Articles
Risks for the new development agenda: annual meeting of WB/IMF
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The 2015 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank had offered the opportunity to put some flesh on the bare bones of what is called the ‘Means of Implementation’ for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, not much has been achieved in this respect. The meetings were rather overshadowed by the economic downturn in major middle-income countries and their negative spillovers for the mostly resource-based economies of other developing countries, due to falling commodity prices. Here, the Bretton Woods institutions could not present a credible response strategy either.
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Illicit Financial Flows: The most damaging problem for the developing world
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Russia’s illicit outflows were 8.3% of GDP (1994-2012); Illicit outflows from Mexico (1970-2012) and the Philippines (1960-2012) were 4.5% of GDP. $682.2 billion drained illicitly out of India 1948-2012; $561.7 billion leaked out of Brazil 1960-2012.
Dr. Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, calls illicit financial outflows a drag on human rights realization in developing countries. Erik Solheim, the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee chair, considers the links between IFFs and development
This book is dedicated to all those who suffer the indignities of poverty due to illicit financial flows.
The book features five condensed and updated quantitative country studies on illicit financial flows (IFFs) from India, Mexico, Russia, the Philippines, and Brazil by GFI Chief Economist Dr. Dev Kar, as well as chapters written by GFI President Raymond Baker and Managing Director Tom Cardamone. Dr. Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, writes on the human rights impact of illicit financial flows. The relationship between illicit flows and development is considered by Erik Solheim, the chair of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.
Don't target the poor if you want to help the poor
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In this report, the author examines the evidence on the political economy of 'targeting'. By first examining the history behind social security in developed countries, and then looking at contemporary tax-financed social security schemes in both developed and developing countries, Stephen demonstrates how the targeting design of a social security programme can influence both political commitment and the value of transfers. The paper helps in explaining why 'programmes for the poor tend to be poor programmes.'
The Truth about Poverty and How to Address it
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As the star-studded endorsements and media hype surrounding the all-pervasive Global Goals campaign begins to subside, a very different truth is beginning to emerge about this latest attempt by the international community to end poverty and create an ecologically viable future. Despite the UN’s ambitious claims, all the indications are that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do not have the potential to “free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want” or “heal and secure our planet”. On the contrary, the ‘new agenda for development’ fails to address the root causes of today’s interconnected global crises, perpetuates a false narrative about poverty reduction, and reinforces an unsustainable economic paradigm that is inherently incapable of reducing the true scale of human deprivation by 2030.
Seed Treaty Undermined by Biopiracy
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16 October: International Day of Action for Peoples' Food Sovereignty
After a week of arduous debates at the FAO headquarters in Rome, on the 9th of October, The Governing Body of the International Seed Treaty (1) in its sixth session had to choose between plague and cholera: to accept as fait accompli its irregular "governance arrangements”, to say the least, or to sink into an open crisis.
