Merigoesaround

http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/template.rc/1.11.1909# http://psdblog.worldbank.org / http://www.indiadevelopmentblog.com/ http://creativecapitalismblog.com/ http://chrisblattman.blogspot.com/ http://www.voxeu.org/ And just to bring the brain down...and your mood up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25YDJuKJ6h4

I read that there is not enough public money to fund the demand for microfinance services in the world. Giving access to savings accounts, loans and microinsurance to millions of unbanked people will need more money than what the World Bank and the rest of donors can offer. MFI’s across the world need funding and investments are already pouring towards them, drop by drop, slowly, slowly. At least in Benin. Benin is not a major destination for private money in microfinance right now. The intervention of the government in one of the major MFIs at the beginning of this year has scared most investors off. Understandable. Why would you put your money in a local MFI when the government can decide tomorrow to remove the whole management team and replace it with an interim bunch of people? Risky. A local MFI told me yesterday that they only have funding to give credit to 31% of their total demand. Regardless on how inflated or deflated this number is, the fact that some MFIs do not serve poten...

Dutch public officials, Dutch UN staff or Dutch consultants are a different breed. I simply admire their sincerity and straightforwardness. Imagine a donor harmonization meeting, a donors’ annual review or an European Commission Round table: watch out where the Dutch official, consultant or intern sits. Yes, even opinionated Dutch interns have a say, they are not shy and they will speak out loud, commenting on what the British ambassador says, questioning why to pay a consultant a 800 EUR per diem, inquiring the viability of a project and telling everybody else that we are wasting money. If they could only be a little bit more positive without loosing their Realpolitikness.

Once in my life I thought I wanted to be an expert on Eastern Europe and Russia. I did not know what that meant…but I was fascinated by the sound of Slavic languages, I thought those who lived under the Soviets were cultured and cultivated people, loved borsch soup with a spoon of sour cream and cold weather. Out of all those useless classes at high school and university, I only remember subjects related to Communism, I regret not having read more books and novels instead of memorizing those dates and facts at school that give you no historical culture at all. That brought me to Poland, Albania, Russia and anywhere where (some) men wear Adidas sweatpants with leather jackets. I quickly realized that an expert on a region was not enough. I needed a subject, an area, an amount of knowledge on something. I chose human development thinking that education, health and social protection - how donors define human development-, was the part of development that resonates with my values. However,...

I am thinking of all those MBAs graduating this year and who had dreamt of joining the ranks of a NY-based investment bank. Demand for these posts might exceed supply after the events of the last weeks so some MBAs will have to conform themselves with a consultancy job (which apparently pays you much less). But MBAs of the world, you have other alternatives. Two come to mind: - Getting into entrepreneurial kind of activities (maybe translating in a larger number of start-ups), as my ex-roomate, an HBS MBA himself, told me once...isn't and MBA about that, about learning how to create new businesses? Don't we party hard to build a good business network? - MBAs joining public sector organizations!!! Come and convert us to the religion of efficiency.

If today you want chocolate, cigarettes or a trashy movie but tomorrow you want to eat fruit, go to the gym and read a good book. Read this: http://harvardmagazine.com/2006/03/the-marketplace-of-perce.html

Test your horti(culture): a) Carrots, tomatoes, ruccola b) Ruccola, carrots, tomatoes c) Tomatoes, carrots, ruccola This post is dedicated to my dad, whose knowledge on farming and horticulture is enormous. To show him that the new generation is not lost...there is hope!

Abundance. That might be the problem. Most of us grew up having almost everything we needed: toys, that new shirt, weekly allowance to go to the movies, love, many of us grew in loving and caring families. Abundance might have spoiled our brains, having us most of the time in a permanent pursuit to materialistic, valueless (despite the price tag) ends. Starting with me. Scarcity. In this very moment a group of 30 Beninese women vigorously chant 'Hallelujah' in the neighboring house. They might get lunch for free. Confusion.

Despite having only one sister my mum always says that in my nuclear family we are five: mum, dad, sister, a municipal policeman and myself. My dad has paid so many parking fines that according to her the policeman is number 5 in the family. In our Beninese life we have a large extended family. I know some young and overpaid yovos (whites) who share (a micro) part of their fat salaries with their new extended Beninese family: gardeners, guardians, cooks, babysitters…. I have also heard about other yobos who prefer not to buy a washing machine and have their maids wash bed sheets by hand: isn’t this the housekeeping form of neocolonialism? I mostly know only good yovos though: those who lend money to cooks who want to start a street restaurant (maki), a photocophy business, those who pay for the school books of their cook’s daughter or the medicines for their guardians. The list of needs is really long and sometimes quite difficult to believe (Whaatt? Didn’t you say you only have 2 daug...

I sense some simply opportunistic moves among management of some local Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) to move into Mbanking.And I can't help but wonder!??!!?....If Mbanking hasn't pick up among middle-high income clients in developed economies why would it work in rural Africa? Trying to get illiterate clients into mobile banking might be as ineffective as giving desktops to a school with no electric supply. Just a thought. Risking to sound conservative and retrograde, I dislike the wave of passion toward Mbanking and wonder if more than picking up on the latest development fashion or applaud obediently when the donor (Millenium Challenge Account in this case) puts the money, local MFIs could be client-centered and strategic in integrating technology into microfinance.

I now live with two French people. One is my boyfriend and the other his roommate, Caroline. Caro is such a sexy lady that one wonders if I am being too naïve by allowing the first French to live with her. Yesterday we had a girl-to-girl conversation and I expressed to her my fear: “Caro – I used the short sweet name strategically – French girls are really sexy, thin and interesting. They all have this look of mysterious and independent women that scares Spanish girls off. Even the way they hold a Malboro light is cute”. “Meri, she said, do you know that we think the same of Spanish girls?”. L’Entente had been signed and my relationship shelled. We agreed that the most dangerous girls ever are Italian. It is quite human to find always a third party to blame or to thank for. In Benin, any good or bad thing is God's fault or gift. The other day a friend told me that the world would miss Italy if this country would not exist. We can thank Italy for so many things. Going back to our me...

"Please 10000 CFA (about 15 euros) for the formality"- Him "Excuse-moi, 10000 for the passport stamp?"- Me. There isn't a more stereotyped way to enter Africa than with a passport officer trying to get a bribe from you. Actually not directly from me, from a Spanish couple to whom I offered my free translation/guidance through last-minute yellow fever vaccination services. I got very mad because the given officer took the passport and refuse to give it to me unless we'd pay. My stubbornness is not easy to bend, not even by the authority if I feel unfairness and abuse in the atmosphere. I was not mad for the 10000, I was not mad the victims were Spaniards, I was extremely pissed off that in the brain of that officer getting 10000 from a tourist was still possible, I am mad at his mentality and how he can rotten others. We all won. He maybe understood his wrongness. I probably believe in only one thing fully: in the power of learning, in the power of making mis...

I keep on being vegetarian. It makes me feel healthy and purified. And so the blood test (mainly done to please my mum) says: my proteins, lipids, cholesterol, all is good after 3 months of veggies. It all started many years ago, when I worked in a turkey factory for a summer in England. A slaughter house, to give you more bloody details. I was supposed to collect strawberries, work in a farm for the summer, or so the contract that I signed with a temporary job agency in Barcelona said,...but I ended up selecting and arranging turkey wings into EU and non-EU boxes. The latter, with a purplish color, were apparently sent to the Ruskis and ex-Soviet republics. I smile when I think about that vegetarian summer. I learned very little English. Electrocuted turkeys do not talk. At times, I felt like an immigrant surrounded by equals treating me unfairly. This maybe how the millions of Peruvians, Ecuadorians and Paraguayans might feel in Spain these days. Spanish unemployment has gone up to ...

From: http://xkcd.com/77/

Yesterday I discovered myself writing down in my to-do list: google and buy good anti-wrinkle lotion. Drama? Not yet. I turned 30 some days ago and I wonder how responsible, mature and serious I should become now. My immediate wholehearted answer is: not at all. Being in the late 20’s was so comforting. It was almost like extending high school for a year afraid of going to Uni. 30 is neither late 20's nor early 30's so I have a whole vacuum year in which I basically can feel as young or as old as I want to. Since I turned 30 I've heard several times that my uncles, grandma, parents and everybody surrounding me these short week in Spain...WHEN THEY WERE MY AGE they already OWNED a house, HAD 2 babies and the first step of a professional career COMPLETED. Most of that generation should read a book called 'The 4-hour workweek' and reflect on their lives. That generation did not have the time, mobility, (human) capital and choices I do have today, so, as said, I am not ...

A- The Indian way is: your parents tell you to marry and then you learn how to love your assigned lifelong partner, you learn how to enjoy the pleasures of sex and the pros and cons of cohabitation and bed-sharing. B- The Western way is: you have sex, you fall in love, you enjoy the pleasures till you marry, you realized it was not love and then you divorce. C- In Albania I met the third way: somebody wants to marry you because tradition dictates so, but this ex-Ottoman tiny territory is already too western to obey tradition, you fall in love, you decide whom to marry after a plethora of fortunate and unfortunate looking partners and arguments at home, you feel in love, you feel so in love that you need lovers, you enjoy the carnal pleasures, yeah you do, somebody finds out about your extra-marital practices, everybody gossips, you realized it was not love and you want to divorce but you decide that having a partner and a lover is better indeed. Luckily, durable, happy love might also ...

I don’t think this word exists in English. Landing in Spain I observed that most of my compatriots are chubby-looking people. They look healthy though: red cheeks, cushion-like handles of love on both sides of the belly, smiley Spaniards. It is time to disclose the reason for our body fat accumulation: the summer merendola . Merendola comes from the work Merienda. In theory it is a light meal between lunch and dinner. Americans barbacue or picnic, we organize merendolas. At home the summer merendola starts around 7pm with the male of the family (normally the one who has paid for the pork and beef cutlets) lighting the barbacue fire on. There is a lot of expertise surrounding the process of lighting a fire: the men of the house (dad, uncles, granpas) go back to their Rambo boy scout times and each of them has a different opinion on the best way to set the fire. They argue and insult each other. The insults are nice though, after some time abroad I have discovered that my fellow Spaniard...

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." Mark Twain

It has happened before. This feeling is not at all new. However, this time is more acute, more penetrating and intense. I hate myself. My luck, my wealth, my 10 pairs of shoes, my 80 EUR perfume and my 3 iPods. Landed from India in London and I felt incredibly bizarre. The plane was full of second-generation Indians who today are British and eat, behave and are like myself. Western. I had some (pretty strong) negative transference towards them, they looked to me as the lucky ones, the ones who were fortunate enough to be born in a country where vending machines work, floors are clean, airports are filled with Bally, Prada, Pink and Burberry stores and people overeat and own too many pairs of shoes. I hated myself first and I hated them. I am aware this is an unfounded, totally subjective negative reaction product of my heart and not of my brain… each of those individuals has a story behind. I do too. Moreover, in Brigade Road in Bangalore people also accumulate shoes and I bet some exp...