ideas about development
It’s a myth that aid is static, there are some exciting changes taking place. What are the new innovations that are improving aid effectiveness in the 21st century aid? As you read this blog post, keep at the back of your mind the determinants of aid effectiveness. (For more on this see a new discussion paper by Stephen Howes.) We can improve the quality of recipients by selecting on the basis of performance and results, and (trying) to improve [...] Read more »
As a former treasury economist I’m always delighted when reviews put numbers around their recommendations. It is good for transparency and brings greater clarity. There’s a lot in Australia’s new Aid Review report to think about and the panel have made a compelling case on how to spend an increasing aid budget aid wisely. This blog takes a look at some of the numbers in their plan. How much extra aid? The Aid Review forecasts that the aid [...] Read more »
Kevin Rudd used his first press conference as Foreign Minister to emphasise Australia’s commitment to global poverty reduction and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs include seven development goals for poor countries to be achieved by 2015: halving extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, reducing child and maternal mortality, reversing the spread of deadly diseases and environmental sustainability. This set of essential development outcomes are supported by an additional [...] Read more »
The Global Monitoring Report 2010 attempts to assess the impact of the global economic crisis on poverty. Are the numbers useful? According to the World Bank’s analysis, the global economic crisis has had an negative impact on poverty, but could have been much worse. The report argues that timely and effective policies, including IFI assistance, helped save the day. What was the impact of the crisis? The report correctly says that it’s too early to [...] Read more »
We’re often asked for data on this, that and the other. While a lot of this has to be hunted down through local sources, the World Bank has made your job of making international comparisons of WDI data much easier. Spurred on by the likes of Hans Rosling (see his terrific TEDTalk on ‘no more boring data’), the World Bank has released the whole of WDI database and improved the client interface. What’s more, they are holding a [...] Read more »
India has weathered the global economic crisis better than most countries, but has also felt the strain. Export and manufacturing sectors, though recovering now, were battered hard. The impact on poverty of even a two or three percentage point slowdown in economic growth is still possibly about six to nine million more people remaining in poverty. (A reflection of India’s high levels of poverty – with 456m people living on less than $1.25 a day, [...] Read more »
A debate has raged during the last week over a ‘tiny tax on bankers to tackle poverty.’ Surely who could object to such a thing? Well, economists have been quick to point out that the tax isn’t really a tax on bankers, nor is it tiny. Oh, and it might not help the poor as much as advocates claim. Tim Harford and Owen Barder both point out that while the tax rate may be tiny [...] Read more »
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