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Advocating For a Better Economic Environment for Refugees
Refugee youth in Kakuma Refugee camp embody the endurance of the human spirit. A study carried out by the International Financial Corporation (IFC) in 2018 took a unique look at Kakuma Refugee Camp a...
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Components of Progress

In this op-ed, Marifeli Perez-Stable of the Inter-American Dialogue links markets, democracies, and progress in a very simple equation - "Democracy+Market Economy=Progress."  Despite strong anti-market sentiments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela, it seems that many other countries in the re...

Economic Implications of Palestinian Elections

Palestinian elections have been making the headlines for the past few days – with most stories focusing on the political consequences of the results.  Not too many people at this point, however, are talking about the economic implications of this week’s elections – yet the econom...

Free-Market NGOs

I got this one from the Globalisation Institute's blog: Hilary Benn, the UK's International Development Secretary, used a speech yesterday evening to attack the anti-capitalism embedded in some of the left-wing NGOs. He said: The Make Poverty History and other campaigns last year focused on more an...

Can We Afford to Stop Funding Reconstruction in Iraq?

Plenty has been said recently about the likelihood of the U.S. not providing further funding for reconstruction in Iraq.  Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post articles offer insights into the rationale involved in doing so.  Most of the arguments used to justify this position emphasize the...

Opening Up The Economy…In India

India continues to take the necessary step to integrate into the global economy.  The latest move is liberalization of the retail market to allow foreign investors to open their own retail outlets.  Although not all restrictions are being lifted at this point and some pre-conditions remain in plac...

Illusion of Price Controls

There is a nice article in the China Daily on government's efforts to establish price controls to keep natural gas prices in check. The problem - rising prices of liquefied natural gas.  The solution - introduce the legislation strengthening price controls.  The result - ...government efforts h...

Ineffective Public Projects

This week Sudan is hosting the African Union Summit. The African Union is a regional effort to bring together the resources of African nations to combat poverty and help African economies join the global economy.  It looks like Sudan has been preparing for the summit, clearing the streets of the i...

Grant-Eating Organizations (Part 2 of 2)

(the first part can be found here)  The lesson for international donors is not that they should disappear, but that they should present partnership opportunities only when they are certain that local demand is driving an initiative. A lesson can be drawn from social research, such that a researcher...

Grant-Eating Organizations (Part 1 of 2)

In a recent Washington Post article titled, "Reforming Foreign Assistance" it was stated that, "reliance on U.S. organizations undermined poor countries' sense of ownership of their development programs, damaging the long-term struggle to foster self-sufficiency." The same point can be made on the m...

The Sins of Wages

Alex beat me to the punch slightly with his post earlier today, but here’s more interesting information on China.    As Alex indicates in his post, productivity in China is growing by leaps and bounds.  However, the economy also has many problems, exacerbated by the Chinese government̵...

Who Is More Productive? And Why?

Asian economies and the E.U. newcomers are becoming more efficient and higher efficiency is translating into higher incomes, with China and Poland leading the way, according to the new Conference Board survey, reports the Financial Times. The strong performance of China and other Asian economies in...

Fed Up With Corruption

There is a serious crisis brewing in Mongolia.  The government has resigned last week, amid a growing citizen discontent with country’s poor economic performance – low incomes, high unemployment, etc.  People in Mongolia are also fed up with corruption. “Dawn has broken in Mon...

Gazprom: Investors Wanted

Russian natural monopoly Gazprom is making the headlines again - but this time its not the Russia-Ukraine-EU oil "crisis."  This week, Gazprom opened its doors to foreign investors.  The result?  It now surpassed Wal-Mart and Procter and Gamble to become one of the world's 10 largest companies. ...

Tools to Fight Corruption

The U.N. Convention Against Corruption has now entered into force as a result of 38 countries ratifying the convention out of the 140 that have signed the treaty. The Convention, which was adopted by the U.N.'s General Assembly in October 2003 is built on four pillars of prevention and criminalizati...

Evolving Corporate Governance in China

Since the late 1980s, China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have been undergoing a gradual process of transformation and privatization known as gaizhi. The government has reduced its share in smaller SOEs to as little as 10%. It has also introduced new governance mechanisms for both privatized and ...

Demographics, Economic Growth, and China

The Economist has an interesting article on declining populations.  Clearly, there is a demographic problem (and I was really surprised by some of the numbers), The shrinkage of Russia and eastern Europe is familiar, though not perhaps the scale of it: Russia's population is expected to fall by 22...

On Microfinance in Africa…And Elsewhere

Many discussions on economic development today center on supporting the development of small and medium enterprises.  This is understandable, since small business constitutes a very significant share of economic activity in developed and successful transitioning economies.  “Think small...

Building a Private Sector-based Economy in Iraq

Just came across this brief update on USAID’s activities in Iraq.  My impression – they are addressing both short-term, immediate needs of the Iraqi community (water program, for example) and long-term institutional objectives (providing training to business leaders). “We are wor...

To Eradicate or Not to Eradicate? That is the Question.

There has been increased focus recently on the subject of the prevalence of opium production in Afghanistan and the commitment and effectiveness (or lack thereof) of efforts to combat it by both the Afghan government and coalition forces operating in that country.  Newsweek magazine recently publis...

Private Sector as a Political Force in the Gulf

Despite a ban on political parties in the Gulf region, in some countries, such as Kuwait and Bahrain, they are accepted and openly active, though legal restrictions force them to function as NGOs rather than political parties. For example, it is well known that the Association for National Democrati...
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