What the Panama Papers Mean for Global Development
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- Written by Tharanga Yakupitiyage
- Category: Articles
The financial secrecy and tax evasion revealed by the Panama Papers has an extraordinary human cost in developing countries and threatens the realisation of the UN’s ambitious Sustainable Development Goals.
The ongoing leak — made public by media outlets including German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – has already prompted protests and investigations around the world. The papers connect thousands of prominent figures to secretive offshore companies in 21 tax havens and reveal the inner workings of the offshore finance industry.
Read more: What the Panama Papers Mean for Global Development
Why Basic Income can Never be a Progressive Solution: an answer to Philippe Van Parijs
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- Written by Francine Mestrum
- Category: Articles
Most advocates of basic income only answer the arguments of the right – mainly concerning the willingness to work – and never imagine there can be valid arguments for the left to resist their proposals.
In that sense we have to be grateful to Philippe van Parijs that he addresses social democracy specifically in his defence of basic income. However, his answers are not very satisfactory.
Let me start with the easy point on which we fully agree: social assistance needs fundamental changes.
Read the article on Social Europe
An inconvenient affinity
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- Written by Francine Mestrum
- Category: Articles
In spite of all the horrible news we are daily faced with, from climate change to Panama papers and terrorism, there is also some hope that, yes, indeed, another world is made possible.
The neoliberal consensus is slowly fading away, people start to realize there are many alternatives that would allow for better lives on a sustainable planet.
An important role in the emergence of new perspectives is being played by the young generations, all over the world. Their protests have taken on new forms, they got rid of the paralyzing ideological and often sectarian conflicts of their parents and grand-parents, they tackle problems immediately themselves, they experiment with new ways of living, working and … of doing politics.
There is no share economy. Let us stop pretending it exists
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- Written by Colin Horgan
- Category: Articles
Three big reasons why we need to think differently about online platform jobs.
On the same day last week that Ottawa became the latest Canadian city to recommend ‘legalizing’ Uber, the MaRS Solutions Lab released its “Sharing Economy Public Design Report”, the goal of which was to outline considerations for how municipalities might “help build a sharing economy that benefits the city”. For those unfamiliar with the term, the report offered a definition: “The ‘sharing economy’ is a paradigm of peer-to-peer lending that enables the sharing, borrowing or bartering of underutilized assets in exchange for goods, services or money… It is a fundamentally community-driven approach.”
There’s just one problem: this is hogwash.
Read more: There is no share economy. Let us stop pretending it exists
Africa: PPPs as a model for development?
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- Written by Fanwell Bokosi / BWP
- Category: Articles
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are generally defined as a marriage between the public and private sector to deliver specific functions, and end users often pay for the services. For a private company to sign up, a PPP has to be commercially profitable. It is therefore important for governments to fully understand the risks and costs associated with entering into PPP arrangements.
What is left of the rise of the South?
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- Written by Daniela Magalhaes Prates and Luiza Peruffo
- Category: Articles
The prominence of emerging market economies (EMEs) during the 2008 financial crisis improved prospects for more multipolar global financial governance. The recent setbacks experienced by EMEs, however, raise the question as to whether global financial governance is still becoming more multipolar.
UNCTAD's Role in the 2030 Agenda
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- Written by Kanaga Raja, Geneva
- Category: Articles
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) concept of interdependence between countries and policy areas can be employed in the follow-up and monitoring of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, says a recent policy brief of this international agency.
UNCTAD argues that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development substantially increases the demand for evidence-based analysis and integrated and coordinated policy support.
"Its comprehensive and integrated nature mirrors the UNCTAD concept of interdependence between countries and policy areas," it added.
This concept can now be employed in the follow-up and monitoring process of the Agenda to assess the impact of the international environment on the effectiveness of national implementation strategies, and trade-offs and synergies in those strategies.
Third wave of economic crisis?
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- Written by South Center
- Category: Articles
Dr. Yılmaz Akyüz, Chief Economist of the intergovernmental organization South Centre, says that the 2008 financial crisis may be moving in a third wave that could devastate the Global South.
This article was originally published in the Real News on 28 March 2016, produced by Lynn Fries.
Video, audio and statement by Dr. Yılmaz Akyüz, Chief Economist of the South Centre, at the Seminar on Current Global Economic Trends and Conditions and the International Development Policy Context After 2015 held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on 23 February 2016 is available at this link
The Panama Papers
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- Written by ICIJ
- Category: Articles
A new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organizations around the globe, reveals the offshore links of some of the planet’s most prominent people.
In terms of size, it is likely the biggest leak of inside information in history – more than 11.5 million documents – and it is equally likely to be one of the most explosive in the nature of its revelations.
The leak exposes the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders and reveals how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies.
The files also provide details of the hidden financial dealings of 128 other politicians and public officials around the world and show how a global industry of law firms and big banks sells financial secrecy to fraudsters and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.
Read this investigation:
Political will needed to overcome inequality
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- Written by UN News Center
- Category: Articles
Inequality is a universal challenge faced by least-developed, middle-income and developed countries alike, but which can be overcome by political will at national and international levels, the United Nations deputy chief said today.
Addressing a special meeting on inequality convened by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said that inequalities within and among countries pose an immense challenge to global development efforts.
“Large disparities in income, wealth, power and opportunity plague our work for progress, both internationally and nationally, so do also large gaps in access to education, healthcare, water, sanitation, food, energy, and social protection,” Mr. Eliasson told the meeting, which brought together leading experts on inequality from academia, government, the private sector, the UN system and other stakeholders to conceptualize, analyze and recommend solutions for inequalities in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
How to promote universal social protection… and how to put ‘social commons’ into practice? The idea of political laboratories
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- Written by Francine Mestrum
- Category: Articles
It is easy to criticize poverty reduction policies, as it is obvious we have to put serious questions about targeting and minimalist ‘social protection’ systems. We defend and promote universal social protection and cannot be happy with liberal basic income proposals. Our alternative is a system of ‘social commons’, democratic and participatory, based on human rights and able to also protect societies.
The main question is: how to put this into practice?
