Germany made Africa one of the key themes for their dual presidency of the EU and G8

The German Presidency’s development co-operation priorities will include Africa (delivering on the G8′s promise, at the G8 summit in Gleneagles in 2005, of an extra 50 billion dollars per annum in development aid by 2010), work on a proposed EU-Africa energy partnership, progress towards economic partnership agreements and measures to combat AIDS and malaria. Resuming the Doha international trade negotiations will be one of the German Presidency’s priorities, but the EU should not focus on Doha to the exclusion of its important bilateral or bi-regional trade agreements (such as those with Mercosur, the Gulf Co-operation Council and the Andean Community). Industrial competitiveness, the drive for better regulation, and the need to build on the success of the so-called ”New Approach” to standardization in ensuring product safety will be high on the German Presidency’s agenda. Official Website: http://www.g-8.de

VENRO, the federal association of more than 100 development organisations in Germany, together with the African partner organisations of its members, worked out a manifesto ”Prospects for Africa – Europe’s Policies”. The NGOs call on the German Federal Government to campaign for a poverty-oriented European development policy focusing on the Millennium Development Goals. http://www.prospects-for-africa.de

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Global Economic Prospects 2007: Managing the Next Wave of Globalization

Globalization could spur faster growth in average incomes in the next 25 years than during 1980-2005, with developing countries playing a central role. However, unless managed carefully, it could be accompanied by growing income inequality and potentially severe environmental pressures, predicts the World Bank. According to Global Economic Prospects 2007: Managing the Next Wave of Globalization, growth in developing countries will reach a near record 7 percent this year. In 2007 and 2008, growth will probably slow, but still likely exceed 6 percent, more than twice the rate in high-income countries, which is expected to be 2.6 percent. On how globalization will shape the global economy over the next 25 years, the report’s ‘central scenario’ predicts that the global economy could expand from $35 trillion in 2005 to $72 trillion in 2030. ”While this outcome represents only a slight acceleration of global growth compared to the past 25 years, it is driven more than ever before by strong performance in developing countries,” said Richard Newfarmer, the report’s lead author and Economic Advisor in the Trade Department. ”And while exact numbers will undoubtedly turn out to be different, the underlying trends are relatively impervious to all but the most severe or disruptive shocks.” http://econ.worldbank.org/

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Yunus slates financial apartheid against poor

Nobel Laureate and Grameen Bank founder Prof Muhammad Yunus has criticised the existing international financial institutions for shutting out the world’s poor from receiving their credit. While delivering the keynote address at the international conference to commemorate the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Satyagraha’ form of political movement here yesterday, Prof Yunus also advocated the concept of social business to address socio-economic problems. ”Two-third of the world’s population do not have access to the financial services of these institutions. This is a form of financial apartheid,” he said. Prof Yunus said the significance of his getting the Nobel Prize for Peace was the relation between peace and poverty. ”Poverty is a threat to peace,” he said adding ”it is impossible for us to think of peace when 60 percent of the world’s population lives in poverty.” Referring to the menace of terrorism, he said, ”we have to fight terrorism but not through military action, but by addressing its root cause, which is poverty.” http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/01/30/d7013001044.htm

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Global Corruption Barometer 2006

Millions of people around the world come face-to-face with corruption in their daily lives, and urgently want their government to take action to stop it. This is the conclusion of Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2006, launched on December 7. The 2006 Barometer, a public opinion survey conducted for TI by Gallup International, looks at the extent of corruption through the eyes of ordinary citizens around the world. It explores the issue of petty bribery in greater depth than ever before, highlighting people’s personal experience of bribery, and identifying the sectors most affected by corruption, its frequency, and how much people must pay. http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/gcb_2006

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Trade Related Assistance: What Do Recent Evaluations Tell Us?

This report draws on key findings and recommendations emerging from available donor evaluation reports, assesses factors that have contributed to the success (or failure) of past programmes, and provides guidance for enhancing the effectiveness and impact of future trade-related assistance. It argues that despite some positive results, further improvements are necessary, in particular, with regards to donor programming, donor harmonisation and donor-recipient partnerships. Donors can enhance the effectiveness of trade-related assistance by better taking account of the basic principles of the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. http://www.oecd.org/dac/trade/evaluation

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Differential impacts of trade policy for men and women

Trade and trade liberalisation have very different impacts on women and men – which can result in fundamental shifts in gender roles, relationships and inequalities. Moreover increasing claims that countries should be enabled to ”trade their way out of poverty” means that there is an urgent need to address how trade can promote gender equality and development. This Development Gateway highlight with its related links aims to support trade specialists in bringing a gender perspective into their work, and to help gender specialists to understand the broad implications of trade policy and practice. Women all over the world are increasingly joining the bottom rungs of the global supply chain. It can be argued that increased opportunities to join the cash economy are a positive development for women, whose additional income has the potential to increase both their status and the well-being of the family. But what are the costs of new trade regimes, and do they outweigh the benefits? How can development practitioners promote gender equality and better support women’s access to the benefits of trade? What policies are likely to have an effect on gender equality and how can such policies be influenced? http://topics.developmentgateway.org/trade/highlights/viewHighlight.do~activeHighlightId=111772?intcmp=925

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ILO Decent Work Research Prize 2007

The ILO’s International Institute for Labour Studies has created a research prize to annually reward outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge on the ILO’s central goal of decent work for all, and calls for the nomination of candidates. The prize will be awarded during the next International Labour Conference (to be held in June 2007 in Geneva, Switzerland) where the winner will be invited to give a lecture to a global audience of government, employer and worker representatives. There will be a financial award of USD 10,000. The winner will be made Honorary Fellow for 2007-08. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/download/nom.pdf

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ADB blacklists 37 companies for corruption

Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) has announced having blacklisted 37 companies from dealings with it for up to 10 years for violating the bank’s anti-corruption code. The bank does not disclose the identities of those it debars. It banned 34 firms for one to seven years and three firms for 10 years from competing for ADB contracts. Fourteen individuals were banned indefinitely and 17 for periods ranging from one to seven years, while one person was reprimanded, the ADB said in a statement. http://www.adb.org/Integrity/

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Integrating Environment, Development, and Conflict Prevention – European and National Approaches and Challenges

Berlin, 29-30 March 2007, European Conference hosted by the German EU Council Presidency 2007.
The conference is intended to facilitate a dialogue among key officials from EU member states and the European Commission, civil society, the private sector, and the scientific community to identify and discuss key issues, policies, and best practices. It will provide recommendations for the European Commission / European Union and individual Member States to address interdependencies between environment, development, and conflict prevention in policies and programmes. Interdependencies between environment, development, and conflict prevention have gained significant importance on the international agenda over the past years. Energy and climate policy and responsible resource management are priorities of the German EU Council and G8 presidencies in 2007. Putting climate, energy, and natural resource management into the broader context of foreign and security policy opens up new perspectives for environmental and development policy making. A comprehensive strategy on environment, development, and conflict prevention should address not only root causes and triggers of conflicts, but also their governance context.
http://www.adelphi-consult.com/ECC2007/

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Conference: CSR Delivery, Engagement & Leadership

London, UK. 19-20 April 2007
At CSR Delivery, Engagement & Leadership you will hear useable and valuable advice, genuine experiences and practical case studies from a number of companies including Procter & Gamble, The Body Shop, Microsoft Belgium, Vodafone UK and many others. Next to a number of presentations and panel discussions, the event also offers practical sessions aimed at finding strategies for engaging employees on CSR and sustainable development issues. There is also plenty of room for round table discussions and delegate feedback. Info: mariame_lindell@osneymedia.co.uk http://www.csrleadership.com/tracker.asp?magazineid=556

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Self-evaluation: illusions, confusions, solutions and fusions

University of Fribourg, Switzerland, 26-27 April 2007, Continuing Education Centre
Continuing Education of University of Fribourg in collaboration with the Swiss Evalutation Society, SEVAL
Self evaluation is gaining acceptance as an approach to evaluation in some circumstances. This growing acceptance is due to a variety of contextual factors including the under-utilisation of external evaluations and dwindling resources available to commission external evaluations. But what are the circumstances in which this shift in the culture of evaluation can deliver on the promise of self-evaluation? Info: formcont@unifr.ch http://www.unifr.ch/formcont

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Eschborn Dialogue 2007, Capacity Development – empowering partners, promoting potentials

Eschborn, Germany, 28-29 June 2007, GTZ
Expertise and technology are key factors in the quest to find sustainable solutions to global challenges like climate change, environmental pollution and poverty. More than 400 representatives of politics, industry, research and the civil society will discuss with development experts the many facets of capacity development in the light of the international debate on this approach.
http://www.gtz.de/en/

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Free Online Course in Action Research

As with earlier programs, the theme of areol 25 is the integration of effective change with rigorous research. In some respects, it is a combination of the principles of community and organisational change with those for change-oriented qualitative research, sometimes with use of quantitative research too. The on-line sessions are supplemented by archived files on various aspects of action research and evaluation. http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/areol/areolind.html

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UNITAR 2007 e-Learning Course Calendar 2007

The United Nations Institute for Training and Research will be conducting at least seven online courses intended for a global audience of finance-sector officials. May we request you to kindly share this information with your colleagues whom you think may benefit from the suite of online courses for 2007. As you may already know, UNITAR courses are based on a decade-long experience in public debt management training. Over the past four years, thousands of finance-sector officials have already benefited from our e-Learning courses. http://www.unitar.org/dfm/DFMelearning/Index.htm

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Safe and Accessible: Bringing Poor Savers into the Formal Financial System

Poor people’s savings often remain in mattresses, piggybanks, or even holes in the ground. But a new CGAP Focus Note turns the spotlight on those savings and examines why they are so often invisible to financial institutions, while formal deposit services remain inaccessible to most poor savers. The answers have to do with weak institutional capacity, but also incomplete financial infrastructure, unhelpful donor practices, and unbalanced policy frameworks. The good news? Financial institutions, donors, and policy makers all have a role to play in increasing poor people’s access to quality savings services.
http://www.cgap.org/portal/binary/com.epicentric.contentmanagement.servlet.ContentDeliveryServlet/Documents/FocusNote_37.pdf

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Guidelines on group formation and management

Co-operatives among small farmers to grow out of poverty
This document describes what groups are, strategies of formation, training, group management and providing other hints on the formation of successful groups. It provides a list of traits of mobilizers engaged in group formation and leadership qualities. Committees to ensure successful group management are also recognized. The section on methods of group formation however, needs some modifications to reflect on the lessons learnt in the past few years. At least the three steps of group formation will have to be revised. The document gives the impression that groups are ”formed” by an outsider. This conveys a wrong signal! Groups are actually formed by the local people to meet their identified and unidentified benefits. If a group is formed by an outsider, it belongs to the outsider! What is more appropriate is an outsider to facilitate the group formation process while the actual formation itself becomes the responsibility of the local people. http://www.scn.org/cmp/modules/bld-grp.htm

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Does Africa really benefit from trade?

We empirically analyse the impact of trade on income levels in the sub-Saharan African countries. The results indicate that the linkage between these two variables is negative for these countries. This outcome may explain the negative sign of the Africa dummy in income (or growth) regressions. HWWI Research Paper. http://www.hwwi.de/8_Consequences_of_E.1127.0.html

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Environment and trade: a handbook

This handbook published by the United Nations Environment Program and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in 2006 explains how trade can affect the environment, both positively and negatively, and how environmental concern can work through the trading system to foster or hinder development in both rich and poor countries. The publication is addressed to those who have some knowledge about trade, environment or development, but who are not expert on the intersection of the three. It should serve as a practical reference tool for policy-makers and practitioners, and be equally useful to the media and civil society. With this in mind, the handbook uses clear language and a minimum of jargon to foster a greater understanding by all segments of the public. http://topics.developmentgateway.org/trade/highlights/viewHighlight.do~activeHighlightId=111966?intcmp=925

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Where Enterprises Lead, People Follow? Links between Migration and German FDI

The aim of this paper is to analyze the interaction between different channels of integration empirically. More specifically, we use state-level German data to answer the question whether and how migration and FDI decisions and thus integration of labor and capital markets are linked. Our findings suggest that FDI and migration have similar determinants. Moreover, there is substantial evidence that factors cluster. http://topics.developmentgateway.org/businessenvironment/rc/filedownload.do?itemId=1085839

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Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs): Instruments of economic growth and development in a South African regional dispensation

The South African economy is currently characterized by high levels of unemployment, abject poverty, high illiteracy, low productivity and low international competitiveness. It is also struggling to attract and retain foreign direct investment and portfolio investments. Amidst this situation, the formal sector is also continuously shedding jobs. Furthermore, the formal sector absorption capacity is steadily declining as is apparent over the past three decades, where formal the absorption capacity declined from approximately 75 per cent to about three per cent currently. Related to this is the fact that although the South African economy is growing, even at the currently low levels, it seems to be one that can be described as ‘jobless growth’. http://topics.developmentgateway.org/businessenvironment/rc/filedownload.do?itemId=1085101

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The Cluster Initiative Greenbook

The Cluster Initiative Greenbook, prepared for the 6th Global TCI Conference, takes a closer look at CIs around the world, mainly in OECD countries. It is built on a unique data-set of over 250 cluster initiatives, derived from the 2003 Global Cluster Initiative Survey and a series of case studies. Industrial clusters have important knowledge sharing implications, and their development marks movement towards a knowledge economy. http://www.cluster-research.org

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Microinsurance: A public-private partnership to combat the poverty spiral

Although they are among those who are at greatest risk, few poor people have access to insurance services. This fact only serves to further exacerbate the poverty spiral. How can this vicious circle be broken? After the microcredit, made famous by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus one of its ”spiritual fathers”, microinsurance is another useful financial service for risk management, and hence poverty reduction. http://www.deza.admin.ch/index.php?langID=1&navID=26465&itemID=151090

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Youth Employment Gateway – PathFinder Framework

Youth Employment Gateway – PathFinder Framework
”Create opportunities by spreading ideas, inspiring creativity and innovation and facilitating opportunities to take shape”. An organisational culture of innovation is a source of inspiration as well as a driver of opportunity. Effective leaders inspire and create a dynamic environment for innovation to flourish. They tend to frequently discuss matters with team members, solicit their feedback and seek to develop new ideas through them. This approach promotes a sense of ”anything is possible”, erases conventional boundaries of thinking and triggers new opportunities for the organization. Young men and women facing livelihoods challenges are often restricted by both perceived and very real limitations on the opportunities that are available to them. When practitioners use creative possibility thinking they set an example that can inspire young people to break down the barriers created by their limited belief in their own possibilities. It is thereafter that their perspective on possibilities widens. When their perspective opens up opportunities emerge. This is a direct result of effective leadership that inspires a culture of open learning, sharing and innovation. http://www.youthemploymentgateway.org

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