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It’s 2010! Ten Actionable Ideas (Realized and Yet-to-be-realized) for a 21st-Century Global Development Agenda
February 22, 2010
I attended a conference convened and hosted by Jean-Michel Severino, the head of the French bilateral agency, outside Paris last week. The question participants addressed was: What should be the goals of the international development community in the post-MDG period after 2015? Should the MDGs be retrofitted and complemented with goals reflecting today’s cross-border “global” challenges: fragile states, terrorism, pandemics and climate change? What are practical actions to address global goals that go beyond the basic needs of people captured by the MDGs? How would they be measured?
It got me thinking along the following lines. What are examples – some realized and some on the table but untested – for practical action in the interests of global prosperity? Where do good ideas come from? How do they get translated into action? (Followers of CGD might recognize our tag line: independent research and practical ideas for global prosperity.) When they are realized, are they the product of formal coordination (G-20? G-2? UNFCCC? IMF? OECD DAC?), or of a loose “architecture” based on networking of formal and informal and overlapping groups and people? And what requires coordination or cooperation in the first place? When is a first mover (the United States did the Internet) sufficient? When is a coalition of the willing (or as some want to say in a more politically correct way a progressive alliance) sufficient? When (perhaps rarely) does there need to be a completely international agreement?
Here are 10 actionable ideas for global prosperity, some that have been realized, then some currently on the table. Ask yourself where they came from, and what level of coordination they require. Less than I would have thought at first blush . . . but see what you think.
Realized or partially realized
1. An Advance Market Commitment . AMCs generate a market-like incentive for private sector development of a product that otherwise is not commercially attractive. One already exists for private sector production and distribution of a pneumococcal vaccine specific to infections that affect poor children in poor countries – with commitments totaling $1.5 billion from Canada, Italy, Norway, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. How about an AMC for a low-cost green energy technology? The one I like: to provide 3-4 hours a day of electricity for 10 years to off-grid rural households and schools in low-income countries.
2. An aid agency whose resources are protected from incursions for security and political and diplomatic ends. That is, an agency with its own budget and a mandate to invest in a limited set of very poor countries that meet high standards of ruling justly, meeting the needs of their people, and providing an environment friendly to small businesses. In the United States it exists: the Millennium Challenge Corporation. To follow its progress — and its problems — go here.
3. An International Initiative for Independent Evaluation — because USAID and the World Bank and the Kuwait Fund and Care and Save the Children and developing countries themselves have limited incentives to evaluate their own investments — thus an Evaluation Gap persists about what development programs work and why.
4. The G-20 that is replacing the G-7/8 as the more representative and potentially effective arena where heads of state address global economic issues. A G-20 that was even more representative, along the lines that Ramachandran and Rueda-Sabater propose, would be even more legitimate and effective.
Ought to be realized soon
5. The Golden Door Visa my colleague Michael Clemens has suggested, under which the United States would annually admit 100,000 emigrants from low-income countries, in the interests of returning to the spirit represented by the Statue of Liberty, that the United States is a land of economic opportunity.
6. Duty-free quota-free access to all markets for all least developing countries. (This is one of the MDGs that rich countries can instantly implement; a new CGD report urges the advanced developing countries, including Brazil and China, to do so too.)
7. Per capita distribution of the net income from oil and other non-renewable resources, with international monitoring and enforcement of the people’s sovereign rights to those distributions (as proposed for Iraq and Ghana) – to make governments more accountable and minimize the corruption and conflict that have cursed Nigeria, Angola, and Congo (coltan not oil) and now threatens Uganda (where oil has just been discovered).
8. Double-majority voting for election of the heads of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – that is a majority of weighted votes and a majority of country members. For why these institutions’ legitimacy problems matter, go here.
9. A new GPG (global public good) window at the World Bank — the fifth of five crucial tasks for the next World Bank president set out in a CGD report, and argued further here. The window should have a 50/50 governance arrangement and its own staff, (the Climate Investment Funds at the multilateral banks already have 50/50 governance) to address truly global, non-country based, challenges: research and programs in climate, agriculture, and health. For the same idea for climate financing set out by the Mexicans, check out their proposed Green Fund, and by the IMF, another Green Fund, also discussed here and here.
10. A variable tax that creates a floor on the price of gasoline of at least $3.50 a gallon in the United States, as Tom Friedman has argued, with the revenue used to reduce the payroll tax and help America’s working families adjust to the low-carbon economy (as argued by CGD senior fellow David Wheeler). (For an idea for a rebated carbon tax, see the legislation proposed by Senators Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins). By the way, that would encourage the job creation that Dani Rodrik wanted to see as part of last year’s stimulus package. When and whether and how the United States demonstrates the political capacity to tackle its own emissions is critical to when and whether the world will do so, and that matters tremendously.
And there are more good ideas out there! Endow independent think tanks in low-income countries (happening); increase the capital at development banks already fully owned by emerging market and developing country members, such as the Andean Development Bank (just happened) and the Southern Africa Development Bank (whose Chair Jay Naidoo attended the above conference); the Climate Investment Funds that are leveraging private investment money including for clean energy production in developing countries; COD Aid – my “project” at CGD; new insurance and risk management instruments at the multilateral development banks, as argued by Guillermo Perry and summarized here.
Let’s get on with it.
7 Responses to “It’s 2010! Ten Actionable Ideas (Realized and Yet-to-be-realized) for a 21st-Century Global Development Agenda”
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February 24th, 2010 at 6:48 am
These are ten good ideas, Nancy.
I’ve suggested ten more, here:
http://www.owen.org/blog/3103
What is striking is that developing countries do not only, or even mainly, need more and better aid, though that would help; they need changes to the international system.
It would be interesting to score each of your ten ideas, and each of mine, according to (a) how big the impact would be on people in poor countries; and (b) how achievable they might be. The two scores combined would give us a powerful sense of which proposals should be priorities to pursue.
Owen
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:09 am
Thoughtful ideas, Nancy. And I appreciate Owen’s innovative list. You two are impossible to match.
That said, here are ten more (ok, actually 41 more, but you can peruse the top ten) on the Good Ideas site for global development. I won’t pretend these are as cogent as yours, but I am going to link to your lists so at least the archive will be complete.
I also really like Owen’s idea of taking this a step further and ranking the ideas against appropriate criteria (feasibility, cost, impact) so we’re clear which small number of ideas we really should be getting behind most actively.
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:12 am
Sorry, my link didn’t show up in the previous post. Here it is again:
http://bit.ly/beEl8c
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Hey everyone – this is so interesting, can’t help adding a small bit….
I work for a music school in Bangalore, India – and feel that the cross-cultural exchange of musicians, artistes, poets is a very important part of cross-border development. Currently working on a few projects, will share soon.
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:04 am
– We should revive Anne Krueger’s old initiative, from when she was at the IMF, for a “bankruptcy” regime for national governments, to cut financial (debt) crises short before they impact too many poor people.
– The U.S. should have “an aid agency whose resources are protected from incursions for security and political and diplomatic ends” for technical assistance as well as for financial assistance.
– Perhaps more importantly, we need to clarify the difference between financing and assistance in aid programming and in implementation of the Paris Declaration. (E.g.: banks “finance” but don’t “assist.”)
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:56 am
I disagree with the example of the MCC. MCC indicators are merely Washington Consensus plus/neo-liberal type policies forcing developing countries into standards which are actually detrimental to them.
March 7th, 2010 at 3:53 am
TEN IDEAS FROM MSIMAMO BARAKA
A. The Golden Door Visa and illegal migrations
1.Repertoriate youth needs as well as reasons of migrations.
Needs youth include: Driving car and motor, internet cyber, trade, organised and sponsorised sports ( Boys and Girls : football ,basketball and running that is 100m ,400m ,800m ,5000m,10.000m and cross country … )
Settle down “ Belt of Hope “
That is a series of projects attracting youth having quick impact on fields ,in term of money and materials.
Issue visa according to the number of population in developing countries.
Example (1). Democratic Republic of Congo, which has more than sixty million inhabitants, would have more visa than Burundi having eight million.
Example (2). Nigeria, which has more than 100 million inhabitants, would have more than Rwanda.
Zero visa payment between developing countries.
Example 3. No visa payment required between Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. This would be for developing countries one of the best way allowing change of experiences as well as goods and services.
B. Reducing poverty
4. Settle down up date statistics of poor people.
This is going to be the best way of having ideas of who is to be supported.
5. Mainly female householders provide small credits.
Financially and see how material supports can be handed .
Increase poultries in villages neighbouring big cities to begin with, as well as cattles.
Hens, goats and cows.
C. Climate Investment Funds, Environment and New Technology of Information and Communication
7. “Green crusade “, insuring food for all, which is going to be cause of eradicating killings
Increase intensive as well as extensive agriculture.
8. Massive planting of Fruit trees and Greens in homes compounds.
Avocadoes, Papayas, Oranges, Mangoes and others according to climate where they easily grow.
9. Protect and restore forests, lakes and rivers. Example 1 .Forest of Democratic Republic Congo and United Republic of Tanzania would be well protected and pay the role they are playing for CO2.
10. Increase communication in term of diminishing price for developing countries.
We need more devices and set of second hands ones (radio, TV, stove and telephone) whenever available for the lowest income homes.
NOTE
MSIMAMO BARAKA, which is an association operating in Democratic republic of Congo and Burundi to begin with, has much ideas.