Showing Tag: "liberia" (Show all posts)

Lessons in Aid Inefficiency: Tech in Liberia

Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Thursday, July 23, 2009, In : Aid Effectiveness 

Part of what drew me to Liberia was my interest in understanding best practices in international aid.   It's no secret that aid is often inefficient at best and ultimately counterproductive at worst.  Unlike others, I do not believe that this unfortunate fact is a justification to throw the baby out with the bath water.  I believe that there is a role for assistance, and if my path takes me in that direction, I want to know how to do it well.  I knew some of the mistakes that these org...


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What's Really Different About Liberia

Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, June 29, 2009, In : Economics 

Before I landed here, I posted a bit about what I’d heard about Liberia: how incredibly poor it is, how people live, how little economic activity there is. Now that I’ve been on the ground for three weeks now (time flies!) I can say that much of that was just plain misleading.


The fact of the matter is people living in poverty, people living off a dollar or two a day, people without running water, without proper waste treatment facilities, without electricity, in homes that could blow ove...

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Mob Justice: Is It Just?

Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, June 29, 2009, In : Institutions 

I missed a raging ethical debate during the drive this morning (I was home sick).  Our driver told my housemates that his community caught a thief last night.  And then they cut off one of his hands.

This isn’t the first I’ve heard of something like this happening in Liberia.  Another friend was at a graduation party recently when people started yelling “ROOGGGUEEE!!!,” which was immediately met by everyone running out, chasing down the culprit, and beating him.  Then hoisting him in t...

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Preparing for Liberia

Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, June 8, 2009, In : Liberia 

As the start of my internship draws near, I’ve been reading more and more about Liberia.  I’m pretty sure that it will impact me more than any other place I’ve ever been, and probably any other place I’ll ever go.  A few Harvard professors from the Kennedy School visited last winter, and even they said they’d never seen anything like it.  These are people who have spent a career studying development.

Liberia is, literally, one of the poorest countries on the planet - next to Malawi, ...

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Developing Jen in Liberia is Born

Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, April 26, 2009, In : Development Careers 

I've been blogging when I travel for years now, but I felt it was important for me to have a separate blog dedicated to my experience in Liberia this summer.  Though I won't take off for Monrovia for over a month, there's already a lot to say about why i chose this internship, how it fits into my overall career goals, and what exactly I'll be doing there.  Not to mention the people I'm already connecting to and the meetings I'll be having in San Francisco in the coming weeks.  So with that, D...
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