Archive for April, 2008
With food and other commodity prices skyrocketing in recent months, energy and climate change have been all over the news.
Prices for rice, the staple food for about half of the world’s 6 billion people, have soared to record highs, with key benchmarks touching $1000-per-tonne earlier this month, more than double the rate at the start [...]
The OECD has just released key data on official development assistance (ODA) in 2007. According to these figures, the 22 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)–the world’s major donors–provided USD 103.7 billion in aid last year. This represents a decrease of 8.4% in real terms over the previous year. The fall was [...]
UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi hailed the Accra Accord and its accompanying political declaration for embodying the shared commitment of the developing and developed world ”to work toward making globalization a powerful means to achieve poverty eradication.” Quoting Ghanaian President John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor, whose country hosted the conference, Dr. Supachai referred to a new mood [...]
The European Commission has presented to the European Parliament its regular report on the openness of the European market to imports from developing countries. The report sets out how the EU has continued in 2007 to use its trade policy to advance a pro-development agenda and analyses the relevant data for which the most recent [...]
The Asian Development Bank has launched Strategy 2020, a new long-term strategy for its vision of an Asia and Pacific region free of poverty. Strategy 2020 sets ADB’s new strategic course, emphasizing that poverty reduction can only be sustained if more people are economically productive, economic growth takes place in a well-managed natural environment, and [...]
ADB’s flagship annual publication, Asian Development Outlook 2008 (ADO) shows that favorable policy conditions and impressive productivity growth associated with Asia’s economic modernization and structural transformation will continue to keep the region on a strong growth path. ADO warns that the risk of an inflation spiral in Asia is palpable and urges policymakers to keep [...]
Greater longevity is an indicator of human progress in general. Increased life expectancy and lower fertility rates are changing the population structure worldwide in a major way: the proportion of older persons is rapidly increasing, a process known as population ageing. The process is inevitable and is already advanced in developed countries and progressing quite [...]
This new report warns that most countries will fall short on the MDGs. Though much of the world is set to cut extreme poverty in half by then, prospects are gravest for the goals of reducing child and maternal mortality. The report also stresses the link between environment and development. The implication of this assessment [...]
UK DFID research on Growth. Building Jobs and Prosperity in Developing Countries
Growth can generate virtuous circles of prosperity and opportunity. Strong growth and employment opportunities improve incentives for parents to invest in their children’s education by sending them to school. This may lead to the emergence of a strong and growing group of entrepreneurs, [...]
Conditional cash transfer programmes constitute an important tool for reducing poverty and promoting social inclusion – two key objectives of the International Labour Organization. Mexico has one of the most successful programmes of this type, which was recently the focus of a seminar at the ILO headquarters in Geneva. But as it was clear from [...]
The Financing Facility for Remittances is opening its 2008 call for proposals on ”Promoting innovative remittance systems and investment channels for migrants”. http://www.iadb.org/mif/newsDetail.cfm?language=English&ID=48
PSIA is an approach developed in 2001 by the World Bank and other donors, while the PIA came about in 2006 as a result of discussions within the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The main difference between both tools is that the PIA is designed to focus on project, programmes or specific policy reforms, while [...]
”Trade liberalization and sustainable development are not unavoidably incompatible. Trade liberalization can advance sustainable development goals, just as it can retard their achievement. The same can be said for foreign direct investment. Appropriate investment can spur sustainable development, but much investment in developing countries has been environmentally, socially and often economically questionable.” (IISD Statement on [...]
Take afresh look at the Eldis Community. The Eldis Community is a free on-line community where you can meet others involved in international development, discuss issues that are important to you and share useful resources. Anyone with an interest in development issues can join the site free of charge. On the front page of the [...]
Europe Africa Business Summit (EABS)
http://www.europeafricabusinesssummit.org
Hamburg, 28-30 April 2008, CCH
Europe-Africa Business Summit 2008 is the first biennial Europe-Africa Business Summit to take place in Europe, organised by private non-governmental bodies and strives to increase European private sector awareness of the many commercial opportunities in Africa. The major theme of the summit is ”The State and the [...]
A Billion to Gain?
http://tinyurl.com/68lmym
The reports of ING Microfinance Support systematically chart large global financial institutions’ activities and future plans in microfinance. This third edition in the ‘A Billion to Gain?’ series provides an update of the latest report and serves three main objectives: To update global financial institutions’ activities and future plans regarding microfinance; [...]
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http://www.loband.org
loband is a service that simplifies web pages, in order to make them download faster over slow Internet connections. The simplified page viewed through loband will contain the same text information as the original. The formatting of the simplified page will be as similar to the original as possible, with colours and images removed. On [...]
Twelfth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to take place in
Accra, Ghana, 20-25 April
Heads of state, ministers, economists to discuss better translation of globalization gains into poverty reduction; nurturing and expanding South-South trade; commodities boom; regional integration; foreign investment for development, debt management; technology; growing impact of creative economy; importance of small firms and [...]
World Bank: Global Economic Prospects 2008
Technology Diffusion in the Developing World
Rapid technological progress in developing countries has helped to raise incomes and reduce the share of people living in absolute poverty from 29 percent in 1990 to 18 percent in 2004, says the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects 2008.
”Technological progress increased 40 to 60 [...]
A global ”green economy” is now emerging but governments must move fast to scrap the many barriers and fossil-fuel subsidies that hamper it, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said. Presenting an annual report, Year Book 2008, the Nairobi-based agency said investment in environmentally-friendly projects was rising fast and more and more corporations were driving to [...]
EU standardisation policy should focus more on product innovation and competitiveness, the European commission argued on Tuesday in a new policy paper. Standards and technical harmonisation can help speed-up the uptake of environmental technologies and liberalise trade in rapidly-growing markets, it said.
The commission’s policy paper outlines actions for a more market-led standardisation policy. Current standardisation [...]
Which factors are necessary to the achievement of a positive relationship between Trade and Sustainable Development?
”Trade liberalization and sustainable development are not unavoidably incompatible. Trade liberalization can advance sustainable development goals, just as it can retard their achievement. The same can be said for foreign direct investment. Appropriate investment can spur sustainable development, but much [...]
African Voices in Europe demand more effective aid for Africa’s poorest
http://practicalaction.org/?id=africanvoices
Practical Action has launched a new website – African Voices in Europe – to expose the failures of European aid and set out a new agenda for Improving aid for Africa’s poorest communities. African Voices in Europe exposes the failures of EC aid to reach [...]
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