[okfn-dev] Visualizing aid flows

[Guo Xu]

Hi all,

First, congrats to the great launch yesterday! Sorry I couldn't join
you at the Transmediale, but I'm still recovering from a flu.

Second, I just wanted to drop a mail to get some general feedback for
a quick idea:

Currently, I'm working for EUSECON
(http://www.economics-of-security.eu/eusecon) and am writing a paper
about the role of development aid as an instrument of security policy.
I have been analyzing the bilateral aid flows across countries - the
first thing you realize is that aid allocation is not only political
but incredibly inconsistent even within the EU (e.g. Germany gives aid
to China which gives aid to Sudan etc. pp.).

It would be really interesting to visualize these relationships -
currently, I'm just number-crunching them with huge matrices and
statistical analyses. It would be really neat to display the aid
confusion using a simple map depicting the flows. Basically, this
could simply use the app Gregor has written for the energy project -
one would only need to add a few minor adjustments, so I guess it
would be fun and easy. It would also be a useful way to communicate
this persisting problem to policy makers.

I have most of the data lying around on my computer anyway, so I could
easily convert them into the format required for the app.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

Guo