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 Read more…
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 Read more…
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 Read more…
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 Read more…
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 Read more…
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 Read more…
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?
The new Chronic Poverty Research Centre website was launched today; and the second Chronic Poverty Report will be launched next week: Four years ago, the Chronic Poverty Research Centre published the Chronic Poverty Report 2004-05. This was the first major international development report to focus on the estimated 320 to Read more…
Justin Muzinich and Eric Werker propose “a better approach to foreign aid” in the form of tax credits for companies that invest in developing countries: tax credits for U.S. companies promise more aid, less waste, and the hope of better institution-building than government-to-government assistance. The next question is how a Read more…
According to Hugh Williamson in the FT the 8 richest countries are stepping back from the commitment they gave in Gleneagles to increase aid: Leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations are set to backtrack on their landmark pledge at the Gleneagles summit in 2005 to increase development aid Read more…