Showing posts from category development.
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March Conference on Population, Development, and the Environment
›February 28, 2007 // By Gib ClarkeCICRED is organizing an international conference on population, development, and environment in the South, March 21-23, 2007 in collaboration with UNESCO, as part of the Programme for International Research on the Interactions between Population, Development, and Environment (PRIPODE).
The conference will last two and a half days. Beyond the dissemination of the PRIPODE findings, this conference will also create an arena for dialogue between scholars, actors, and decision-makers from the South and the North, and it will aim to strengthen the links between research and action in the field of sustainable development.
For further information, please visit the Conference website. -
U.S. Forgives Liberian Debt; Now Only a Few Billion More to Go
›February 14, 2007 // By Alison WilliamsPresident of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—the first elected female head of state in Africa—spoke in Washington on Monday about the progress and challenges to development in her country. Efforts to expand development beyond the capital city of Monrovia (electricity and running water only recently returned after a 15-year hiatus) have been hampered by time spent pleading with international lenders to forgive the odious debt incurred during Charles Taylor’s regime.
Debt forgiveness seems like a no-brainer for a country that has shown remarkable progress in development and democracy, despite being written off not long ago as a decidedly failed state. So I was pleased to see Condoleeza Rice’s statement today, announcing that the United States will cancel $391 million of Liberia’s debt.
This is only a start though. Liberia’s total external debt is 3,000 times greater than the revenue of its exports. Without further forgiveness, the country will not be able to implement many (or any) of the plans Johnson Sirleaf spoke so passionately about during her U.S. visit: secondary road construction to revive trade in natural resources and agriculture, health care and education, and increased stability and security.
Surprisingly, Johnson Sirleaf focused very little on the role environmental resources played in Liberia’s decline. Charles Taylor partly financed his dictatorship and the war with Sierra Leone with revenues from timber, and the lifting of timber sanctions by the UN Security Council is arguably one of Johnson Sirleaf’s greatest accomplishments. Yet reference to timber was oblique; committing to better overall resource management, she said: “We are trying to build a country where our natural resources are used for the benefit of all.”
Similarly, diamonds—for which sanctions have yet to be lifted—were only briefly discussed. Johnson Sirleaf acknowledged the country is still struggling to comply with the Kimberly Process. And finally on the resource angle, Mittal Steel’s new contract for iron ore was a big focus point. It is an interesting new development if only because the company is one of the country’s few private investors—and at $1 billion, the contract is by far the largest. -
Reforestation in Niger: Is It a Model for Success?
›February 13, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesYears of drought, irregular rainfall, and environmental degradation ravaged Africa’s Sahel region in the 1970s and ‘80s, exacerbating economic, social, and environmental conditions in one of the world’s poorest regions. Coupled with an exploding population, these events provoked a collective re-think on development and conservation policy—shifting toward regional schemes to boost local capacities, establish effective land use policies, and improve community resilience to unpredictable climate conditions. Farmers in southern Niger provide a success story, reports The New York Times:“Better conservation and improved rainfall have led to at least 7.4 million newly tree-covered acres in Niger, researchers have found, achieved largely without relying on the large-scale planting of trees or other expensive methods often advocated by African politicians and aid groups for halting desertification, the process by which soil loses its fertility.”
Nevertheless, drought is only one of many forces dictating life in the Sahel. Add to the mix unknown impacts of climate change on the region’s drought cycles, shifting political and military power as well as variable financial flows from volatile markets like oil and it remains to be seen if this model can be replicated and sustained throughout the region.
For additional resources on the Sahel, see University of Nigeria Professor Anthony Nyong‘s presentation at the Wilson Center. -
European Conference: Integrating Environment, Development, and Conflict Prevention
›January 29, 2007 // By Alison WilliamsThe German EU Council Presidency will host a conference on European and national approaches and challenges to integrating environment, development, and conflict prevention in Berlin from March 29-30, 2007. Representatives from EU member states and the European Commission, civil society, the private sector, and the scientific community will identify and discuss key issues, and recommend ways to address the interdependency of environment, development, and conflict prevention policies and programs. Adelphi Research is a collaborating organizer of this conference.
Registration deadline is March 1. -
Poor Aid, Trade Policies Can Undermine Security, Say Authors of New Volume
›January 22, 2007 // By Wilson Center StaffTrade, Aid and Security: An Agenda for Peace and Development, a new edited volume arriving in bookstores next week, looks at the ways in which conflict and state failure can arise from inappropriate or misused aid and trade policies, particularly when natural resources are at stake. Richard Auty and Philippe Le Billon contribute a chapter on managing revenues from natural resources, and Ian Smillie discusses the relationship between aid and conflict.
Forward and introduction available from the International Institute for Sustainable Development. -
Sachs: Poverty Alleviation Route to Security
›January 19, 2007 // By Wilson Center StaffUrging a better understanding of the roots of instability, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs on Wednesday said that fighting poverty will provide security benefits to the developing and the developed worlds:“Instability will grow where poverty festers in an extreme form, that’s what we’re seeing in the Horn of Africa. This isn’t a crisis about Islam, this isn’t a crisis about geopolitics, this is essentially a crisis of extreme poverty.”
He cited mosquito nets, medicine, and fertilizer as three means to improve health and livelihoods among the world’s poor. -
Measuring the Global Glass Ceiling
›January 11, 2007 // By Wilson Center StaffA World Economic Forum report ranks 115 countries—together comprising 90 percent of the world’s population—by their relative gender gaps. Countries were ranked by the relative inequality between men and women in economics, education, political status, and health and survival. According to London Business School Dean Laura Tyson, who helped shape the report’s methodology, the rankings reveal a lost economic opportunity:“Countries that do not fully capitalize effectively on one-half of their human resources run the risk of undermining their competitive potential. We hope to highlight the economic incentive behind empowering women in addition to promoting equality as a basic human right.”
Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland have the smallest gender gaps. The Philippines, at six, is the only Asian country in the top 10. The United States comes in at 22.
