The
world is full of miserable places. One way of living comfortably is not
to think about them or, when you do, to donate money to some large fund
that has a particular mission. AidMarket is set on providing another
way for donors to get involved.
To get involved, institutions,
agencies, companies, groups, and
individuals must, at no cost, register as an
agent. When you register
as an agent on AidMarket.org, you become an "I AM". Agents can
contribute anywhere from a few dollars to thousands of dollars to the
project(s) they find most worthy. Agents can assume responsibility for
particular necessities or cost particular expenditures. AidMarket
enables donors, in a sense, to 'shop' for the
means of their contribution.
Not all I AM agents must assume responsibility for particular
necessities. However, for
sustainable development, someone must be responsible for the integral
parts of any given project. Those who wish to limit their involvement
to the
contribution of funds can either contribute to a project fund or choose
to cost something on the work order that doesn't require any future
responsibilities.
The
"I" is assigned to agents to increase
their sense of individual accountability. The transparent bookkeeping
of AidMarket
enables agents to monitor the effect of their involvement. It gives
donors the opportunity to observe the benefits of their contribution,
as opposed to seeing it drowned in the total sums of international
agencies. Agents will have the right to rate the cost/ben analysis of
particular projects so that the projects that are most needed will
surface and are made more visible. Similarly, the I AM agents can rate
the
overall performance of double I AM agents (II AMs).
When the time comes, AidMarket will establish a
prestigious award for those I AM and II AM agents whose effort and
achievements stand
out. This award, in combination with individual accountability and the
visibility of progress, will increase the weight of pride in one‘s work
as well as the incentive one has for reaching positive outcomes. I AM
part of the solution. How are you involved?
==
Double
I AM agents are the project leaders, they are the one's who submit
proposals. These II AM agents must register with AidMarket. Official
identification is required. II AM agents can
propose piecemeal interventions as means to improve the particular
community they can relate to. AidMarket is here to benefit and serve
people like Patrick Awuah and Dr. Farmer, as well as all those who want
to make a difference.
AidMarket
requires photographic evidence of before and after status. For larger
projects the progress should be depicted with a series of photos and
other documentation of progression. If
applicable, please define which parts of your proposed development are
'integral parts' of the project. Whether it is to mobilize I AM agents
to support a particular project or to mobilize the people to take
advantage of AidMarket, II AM agents are exercising leadership.
We
remind you that the
Poor are our customers. The project proposed must benefit the poor. The
cost/benefit analysis should be intuitive and justified. In this
business few words are necessary to justify beneficial development for
the poor. AidMarket is better suited for small projects than it is for
global and national initiatives. I
AM agents are able to rate the cost/benefit analysis of particular
proposals. This is done so to make the most needed improvements more
visible.
The
expenditures should be described in detail as possible. The tags will
be: II AM agent | Project # | Location(x4) | Description | Cost |
Development Category/Type | Cost/Benefit Analysis & Rating (which I
AM agents will be able to evaluate and rate). All these tags are
searchable.
If the II AM agent is not an individual, then the
project proposal must have a designated contact person. This person is
accountable for the funds donated to that particular project. This
person will be accountable for documenting project status and progress.
This person must understand that our books are transparent and that the
project requires monitoring and feedback.
The contact person for a particular project must register as a Double
I AM agent. Double
I AM agents must expect to be criticized and/or glorified depanding on
effort and outcomes. The most successful and influencial of all Double
I AM agents will be titled Leader I AM agent. The Leader I AM agents
will have more flexibility to operate, they will more easily acquire
funding and connect with specialized problem-solvers.
====
In recent years, the quantity of education has gone up, but the
quality remains low. This incoherency has made the available resources
less efficient at the cost of leaving aside necessary components of the
whole. This is where poor feedback, invisibility, and collective
responsibility is to blame. People mean well, but the job is poorly
done.
For example, World Bank researchers Deon
Filmer and Lant Pritchett
estimate that the return on spending on instructional materials in
education is up to fourteen times higher than the return on spending on
physical facilities, yet donors continue to favor more observable
buildings over less observable educational material. There isn't enough
coherency in the effort to spread education.
Thor, the founder of AidMarket, has argued that improving the
availability and quality of educational material is the single most
important effort needed today! Many of the undeveloped communities
will have access to the technology that has an incredible power to
educate, but the same technology can also have the sole purpose to
entertain. It is important that we focus our effort on developing
quality educational material and make it available to those who may not
have quality educators. Children often are, and should be, able to
learn independently. Without quality educational material and proper
instruction most of Negroponte's computers will be used to
play bloody games and watch porn on the internet.
Again, the academic community must bridge higher levels of education
with the development efforts around the world to improve the results of
education-based initiatives. Students who go to teachers' training have
to learn how to develop educational material as well as how to instruct
students learning from that material. While learning how to teach,
these students and their professors generate a rich source of material.
If we employ the real-world data accumulated by AidMarket
in the analysis and education of teachers, then the by-product of these
studies, generated year after year, becomes an applicable resource for
international aid and development.
These resources should serve as the basis for creation of
educational material tailor-maid to address local needs and interest.
It will also function as a positive incentive for those students and
professors who wish to see their work published and applied. With the
help of translators, the quality material could be shared with those
who have access to the internet.
Transparent books on particular projects will improve the monitoring
of agents and development progress. The progress being monitored will
not be on a scale with global objectives, but particular and localized.
Monitoring of performance and outcomes is crucial if we want to hold
agents accountable.
The information generated by AidMarket
is a form of resource. The information available to those who monitor
agents and projects could, and should, be used for academic purposes.
The data offers many potential research hypotheses and could be used as
subject matter for classroom instruction. AidMarket
will build on this resource to incorporate Academics more thoroughly in
the monitoring and evaluation of development.
It is AidMarket's
firm conviction that Academics could do public service by applying
their techniques to evaluate the projects, programs, and approaches
taken by aid agencies as well as I AM agents. AidMarket
will establish a relationship with institutes of higher education as
means to employ academic researchers in a more fruitful role so that
they may serve as the unofficial independent evaluators.
AidMarket
suggests that the mechanisms for monitoring, research, and feedback
should be a part of the local curriculum because any information
collected will be more relevant if locals work to obtain that
information from other locals. For the data obtained, we need
independent scientific evaluation of particular interventions from
which development agencies can learn. AidMarket will
make relevant academic research and evaluation visible and credit it.
There will always be more students and professors looking to improve
and impress, so the resource will never deplete. Of course, other
agencies will also be encouraged to analyze, share, and criticize the
data available to all.
