• Education and Health in Pakistan: While better educated parents are known to raise healthier children, the role of each parent and the exact reasons for the correlation remain unclear. A study in World Development seeks to clarify the issue. Using a survey of almost 1,200 households in two provinces of Pakistan, the authors find that a mother’s level of schooling significantly affects children’s height and weight. However, only a father’s education impacts immunization. The authors speculate that fathers may guide certain health behaviors, “particularly if they require travel to a health clinic,” while mothers govern “day-to-day decisions” that affect “longer-term measures of health such as height and weight.” But it is not parents’ “education per se” that drives better child health. Instead, the authors find that immunization responds to fathers’ health knowledge (rather than overall schooling). Mothers’ impact on height and weight, meanwhile, seems driven by their health knowledge and “empowerment within the home.” Based on these findings, the authors write that “policies aimed at achieving better health awareness and knowledge” might give Pakistan the biggest development boost. Read more »

This has been a particularly grisly week in Afghanistan. On Sunday night, Taliban insurgents in the conservative southern province of Helmand beheaded seventeen people—fifteen men and two women—who were attending a party that involved music and mixed-gender dancing. The killings were so gruesome that the central Taliban leadership is denying its involvement in the atrocity, claiming local leaders in the area knew nothing about the attack. Read more »

Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, in recent weeks has not only moved to consolidate political control by forcing out the country’s military leaders and increasing the power of the presidential office; he is also beginning to come to grips with Egypt’s troubled economy.  Last week, Egypt sought a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) —a significant increase over the $3.2 billion that it was originally pursuing. The loan has been an off-and-on possibility for Egypt for over a year; political uncertainty and domestic opposition have hindered negotiations in the past. Read more »

Charles Landow covers events in Africa and Asia, as well as the debate over development’s drivers, in today’s edition of Missing Pieces. Enjoy!

• Meles Zenawi’s Death: Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi leaves a conflicted record following his death this week. Under his rule, annual GDP growth regularly topped 10 percent. “Ethiopia became a donor darling, valued… for its ability to spend development funds in a transparent, effective manner,” says an analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A New York Times piece explains that Meles shrewdly traded his backing of U.S. antiterrorism efforts for “serious diplomatic support and millions of dollars in aid.” But as that article and a Financial Times piece report, his government locked up opponents and reporters, killed almost 200 protesters after a contested 2005 election, and pursued military campaigns rife with abuse. An International Herald Tribune op-ed praises Meles for “intellectual rigor” and a measured approach to Ethiopia’s war with Eritrea. But it, too, acknowledges a “democratic deficit.” Either way, Meles’s death has unleashed uncertainty about Ethiopia’s trajectory, with a smooth succession far from assured. Read more »

A well-planned attack by al-Qaeda-affiliated militants on the intelligence services headquarters in the southern port city of Aden this past weekend underscores the country’s beleaguered security situation. Yet as alarming as the terrorist threat is, Yemen’s increasingly precarious humanitarian crisis is also cause for concern. Rising food prices in particular are pushing more families to the brink of desperation. Read more »

• Housing in Haiti: More than two-and-a-half years have passed since Haiti’s January 12, 2010, earthquake. But according to a New York Times piece, “the most obvious, pressing need—safe, stable housing for all displaced people—remains unmet.” As the article explains, “while more than 200,000 houses were damaged or destroyed,” international efforts have produced only “an estimated 15,000 repairs and 5,700 new, permanent homes so far.” Some 390,000 Haitians languish in “abysmal” camps. Tens of thousands more have been ejected from camps and “remain homeless.” Others, ostensibly luckier, have received temporary homes built by humanitarian groups. But these are often too small and isolated from jobs and services. Finally, still other Haitians have rebuilt with their own hands. Though their comforts are modest, they seem happiest of all. As one says, “When I die, I will have something to pass on to my daughter.” Read more »

This summer has been a difficult season for global agriculture. Despite some much-needed rain in the American Midwest, drought continues to affect wide areas of the United States. This week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declared that the U.S. government would buy $170 million of animal products, such as pork and lamb, from farmers who are strained by high prices for animal feed. Read more »

The path to democracy hardly begins and ends with elections. There is necessarily a lot of heavy lifting along the way to ensure that a full set of human rights are protected. In the reconstituted Arab states of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, balancing conservative religious beliefs and social mores with minority rights, women’s rights, and freedom of speech is already proving to be a hard challenge indeed. Read more »

• India’s Blackout: India’s late-July blackout, which cut power to more than 600 million, has prompted a flood of analysis. A Businessweek piece notes that “blackouts are everyday occurrences,” partly because India lacks enough coal for its new power plants. A CNN post cites artificially low electricity rates, maintained by politicians in search of votes, as a root cause of the crisis. A Washington Post article says that even when an electricity connection exists, “the poor can’t afford to enjoy it.” Power flows are spotty, bureaucracy thick, and bribe demands legion. On ForeignAffairs.com, two authors argue that a history of state—not national—control over electricity grids has much to do with the crisis. Finally, the Economist concludes that “India’s great blackout is a consequence of rotten governance. Voters need to understand that, and deliver the country’s political class a different kind of electric shock.” Read more »

Just before the Olympics started, I wrote about how for the first time ever, each participating country was sending at least one female competitor to the Games. The participation of two Saudi Arabian women was particularly groundbreaking: until the eleventh hour, it looked as if the Saudi government would not allow them to compete. Now, as the end of the Games approaches, these women have won symbolic victories, though not without struggle and controversy. Read more »