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March 16, 2010

Market Access for the Poor: Kimberly Ann Elliott on Trade Preference Reform

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Economic Growth, Private Investment, Trade Tags: , ,

Kimberly Ann ElliottThis week, I’m joined on the Global Prosperity Wonkcast by Kimberly Ann Elliott, a senior fellow here at the Center for Global Development. Kim’s research focuses on ways in which rich country trade policy affects the developing world. She currently chairs CGD’s working group on Global Trade Preference Reform.

Trade preferences are a way for countries to offer access to their markets to poor countries, in spite of other import tariffs or quotas that might otherwise apply. Kim tells me that most countries, including a growing number of advanced developing countries, have some form of trade preference program. However, she says, not all of them benefit developing countries very much.

“The problem is that these programs are often full of holes,” Kim explains. “They don’t cover everything, in most cases. And what they don’t cover is often what’s most important to the poor countries. It’s things like agriculture, clothing, and footwear that poor countries are especially good at making and exporting.”
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October 22, 2009

Benchmarking America: The 2009 Commitment to Development Index

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Aid Effectiveness, Capital Flows/Financial Crises, Global Development, Private Investment, Trade Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Congratulations to Sweden for ranking first in CGD’s 2009 Commitment to Development Index (CDI) for the first time since the creation of the Index in 2003. The United States, meanwhile, manages only a meager 17th place among the 22 wealthy countries ranked. In Benchmarking America, our second Global Prosperity Wonkcast, I ask CDI architect David Roodman to tell us why Sweden ranks first, why the United States gets such a mediocre score, and why Japan and Korea once again fall at the bottom of the list. Whether or not you are a podcast listener, I urge you to take a look at the greatly enhanced 2009 CDI Web site (now multilingual!). You can also watch the Webinar and read the brief or press release.

Subscribe to the podcast if you have iTunes.

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