"Start small with things we know are effective," suggests Esther Duflo. Photo: kalyan3 (Flickr)

Esther Duflo is once again in the news, this time for having won the John Bates Clark medal. This is awarded by the American Economic Association to the most promising economist in the U.S. under the age of 40. We last wrote about Duflo's work on Global Envision back in May.

Duflo is a 37-year-old native of France and an alumni and professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Duflo is also the director of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, founded in 2003 with her MIT colleague Abhijit Banerjee and Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan.

Duflo's use of randomized controlled trials to assess aid effectiveness has become a hot topic among economists and the humanitarian community. Randomized controlled trials have been successfully used by drug companies, so why not for social policy measures? Controlled studies allow researchers to discover what works, what does not work, and why does it not work in a systematic scientific method. Sometimes the technology, the infrastructure, the funding, and the intention to "do good" is in place, but how do you know if the system is effective if you do not have a means for measuring progress and results?

Duflo is featured in this 16-minute TED talk, Esther Duflo: social experiments in poverty. In her talk she shows how her work with randomized trials has revealed answers to pressing issues in aid, like is it better to give away malaria nets for free, or make people pay for them? Watch the video to learn the answer.

FC Barcelona is one of the largest soccer clubs in the world. Photo: Foraggio Fotographic (flickr)

Soccer club FC Barcelona and Fox Soccer Channel — America's leading broadcaster of worldwide soccer — are teaming up with the non profit Malaria No More to fight the preventable disease that kills an estimated 1 million people a year.

In August 2008, FC Barcelona and Malaria No More announced their partnership in the campaign "More than a Club; Kick it to Malaria". Since then, over 1,000 nets have been distributed through online donations.

Carlos Puyol, FC Barcelona's captain, says he's grateful to be part of this cause. "We are all very happy, very proud to be here and to be able to support this great cause."

Fox Soccer Channel has also joined the cause by launching their campaign "Every Goal Saves a Life," where the channel donates $10 — the equivalent of one malaria net — to the More than a Club program for every live goal scored on the channel — the channel has raised over $10,000 so far.