(February 16, 2011) In January, the bankers and corporate executives at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, presented a plan to create $100 trillion US dollars (about €700 billion or ¥7 trillion) in new international debt.
(December 17, 2010) U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar announced today that criminal prosecution of firms and individuals caught defrauding the World Bank and the other multilateral development banks is an important deterrent, but use of this tool varies widely among the banks.
(October 14, 2010) While corruption in Uganda becomes more endemic, the World Bank continues to hand over millions of dollars of foreign aid funds – not realizing that this money is making the situation worse, writes Brady Yauch.
(June 11, 2010) Matthew Saltmarsh from the New York Times says the citizens of the Maldives are demanding former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom hand over the millions he stole while in power.
(May 19, 2010) Independent think tank Ibon Foundation gave unsolicited advice to Sen. Benigno Aquino III, frontrunner in the presidential elections, urging him to eschew proposals to hike tax rates in order to improve the country’s fiscal picture.
(May 11, 2010) A number of African leaders are now saying that foreign aid is no longer the only answer to economic development of the continent. Instead, they are calling for reform of the tax system, pointing out that Africa currently has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world.
(May 10, 2010) A report sponsored by the United Nations, and overseen by Jeffrey Sachs, urges rich countries to spend more on cutting hunger and poverty in the developing world. But there are still plenty of cynics.
(April 17, 2010) Foreign aid has generally benefited the ruling elites in Africa, by among other things, enabling and perpetuating corrupt governments’ hold on power, and by extension, entrenching the pervasive underdevelopment. Over the past five decades, foreign emergency assistance to Africa has helped to avert hardship for many of Africa’s poor, but failed to promote any significant economic development.
(March 31, 2010) Haiti-based businessman Maulik Radia has weathered two coup d’etats, two major hurricanes and now an earthquake in the country he’s worked in for the past 25 years.
(March 31, 2010) All past international efforts to turn Haiti into a functioning democracy have failed. There are better ways forward.
(March 30, 2010) Haiti and its donors need to face up to bad governance and failed aid. They need to develop a strategy against corruption. This means more than controls and audits, more than training and technical assistance, needed though they are. We must ask how the design and implementation of Haiti’s reconstruction and development strategy might address what public administration experts Derick Brinkerhoff and Carmen Halpern called the sanctioned plunder that was and remains the core of Haitian politics.
(March 30, 2010) HIPC was a necessary evil we agree. We also recognize that it is a stop-gap measure that addresses the symptoms of our under-development, rather than the causes a half-hearted response to the ever-growing agitation for total debt cancellation that characterized the 1990s. But, even total debt cancellation will not solve our problems. At best, it will provide a temporary respite from the excruciating poverty we have known for decades now.
(March 5, 2010) Interview with Dambisa Moyo from The New Statesman.com.
(March 3, 2010) Criticism of the high salaries being offered to contractors working with AusAID, Austrialia’s national aid agency, is the latest example of the increased scrutiny facing aid agencies around the world. The criticism comes after a recent audit showed that a number of aid workers are earning more money than the country’s Prime Minister. And they’re doing so tax-free.
(March 2, 2010) As calls for a “Marshall Plan for Haiti” continue to make headlines, an increasing number of reports are beginning to ask: is aid the answer? A recent report from PBS interviews a number of aid supporters and critics, asking them if a massive aid program to Haiti is the best option.
Patricia Adams
Brady Yauch
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Lisa Peryman
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