Development Policy
The Case for Public Investment
The fiscal crises now besetting several OECD countries risk replaying the long agony of over-indebtedness in Africa. In Africa the process was directly overseen by the IMF. Its model of debt sustainability implicitly assumed that public investment was entirely unproductive: this was the implication of the absence from the model of any link between public [...]
The Great Hunger Lottery: How Banking Speculation causes Food Crises
Last week a British hedge fund bought 250,000 tonnes of cocoa beans, pushing prices up to a record 33-year high. Hedge funds and banks are constantly speculating on food and other commodity prices, but what was unusual in this case is that the hedge fund actually took delivery of the beans. These actions are an [...]
What Can the European Union do for Development?
The European Commission’s Development Directorate has a fresh team in charge: a new Commissioner and a new Director General. What should be their priorities? The Commission writes big cheques: its aid budget makes it one of the largest donors. Yet aid is not the Commission’s comparative advantage. It accounts for only around a fifth of [...]
Africa’s Window of Opportunity
Just when Europe’s economic future has deteriorated Africa’s is looking more promising than for many decades. That promise is underpinned by global commodity prices, high despite the world recession, and by years of gradual reforms. The revenues from resource extraction are going to increase massively. This is because Africa is the last frontier for resource [...]
Brave New World? Emerging Powers Need to Show Responsible Leadership
Much has been written about the world becoming multipolar, but nobody seems to be able to tell what such a world would actually look like. After the spectacular nuclear deal between Turkey, Brazil and Iran, the picture becomes a little clearer and it seems that the P5, the mighty five permanent members of the Security [...]
Development Aid in Five Easy Steps
Every country, rich and poor, should ensure universal coverage of primary health care, including safe childbirth, nutrition, vaccines, malaria control, and clinical services. Each year, nearly nine million children die of conditions that could be prevented or treated, and nearly 400,000 women die because of complications during pregnancy. Almost all of these deaths are in [...]
Hope in Haiti
The post-earthquake situation in Haiti has been recognised as being analogous to post-conflict, and donors have been appropriately generous. Between them, the European Union, the US, and other donors have pledged a sum approaching 7 billion euros to fund reconstruction, the single largest contribution coming from the EU. The international response is important, even beyond [...]
How to Really Help Africa
Despite the enlargement of the G8 to the G20, Europe remains its largest presence. In November France will host the G20 meeting, and so Europe will have the predominant influence on the agenda. While Africa is permanently on the agenda, the question is how we might best use that moment to do something for our [...]
Assessment System Required to Ensure Aid Makes a Real Difference
How should aid be provided? Aid appears to be at its best when it is designated to finance beneficial projects. If aid finances a school or a health clinic then surely it is useful. Unfortunately, this is often an illusion for the simple reason that such projects may well have been undertaken by the government [...]
New Development Commissioner has his Work cut out
News of the appointments in the new European Commission has been dominated by the political struggles for the high-profile positions. The portfolio responsible for the Commission’s development program in poor countries is decidedly not one of them. The Financial Times, reporting on the appointment of Andris Piebalgs to the post, suggested that he deserved better. [...]
The new European Commission needs to use its Experience to stabilise fragile States
In the face of the political and military deterioration in Afghanistan international ambitions have been radically scaled back. The initial intent was to turn Afghanistan swiftly into a replica of a Western democracy. The new objective is to settle for any government that blocks terrorism. State-building has been abandoned both because it is evidently difficult, [...]
Who will run the World?
The tectonic plates of the global economy are beginning to settle into a new alignment. At Pittsburgh it was announced that henceforth the G20 would replace the G8. At Istanbul, where I have just been, Stanley Fischer, currently Governor of the Central Bank of Israel and hugely influential, used the Annual Meetings of the IMF [...]
