Entries in July, 2008

Chronic poverty report - praise from Alex Evans

  • July 23rd, 2008

Alex Evans at Global Dashboard
I’m currently immersed in writing the main pamphlet for my project on food prices with Chatham House (hence not much posting for the last few days) - but I have to take ten minutes out to sing the praises of the gorgeous piece of writing I’ve been immersed in for the [...]

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Al Gore sums it up

  • July 18th, 2008

Al Gore (reported in the NY times)
“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.”

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Fickle donors and unpredictable aid

  • July 18th, 2008

The Economist has reported a paper by Oya Celasun (IMF) and Jan Walliser (World Bank) which looks at the impact of unpredictable aid:
They show how unpredictable such aid flows are. The paper finds that the average absolute difference between aid promised and aid given was equal to 3.4% of each sub-Saharan African nation’s GDP between [...]

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Obama promises to double aid to Africa

  • July 17th, 2008

Obama promises to double US aid
I know development assistance is not the most popular program, but as President, I will make the case to the American people that it can be our best investment in increasing the common security of the entire world. That was true with the Marshall Plan, and that must be true [...]

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Democracy losing ground in Africa?

  • July 15th, 2008

Democracy is losing ground in Africa - Los Angeles Times
In addition to disputed presidential elections in Zimbabwe and Kenya, where longtime incumbents refused to cede power after their opponents declared victory at the polls, last year’s ruling party victory in Nigeria was widely condemned as flawed. Uganda’s president changed the country’s constitution to stay in [...]

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A jaundiced view of volunteers

  • July 11th, 2008

Giving Back - The volunteers descend on Ghana
I found a travel blog website and zoned in on Ghana and the stories of this year’s volunteer troups. The diaries and accounts read just like a book. A book I’ve read so many times. The positive attitude reigns – despite being pick pocketed in a trotro, being [...]

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The UK should help reform the G8 before it is too late

  • July 10th, 2008

Lawrence MacDonald at the Center for Global Development says we should scrap the G8
Once again the G8 has come up tragically short on climate change and a host of urgent problems affecting poor people in developing countries.
Meanwhile, over at Project Syndicate, Jim O’Neill says the G7 and G8 should be reformed by reducing European voice:
For [...]

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Government data and the invisible hand

  • July 9th, 2008

A paper by Princeton academics says that:
It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing websites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility. Rather than struggling, as it currently does, to design sites that meet each end-user need, we argue that the executive branch should focus on creating a [...]

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Brown to press G8 for more progress on Africa

  • July 3rd, 2008

According to Andy Grice in The Independent Gordon Brown plans to continue to press G8 leaders to live up to their commitments on Africa:
Mr Brown’s four-point plan for the annual G8 gathering includes a $60bn boost for health care in developing nations, to recruit more health workers; extra money to meet shortfalls in a $1bn [...]

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If not now, when? (Agricultural trade reform)

  • July 2nd, 2008

If we can’t get an agreement on cutting food tarriffs and limiting market-distorting agricultural subsidies now, while food prices are surging (see graph), then when we will ever?

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