UNCTAD Warns Africa to Overestimate Export Boom
Weak supply capacity - that is, a limited ability to produce the quantity and quality of goods required to respond to global demand for those goods - is the main obstacle to improved export performance in Africa, and explains why the continent has lost market share from 6% of world exports in 1980 to about 3% in 2007.
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A Turning Point for Aid, Yet Which Direction?
Northern and Southern governments meeting in Accra, Ghana on 2-4 September further defined how they intend to improve the effectiveness of aid by 2010. The true depth of reforms to come will reveal whether aid will finally be used as an instrument for justice, or whether more of the same failed aid, simply polished around the edges, will signal the beginning of the end of the international aid system.
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Productive Capacities and MDGs in Focus at UNCTAD
UNCTAD's governing Trade and Development Board meets 15-26 September, with high-level discussion focusing on how to enhance abilities of developing-country economies to offer more varied and sophisticated products to world markets. The intent is to spur broad-based economic growth that creates jobs, reduces poverty, and allows achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
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Tensions over Georgia Reflect Old Policy Failures
Tensions between the United States and Russia have a long history, but one only need go back to the early nineties to see how our own government threw away its chance to have a better relationship with post-Communist Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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WDEV Dossier: Global Crisis and the South
Recent optimism that the corner was being turned on poverty thanks to faster growth in emerging markets and even some very poor economies is turning to anxiety, as the economy downshifts.
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Quality of Aid: It's the Donors, Stupid!
International aid is necessary for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Just increasing aid, however, is of limited relevance, if it is not used effectively. A lot of ODA is not spent well because of donor practices - not because of recipient's corruption or incompetence.
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After the Collapse of Doha: Analyzing the Failure
The saga has been ongoing since November 2001, when the current round of negotiations was launched in Doha, Qatar, with numerous subsequent ups and downs, near-collapses, and extensions. The latest round of talks in Geneva has once again failed to produce an agreement. A compilation of controversial analyses
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African Despotism and European Double Standards
Is there anything unusual about the events in question? An African despot, a good deal of bloodshed - at least 80 dead, 10,000 injured, 200,000 displaced -, a rigged election, a concentrated effort to dilute international interest which is very little in the first place - that list contains nothing out of the usual or expected, does it?
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Global Slowdown: The LCDs' Sword of Damocles
The world´s 50 poorest nations saw the values of their exports climb by a collective 80% from 2004-2006 and recorded their highest rates of economic growth in 30 years. But their increased dependence on selling a few unsophisticated products leaves them vulnerable to a reversal, this year’s LDC report of UNCTAD warns.
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Reforming IMF and World Bank Conditionality
The new century started with streamlining initiatives from the IMF and the World Bank to their conditionality, but these have not managed to deliver real change. The arguments have not changed over the last years, and opponents have become firmly entrenched in their positions. The machinery, however, seem to be coming slowly to life after the impasse.
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A New Deal Against Spreading Economic Insecurity
According to the new UN's World Economic and Social Survey, recent optimism that the corner was being turned on poverty thanks to faster growth in emerging markets and even some very poor economies is turning to anxiety, as the global economy downshifts, prices spike and weaknesses in formal-sector employment are exposed.
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The Political Declaration of the Group of 5 at G8
For the first time at a G8 summit the group of five countries which are called Outreach-5 (O5) by the G8 (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) held its own meeting prior to the meeting with the G8 leaders. The G5 Political Declaration is providing substantial alternatives to the multiple crises of the world - from finance to food security, from energy to climate and development.
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The Spectre of Global Stagflation
Inflation is already rising in many advanced economies and emerging markets. Will rising global inflation lead to a sharp global economic slowdown? Even worse, will it revive stagflation, that deadly combination of rising inflation and negative growth?
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Change IMF Policies Before Sale of Gold
US-based civil society groups are taking advantage of the most significant opportunity in at least a decade - and for the foreseeable future - to advocate for meaningful policy change at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They see a historic moment to work for an end to harmful IMF policy conditions that prevent countries from scaling up investments in health and education.
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European ODA: It's Not Only About Money
2008 is a critical year for evaluating how aid is helping tackle global poverty and inequality. Donor credibility is on the line as the world waits to be convinced that they will deliver on their many promises made to both increase aid and make it more effective.
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Food Crisis: In Grip of Financial Markets
The current price hike in food markets, some say, is caused by increasing demand, be it from emerging economies or for the production of biofuels, by rising input prices, such as oil and fertilizer, and by low stocks. Others consider food speculation the culprit. No doubt, agflation as the phenomenon has been dubbed, can partially be explained by speculation.
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Livestock: Contracted in Global Value Chains
In times of rising food prices, not only agrofuels but also industrial livestock production is under scrutiny. It is based on concentrate feed that competes directly with food and fuel, and indirectly for land and water resources. In addition, the livestock’s greenhouse gas emissions, as well as increasing human health costs and animal welfare concerns are calling for a change.
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Green Revolution versus Sustainable Agriculture
World hunger is not new. Before the current price increase, 850 million people - 13% of the world's population - were chronically hungry. The number of under-fed people has steadily climbed over the past decade. Now, the World Food Programme estimates that the crisis has driven another 100 million people into hunger.
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