Analysis
Global Income Inequality by the Numbers: in History and Now
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- Written by Branco Milanovic
Who are the winners and losers of the recent globalization?
Are we witnessing the first decline in global income inequality since the Industrial Revolution?
Read Milanovic's most recent contribution
Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers
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- Written by IMF O. Blanchard
On why the IMF was so wrong about Greece ... and admits it ... 'fiscal consolidation has been associated with lower growth than expected'
Doha Delays put People and the Planet at Risk
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- Written by ITUC
The crucial boost to deliver green and decent jobs will have to wait is the message governments are sending to the worlds working people today, as they close the climate change conference in Doha, Qatar.
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, ITUC, said despite weak expectations for this conference, the labour movement was convinced that recent scientific reports and the urgent need to transform economies could speed up the pace of negotiations.
Development Finance- Where does it come from?
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- Written by Jesse Griffiths / Europdad
Our review of all different sources of development finance is nearly complete – look out for that in the new year – but I thought I’d whet your appetite with a summary table.
Using the most reliable sources we can find, here’s a summary of different inflows, outflows and domestic resources for developing countries as a group, given as an equivalent percentage of GDP to allow scale comparisons. I’ve also include figures for low-income countries (LICs) as a group, when they are available. Detailed questions will all be answered when the paper is published – watch this space early in the new year!
What Billions In Illicit And Licit Capital Flight Means For The People Of Zambia
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- Written by Sarah Freitas
Our research finds that $8.8 billion left Zambia in illicit financial flows between 2001 and 2010. Of that, $4.9 billion can be attributed to trade misinvoicing, which is a type of trade fraud used by commercial importers and exporters around the world.
Read more: What Billions In Illicit And Licit Capital Flight Means For The People Of Zambia
On Pirates and Debts
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On what Greece can learn from the Argentinean debt crisis and the way the IMF (and the troika) are working
On October 1st 2012 ‘pirates’ snatched the beautiful Libertad, the Argentinean training frigate, when it arrived in Ghana. This is only one asset Argentina’s creditors are trying to get hold on after its debt default of 2001.
But wasn’t Argentina constantly presented as a model for Greece to follow? Did many economists not say that debt-ridden Greece should also default and in this way get rid of all its debts?
The World Bank and Social Protection
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The World Bank plays a major role in the global spreading of new ideas and discourses. While many people might think the UN, UNDP or the ILO have more interesting things to say on development, more often than not, it is the World Bank which succeeds in promoting anew ‘order of discourse’.
In 1990, it was the World Bank which put poverty on the international agenda. While the ‘human development’ concept of UNDP was launched in that same year, five years later UNDP also adopted the priority of reducing extreme poverty.
In 2000, the World Bank proposed a strategic framework for social protection, and while this ‘risk management’ strategy did not have immediate success, it now has been re-launched and probably will influence the new way of thinking on social protection.
The reasons for this success are quite simple. The World Bank has willing media for its economic (neoliberal) messages, and it has huge resources to implement its ideas in countries all over the world.
In June, the ILO adopted a Resolution on a Social Protection Floor, which it is now trying to implement. The European Commission published in 2011 its Development Report on Social Protection, and in 2012 a Communication for a social protection strategy in its development cooperation policies[1].
What exactly does the World Bank propose?[2]
Global Governance of Health and the Requirements of Human Rights
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- Written by Gorik Ooms and Rachel Hammonds
“…….As globalisation increases interdependence health becomes a subject of global governance, posing new challenges to the present global governance mechanisms.
The authors explore two areas in which new mechanisms of global governance of health have emerged in the first decade of the 21st century: firstly, international assistance to finance healthcare and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; and secondly, the Social Protection Floor which aims to ensure basic social guarantees for all.
Published in Global Policy - Volum 3, Issue 4, November 2012
Read: http://bit.ly/QZudOE
Dances of death: macabre mirrors of an unequal society
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- Written by Johan Pieter Mackenbach, Rolf Paul Dreier
“…..Between 1400 and 1800, Dances of Death were a popular art form depicting a metaphorical encounter between Death and representatives of a stratified human society. We review the thematic development of Dances of Death and study the development of social critique.
Read: http://bit.ly/Y2zGHb
Read more: Dances of death: macabre mirrors of an unequal society
HEALTH: NOT CHARITY, NOT MERCHANDISE: A HUMAN RIGHT. (part 1 of 2)
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- Written by Claudio Schuftan
-Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane. (Martin Luther King)
-Health is not a matter of merely personal interest, but a universal concern for which we all share some responsibility. (Dalai Lama)
-When the right to health is debated in national elections, we know this is an issue whose time has come. (Mary Robinson and Andrew Clapham)
The ultimate purpose of health systems is the health of the population; it cannot be anything other…and this we have to repeat to ourselves every day and have to dream it every night. (A. C. Laurell)
Read more: HEALTH: NOT CHARITY, NOT MERCHANDISE: A HUMAN RIGHT. (part 1 of...
