Global Development: Views from the Center
November 18, 2008
Financial Crisis Requires Leadership, Including from Congress on Trade
Posted by Kimberly Ann Elliott at 03:20 PM
Congress has one more chance this week to do the right thing and pass the bilateral trade agreement with Colombia (as well as the one with Panama). The New York Times made the same argument in an editorial today, focusing on America's relations with Latin America and the blow to U.S. credibility around the world if it walks away from an agreement negotiated in good faith -- and then renegotiated to meet Democrats concerns in a number of areas after they captured Congress in 2006.
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November 17, 2008
Bail, Baby, Bail: What General Motors can Teach us about Policy Distortions
Posted by Vijaya Ramachandran at 04:36 PM
This is a joint posting with David Wheeler and Robin Kraft
When countries in Latin America or Africa descend into crisis, economists in Washington take a harsh view. Governments are forced to reduce spending in return for IMF rescue packages and in some instances, countries are even put on a cash-only budget. In the United States, we have a very different approach designed to minimize hardship of any kind -- the bailout.
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November 14, 2008
China to Share Stewardship of Global Stability?
Posted by Nancy Birdsall at 05:14 PM
Where was the IMF during the recent years of handwringing as China's current account surpluses fueled U.S. foreign indebtedness and a growing and worrying global imbalance? "Hamstrung" is the answer because to quote Arvind Subramanian, the IMF "has rarely, if ever, effectively influenced the policies of large creditor countries even where such policies have had significant negative effects on others." That's a point also made forcefully by Stan Fischer, former Senior Deputy Managing Director at the Fund, speaking (by phone) to a conference at the time of the October IMF/World Bank annual meetings.
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Still more on the First G-20 Summit
Posted by Nancy Birdsall at 04:59 PM
Here's my wish list (as a development economist especially concerned with the effects of the financial crisis and a subsequent global downturn on poor people in emerging markets and low-income countries) for the G-20 Summit. I’ll return to ask how they did next week.
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November 12, 2008
Dear Mr. President-Elect, Some Early Steps to Begin Elevating Development
Posted by Steve Radelet at 09:25 AM
This is a joint posting with Sheila Herrling
This week the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, a fast-growing bipartisan coalition of international development and foreign policy leaders that I am privileged to co-chair, will be sending to the Presidential Transition Team its recommendations for jump-starting the process of strengthening our development programs. A growing number of voices agree that now more than ever, we must substantially bolster our capabilities to fight poverty and create economic opportunities around the world, both through increasing our investments over time and by making these investments much more efficient and effective. Strengthening these programs may well be one of the best investments we can make over the long term to restore global stability, security and prosperity.
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November 10, 2008
Stopping the Emerging Markets Contagion Boomerang
Posted by Todd Moss at 05:02 PM
The U.S. rescue package is (rightly) focused on shoring up our domestic financial markets, ground zero in the global credit crisis. Even if this effort is successful, the United States and other global financial leaders cannot ignore the impact on emerging markets. As the crisis has now spread to Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere, we need to ensure that all available tools are used so that the downturn doesn't eventually boomerang back to us. This makes the participation of China, India, Brazil, and others at the upcoming financial summit this weekend not just good optics, but substantively critical.
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November 06, 2008
Smart Obamanomics for the President-Elect's Top Priority: Energy and Climate Change
Posted by David Wheeler at 10:39 AM
This is a joint post with Kevin Ummel, Robin Kraft, Joel Meister and Dan Hammer
During the second presidential debate on October 7, an exchange took place that tells us a lot about what to expect from an Obama administration:
Tom Brokaw: Senator Obama, if you would give us your list of priorities, there are some real questions about whether everything can be done at once.
Barack Obama: We're going to have to prioritize, just like a family has to prioritize … Energy we have to deal with today … So that would be priority number one.
November 03, 2008
Food Aid, With a Twist
Posted by Jenny Aker at 11:44 AM
This is a joint posting with Rebecca Schutte
Is purchasing food aid locally the answer to higher global food prices and the inefficiencies associated with imported food aid? The World Food Program (WFP), the Bill and Melinda Gates and Howard G. Buffett Foundations seem to think so. While donors and international organizations have been purchasing food aid in recipient countries for years, the idea got a new boost in late September with the "Purchase for Progress (P4P)" initiative. The idea is simple: Rather than import food aid from the U.S. or Europe, WFP will purchase food commodities for distribution within the same country or region. As Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, explained, "Purchase for Progress is a win-win -- we help our beneficiaries who have little or no food and we help local farmers who have little or no access to markets where they can sell their crops." The program will be piloted in twenty-one countries in 2008/2009, fourteen of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.
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October 31, 2008
Bravo for U.S. Temporary Liquidity Swaps with Emerging Markets
Posted by Nora Lustig at 05:29 PM
Last Wednesday the U.S. Federal Reserve Board announced that it had provided temporary liquidity swaps of $30 billion each with Brazil, Korea, Mexico, and Singapore, thereby significantly expanding the circle of countries that the Fed works with in this manner. This is a very welcome move. Since the beginning of the financial crisis, the Fed has made such currency swaps available to central banks in high-income economies, to help them shore up the value of their currencies as depositors and investors flee to dollar-denominated accounts.
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Glaring U.S. Absence at the Global Forum on Migration and Development
Posted by Michael Clemens at 04:18 PM
I spoke this week at the Global Forum on Migration and Development here in Manila, at both the government meetings and the civil society days. I came here to highlight the many policy questions about migration and development that can't even be asked until we have better data on human movement. As I've carped about before, it is much easier to gather statistics on the cross-border travels of coffee beans and toothbrushes than it is to count the international movement of maids and physicians.
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October 29, 2008
Weekly Development Policy News
Posted by Ben Edwards at 05:59 PM
Click here (opens Google Reader) to access my weekly selection of mainstream news articles covering rich-world policies and practices that affect poor people in developing countries.
This week's development policy news centered on the U.N.’s efforts to stop the violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the impact of the financial crisis on the food crisis.
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October 24, 2008
Slouching Towards Copenhagen?
Posted by David Wheeler at 10:47 AM
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold
-W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming
Could two U.S. delegations end up at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen next year? I’m beginning to think so. There have been some suggestive developments in recent weeks, although you could be forgiven for missing them in the furor over the financial crisis and rescue plan.
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October 23, 2008
Weekly Development Policy News
Posted by Ben Edwards at 05:51 PM
Click here (opens Google Reader) to access my weekly selection of mainstream news articles covering rich-world policies and practices that affect poor people in developing countries.
As rich countries begin to understand how the financial crisis will affect their economies, poor countries are beginning to wonder how it will affect theirs. This week's development policy news examined how rich countries can help poor countries avoid economic devastation caused by the financial crisis.
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Behind-the-Scenes Debate on Clean Tech Fund Reveals Deep Divisions, Shifting Attitudes
Posted by Joel Meister at 04:58 PM
As the World Bank moves closer to launching the Clean Technology Fund (CTF), serious questions remain over how the money will be spent. The political headwinds in Washington have shifted since June, when the Congress began to consider contributing to the fund. While the result is still uncertain, it appears increasingly likely that the CTF will ultimately focus on truly clean technology while generally avoiding investments in coal and other high-carbon fossil fuels.
October 22, 2008
Phoenix Rising: A Stunning Week of Calls to Elevate Development and Modernize Foreign Assistance
Posted by Sheila Herrling at 04:48 PM
From the ashes of the global economic crisis, rose a stunning number of calls this week to avoid U.S. protectionism and isolationism through sustained engagement in international development initiatives and efforts to modernize foreign assistance.
October 21, 2008
Did U.K. Give Zoellick a Nudge on World Bank Selection Process?
Posted by Lawrence MacDonald at 01:05 PM
According to an article by Heather Stewart and Larry Elliott in the Guardian early last week, the U.K. development secretary, Douglas Alexander, brokered a deal to throw open selection of the president of the World Bank to candidates from any country:
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Former and Current Finance Officials Wring Hands over "Toothless and Biased" IMF
Posted by Nancy Birdsall at 01:03 PM
A highly distinguished panel on the future of IMF organized by the Per Jacobsson Foundation during the Annual Meetings didn't so much debate the role of the IMF as wring its collective hands over the IMF's limitations in preventing the global financial meltdown and its lack of a role in organizing a response -- even as the G7 finance ministers held emergency meetings the same weekend elsewhere in Washington. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Per Jacobsson Foundation Board.)
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October 20, 2008
UNAIDS: Preparing for a New Phase
Posted by Ruth Levine at 03:53 PM
This is a joint posting with Danielle Kuczynski and Kristie Latulippe, co-authors of the Background Report for the UNAIDS Leadership Transition Working Group
