Last year, our Center provided guidance on how donors could help immediately after the earthquake: Japan: “Cutting Through the Noise” – Effective donor help during the immediate relief phase and Japan, Haiti, and Donor Considerations for Disaster Relief.

This year, WSJ’s Marketwatch features Japan Disaster Recovery Hinges on Revitalizing Local Economy. Give2Asia, based in San Francisco, has released two reports for donors with opportunities for future investment: One Year Later: A Report to Donors and Stakeholders and Lessons Learned: the 2011 Disasters in Tohoku, Japan.

Global Philanthropy Forum 2012, “Toward a New Social Contract”

Philanthropy in the 21st Century: A Guide for Thinkers and Doers: Rahim Kahani’s interview with Global Philanthropy Forum (GPF) founding president, Jane Wales, on the role private philanthropy can play in addressing the world’s most pressing issues. At the upcoming 11th Annual GPF Conference in Washington DC on April 16-18th, our executive director, Kat Rosqueta, will join policymakers such as USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, World Bank President Bob Zoellick, Cape Verde’s former President Indira Pires, the UK’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as philanthropists such as Nigeria’s Tony Elumelu and Brazil’s Carol Civita.

For Donors: The realities of implementing evidence-based interventions on the ground

Ethiopians Trade Holy Water for AIDS Drugs: Describes one community’s shift from religious warnings against use of medications to archbishop’s call for concurrent use of medicine and holy water…and the resulting decline in deaths.

International Women’s Day

Education Is the Cure: Sara Brown, wife of former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, makes the case for investing in girls’ education and discusses the creation of “a new Global Business Coalition, which will support and galvanize international action to achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goals on education, while preparing the ground for an ambitious post-2015 agenda. Countries that lack resources will be able to draw on the Global Business Coalition to help reach every child, no matter how remote or rural their home.”

School Lunch Reform in Philadelphia

Can Marc Vetri Save School Lunch? An example of how individual philanthropists are using their funds, professional experience, and networks to model a completely different kind of school lunch for poor children.

Kate Hovde, Senior Analyst

Education Notes from Kate Hovde

Related to International Women’s Day: Looking for Impact? Invest in a Girl.

Data gathered by the Department of Education show continuing disparities between white and non-white students, including with regard to discipline and retention. Nationally, black and hispanic students are much more likely to be held back a grade. Black students particularly boys, are also subject to harsher discipline than their non-black peers. The question the data do not answer is why: Prejudice? Cultural clashes? Genuine behavior and academic differences? Some combination? The finding also prompts thinking about the issue in reverse: What elements are at work in schools where Black and Hispanic children are mostly succeeding…and where these discipline and retention differences do not exist? While few of the findings are surprising, having this data set is a tool for researchers to begin looking for additional answers. See related articles in Education Week and the New York Times.

The MetLife survey has been around 28 years. That teacher morale has hit its lowest point in 20 years is sobering, if not surprising news. But the survey also provides insight on what matters to teachers. According to a New York Times article, the survey found that: “teachers with high job satisfaction were more likely to feel secure in their jobs, and to have more opportunities for professional development, more time to prepare their lessons and greater parental involvement in their schools.”

Africa’s Girl Power: This “Fixes” piece by David Bornstein profiles Camfed, a non-profit involved in supporting girls’ education in Africa.