I feel the same way. Recently I've been studying up on humanitarian and developmental aid. I'm new that field and I've heard a lot of criticism about how "aid d

I feel the same way. Recently I've been studying up on humanitarian and developmental aid. I'm new that field and I've heard a lot of criticism about how "aid doesn't work" and so on. I recently learned about the Poverty Action Lab [1] which focuses on using data to discover what "works" in aid. Fwiw here are four books on my reading list: * Making Aid Work & Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee * More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics Is Helping to Solve Global Poverty by Dean Karlan * Despite Good Intentions: Why Development Assistance to the Third World Has Failed by Thomas W. Dichter * The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers Some outstanding questions I have: * I've read there is a "negative correlation with success" when many of the major international aid organizations get involved (world bank, etc) [2]. Is this because they only take on really hard problems or is it because the organizations actually make the situation worse? * Everyone is going gaga over micro-credit. Is it really helpful for getting folks out of poverty or are we just bringing america's bad debt habits to the third world? * What can I do to help reduce human suffering in the world? (e.g. How can I end human trafficking, provide clean water, protect ethnic groups from genocide [rwanda etc.])? [1] http://www.povertyactionlab.org/ http://www.povertyactionlab.org/ [2] http://www.globallawbooks.org/reviews/detail.asp?id=234 http://www.globallawbooks.org/reviews/detail.asp?id=234