By Engage

Each week on Engage, we aim to share with you a selection of links to articles and stories about the Australian aid program and international development that we find interesting or noteworthy. Here’s a snapshot of online stories this week:

• This week , Sydney played host to the Mining for Development and the 6^th Global EITI (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) Conferences. Michael Wulfsohn and Stephen Howes brought us commentary on the subject in Transparency in extractive industries: time for Australia to show leadership
• Still on the Development Policy Blog this week our own Frederic Jeanjean is interviewed on his career in development, the AusAID grad program, the Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD) program and working for the UN.
• Ten years ago the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was born with the stroke of a pen by President George W. Bush.  Over the last decade, the program has experienced tremendous growth and made inroads against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in some of the world’s hardest hit areas.  And through it all, PEPFAR has bridged two US Administrations, six US congressional sessions, and one global economic crisis. Check out the blog over at the Center for Global Development.
• An Oxfam and IDS report looks at hidden social costs of high food prices, including domestic violence, and substance abuse. Read analysis of the report in Soaring food prices make money top concern over love and status.
• We came across this powerful animated infographic (produced by onebillionrising.org) that highlights some of the startling global statistics and facts on women’s rights, with a focus on women and girls in developing countries.

Each week on Engage, we aim to share with you a selection of links to articles and stories about the Australian aid program and international development that we find interesting or noteworthy. Here’s a snapshot of online stories this week:

• Stephen Howes from the Development Policy Centre discusses this week’s Federal Budget in Third time disappointed AND the third largest aid increase ever, as Terence Wood and Joanna Spratt explain the New Zealand perspective on development assistance in The Aid Budget Across the Tasman.
• Oxfam’s Director of Aid Affectiveness, Gregory Adams, blogs in A Quiet Renaissance in American Aid, that “Aid does not cause development; people do. Oxfam is hearing that local leaders are starting to give the US government better marks for how the US invests its aid.”
• Resource Management Central to Equitable Development: Trillions of dollars a year are being produced through extractive industries, but just a tiny percentage of this money is impacting on the lives of poor communities in developing countries, according to a first-of-its-kind study.
• A World Economic Forum on Africa 2013 statement Greater Mobility in Africa Will Aid Development discusses how the difficulty of moving goods and people around Africa is a hindrance to growth.
• In To better understand development, stop reading development blogs, Brendan Rigby argues that we must read more widely than development blogs. A good reading list should not look like the Guardian’s Global Development ‘Key first-year reads’, but more like an entrancing Amazon Wish List.
• Sarah Jane Staats from the Center for Global Development discusses the approaches that “could help the Global Development Council walk President Obama’s policy vision down—and across—the aisle” in Hitching the Global Development Council and President Obama’s Policy Vision.