Development blogger Tom Paulson writes in Humanosphere about recent discussions on the effectiveness of development aid. “There’s a popular trend today among many humanitarians, aka the aid and development sector, to try to show the benefit of their projects — be it digging a well, feeding kids or improving access to basic health care — with scientific data. That’s good in principle, if you have a well-designed study that produces meaningful data. But that can be a big if when what you are trying to test is a reduction in poverty, social and economic improvements, healthy behavior change or many of the other aims of aid and development…” (2/3).