Place Based Economic Development with Simon White

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Simon White

Simon White

Simon White is a specialist in place-based economic development, private sector and business development and business environment reform.

Measuring Donor-Supported Business Environment Reform Results

The Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) has just published guidance for donor and development agencies on how to measure the results of business environment reform support programmes. I prepared these guidelines along with members of the DCED’s Business Environment Working Group. The guidance can be downloaded from here.

The innovation imperative - building competitiveness beyond the resources boom

The Australian Institute of Management and the University of Melbourne have released a report on firm-based innovation, which highlights the challenges to firms. While innovation can occur by change, firms do better by ensuring the systems are in place for innovation to flourish. This requires a whole-of-organisation

Lies, damned lies, and African statistics

“Figures often beguile me,” wrote Mark Twain, “particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’” There is some dispute as to whether Disraeli

Afrobarometer: After a decade of growth in Africa, poverty continues

Afrobarometer has just released a new policy brief: “After a Decade of Growth in Africa, Little Change in Poverty at the Grassroots”. In it, Boniface Dulani, Robert Mattes and Carolyn Logan present data collected across 34 African countries between October 2011 and June 2013, which demonstrates that “lived poverty” remains

Preferential option for the poor

Simon White | Finding the balance between economic growth and achieving pro-poor development outcomes.

One-stop-shops for business and investment

Simon White | An article on one-stop shops for business and investment promotion in Africa.

Photovoice: Street Life in Ivory Park

The recently released Participate report, Work With Us (see my previous post), contains a short case on an interesting photographic assignment that was conducted in Ivory Park, South Africa. Ivory Park is a large township in the City of Johannesburg. The landscape is densely settled, and the street is central