
WorldChanger Ethan Zuckerman recently posted a thoughtful piece on his personal blog about the difficulties we in the developed world often have in creating emotional connection to the problems of the developing world, what Joi Ito calls the "caring problem." Ethan hopes that bridge blogs will help create more chances for us in the North to understand and identify with Southern people's perspectives and challenges. We hope so, too: indeed, that is part of what we're trying to do with WorldChanging: create a means to greater understanding and collaboration.
I think we could also extend this idea to architect blog networks that span both ends of the developed/developing chasm:
http://london.metblogs.com/archives/2005/03/progreso_progre.phtml