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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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Global Development: Views from the Center
Archive for February, 2007From Hollywood to Wall Street and Texas, a Green WeekendFebruary 26, 2007Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, Migration and Labor Mobility
Comment »Madame PresidentFebruary 20, 2007Posted by Tony Kopetchny in Global Development, Liberia Tags: Corruption, LiberiaWhile most of us were taking a holiday yesterday, Molly Kinder, who previously worked as a program coordinator at CGD on Millions Saved, and is now a graduate student at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, sent the following reflections on Presidents’ Day. 1 Comment »Legislators Urge G8 Action on Climate ChangeFebruary 16, 2007Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Global Development, Global Warming, Migration and Labor MobilityLegislators who hold key environmental posts from 13 of the world’s largest industrialized and developing countries urged their countries’ leaders to agree at the upcoming G8 summit in Germany to work together to cut CO2 emissions that threaten catastrophic climate change. Christopher Connell, who has been covering the two-day Legislative Forum on Climate Change for CGD’s Views from the Center blog, filed his third and final report: Comment »China and India Weigh in at Legislative Forum on Climate ChangeFebruary 14, 2007Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, Globalization, Human Rights, Migration and Labor Mobility, World Trade Organization Tags: Human Rights, On the Hill
2 Comments »U.S. Senators Tell Visiting Lawmakers That U.S. Resistance to Action on Global Warming is ThawingFebruary 14, 2007Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Global Development, Global Warming, Migration and Labor Mobility
Comment »U.S. Foreign Economic Aid in 2008: Winners and Losers in President Bush’s Proposed BudgetFebruary 12, 2007Posted by Carol J. Lancaster in Global Development, U.S. Foreign Aid Reform Tags: Corruption, On the HillThere is no public document that is more revealing of a government’s priorities than its budget. In Washington-speak, it’s where the rubber hits the road. 1 Comment »Report from the Field – the Challenges of Rebuilding LiberiaFebruary 8, 2007Posted by Nancy Birdsall in Africa, Liberia, Regions Tags: Liberia, RegionsI’m here in Liberia observing a post-conflict situation through a development lens. I’m struck by several aspects of the complex task of rebuilding after 14 years of civil war. 1 Comment »President Bush’s 2008 Budget and DevelopmentFebruary 5, 2007Posted by Carol J. Lancaster in Aid Effectiveness, Foreign Aid Reform, Global Health, U.S. Foreign Aid Reform Tags: Foreign Aid Reform
7 Comments »To Stop Project Proliferation, U.N. Consolidates Local Office FundingFebruary 2, 2007Posted by David Roodman in Global Development, UncategorizedYou’ve probably heard of UNDP, the U.N. Development Programme, because it publishes the Human Development Report each year, which includes the influential Human Development Index. You must recognize the name UNICEF (the U.N. Children’s Fund), and you might know about the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and WHO (the World Health Organization). But can you tell me what ILO, UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNODC, and UNV are? All these acronyms represent U.N. agencies that deliver aid in Vietnam, each with its own budget, staff, and offices. (Though when I lived there, some shared buildings.) The same agencies operate in parallel in many other countries too, often with overlapping mandates and independent projects.
Comment »The IPCC Debate on Sea-Level Rise: Critical Stakes for Poor CountriesFebruary 2, 2007Posted by David Wheeler in Africa, Asia, China, Climate Change, Environment, Global Education, Global Warming, Human Rights, Migration and Labor Mobility, Regions, United Nations Tags: Human Rights, UN
10 Comments »Better Late than Never: Bush Administration Includes Poverty Reduction as Goal of Foreign AidFebruary 2, 2007Posted by Administrator in Aid Effectiveness, Foreign Aid Reform, Global Health, U.S. Foreign Aid Reform Tags: Foreign Aid ReformMembers of the development community were pleasantly surprised when they opened their email box on Wednesday. After a year of voluble criticism from development advocates, U.S. Director of Foreign Assistance and USAID Administrator Randall Tobias had finally inserted the magic word “poverty” into the Bush Administration’s core objective for foreign aid. According to the revised Strategic Framework for Foreign Assistance (pdf), the central goal of the “transformational diplomacy” has been altered to read:
Ambassador Tobias explained the rationale in the following note to the aid community, which asserts that poverty reduction was implied from the outset: Comment »
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On Capitol Hill today an unusual dialogue took place involving U.S. senators and congressmen and more than 80 visiting lawmakers and officials from a score of the world’s largest energy consuming nations. The two-day Legislative Forum on Climate Change comes at a time when there is growing domestic and international pressure for the U.S., the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, to take an active role in addressing a problem that has been largely created by the high-income industrialized countries but will place a heavy burden on poor people in the developing world.
While all the figures are not yet available, it appears that the budget for foreign assistance is proposed to rise in 2008 by approximately $4 billion, not counting funding for reconstruction in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first part of its long-awaited Fourth Assessment Report. This is a major event, because the Report strengthens the scientific consensus about the threat from global warming if we don’t curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Report projects sea-level rise of 0.2 – 0.6 meters by 2100 but, citing uncertainty in the scientific literature, it simply excludes the possibility of future rapid changes in the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. This conservative posture reflects the IPCC’s insistence on scientific consensus. However, according to press accounts from the IPCC’s Paris meetings, the experts continued arguing about Greenland and West Antarctica until their publication deadline arrived. In the case of Greenland, at least, no one believes that its ice cap will survive sustained temperatures in the range that the IPCC projects. Ultimately it will disappear, adding 7 meters to sea level. The argument is about timing, not results: No one expects complete disintegration in the 21st century, but there are worrisome signs that the process has begun. Eventual disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet remains controversial; if it happens, it will add another 7 meters to sea level.
