Links I liked

This week’s selection from last week’s @fp2p twitter traffic 

Relative girls & boys school enrolment worldwide. Red = more boys; Blue = more girls; Yellow = about equal. It’s getting complicated, people [h/t Conrad Hackett]

The Harvard business school professor v the Chinese takeaway. Bonkers. [h/t Aditya Chakrabortty]

Let’s talk governance and institutions:

The recent Harvard meeting on ‘Doing Development Differently’ continues to generate interesting content. The DDD crew has set up a new website for positive deviants, next stop world domination. ODI’s Craig Valters had a sensible piece on the overlap/synergies with theories of change

Staying with governance and institutions, ‘time for a grown-up conversation about corruption’ from Alina Rocha Menocal has an excellent overview of a much avoided topic.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the aid jungle

Does aid work? Moving on from ‘oh yes it does’; ‘oh no it doesn’t’ pantomime, however seasonal, Andy Sumner and Jonathan Glennie have a useful literature review on the $138.5bn question

Community mental health workers: are they a possible answer to the mother of all cinderella issues in development – depression?

The worst charity ads of 2014, won by this remarkably tin eared example from South Africa. According to the charity’s CEO “Like a child, I don’t see race or politics.” Um, right. (The other candidates are also disturbing, in a variety of ways)

And finally, a little Christmas nepotism: Another cracking short film on girls’ empowerment from my sister-in-law Mary Matheson at Plan International. Girls around the world using Malala Yousafzai’s words to campaign for education. If (like me) you’re prone to bubbling, you’ll need a hankie……