Doing charity is more difficult than we think...

In 2004, the end of the WTO's Multi-Fibre Agreement flooded world markets with Chinese textiles. This accelerated the decline of the textile industry across the African continent, posing great challenges to countries that were becoming fairly competitive in the export of garments like Madagascar, Lesotho and Kenya (at least in the short-run!). A couple of years later, a well-intentioned charity is heavily criticized for trying to do the same. This is the latest installment in the debate about aid in the developing world.

While careful economic analysis could have saved Sadler some grief, the interesting part was that this whole story unfolded very quickly under the scrutiny of many. Sadler's attempt to ship used t-shirts to Africa drew the ire of economists, bloggers and aid experts. Faced with such scrutiny and criticism, he backed down, suspended his efforts and decided to harness the power of networks and social media to save face and re-invent his charity. What then, he asked, should he be doing to help Africa? Let's keep an eye out to see how this story ends.