research and household follow-up, although the general taxi/auto/tuk-tuk stories of trying to reach any specific location purposefully are equally funContinue reading “‘where the streets have no name’”