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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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Four Years of Transition in Serbia

In October, the Serbian Center for Liberal Democratic Studies (CLDS) published a new report, which captures lessons learned from the last four years of reform in the country. Following the fall of the Milosevic regime, Serbia embarked on a comprehensive institutional restructuring program to restore...

Better Governance and Increased Competitiveness

Do boards of directors have a much more important role to play in developing economies than they do in developed ones? “Yes!” says a new article by McKinsey Quarterly (subscription only). The reason is straightforward – weak institutions. In developing economies, external instituti...

Putting an End to Corruption in Mozambique

The Mozambican government is taking a stand against corruption – and it seems that its moving in the right direction, at least according to the strategy document it released yesterday. The strategy recognizes that low wages of government officials are not the source of corruption, rather it is the...

International Anti-Corruption Day 2005

On Friday, December 9, the world celebrated International Anti-Corruption Day. Transparency International Poll released on Friday showed widespread public alarm about corruption. Said Huguette Labelle, Chair of Transparency International: "Today's survey shows that people believe corruption is deepl...

Cutting the Pie

Lebanon is re-learning the lesson that street protests alone do not create democracies and put countries on the path of economic growth – real reforms do. There are conflicting messages coming out of the country following the “Cedar Revolution” – on the one hand, there is a s...

Corporate Governance and Anti-Corruption

Last week, CIPE’s partner Indonesia Business Links held a workshop in Banda Aceh. The workshop – “Anti-Corruption and Corporate Governance” – is the first in a series of 24 the organization will host in different Indonesian cities throughout the next year to promote goo...

Reorganizing U.S. Foreign Aid

The Financial Times (London) reported on December 12, 2005, that the Bush administration is planning to implement one of the most sweeping changes to the US foreign aid apparatus in the last 40 years. As part of this reform, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) could become a branch...

Ethical Standards Matter

There is an interesting article on BBC News that talks about issues of underemployment, informal sector, and corruption in Brazil. Words of Kroll Brasil (Brazilian risk consulting company) managing director Eduardo de Freitas Gomide are particularly interesting: “The companies that pay bribes ...

Signs of Change in Congo

This weekend citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo voted in a national referendum on a new constitution. According to the reports, the constitution will set up elections of the president in 2006 (first in decades), limit the number of terms the president can serve, and will decentralize po...

Where Piracy Pays Off

It is no secret that Russia is one of the world's largest markets for counterfeit goods. However, the country can hardly be proud of being one of the world's leaders in this category - it is one of the major barriers to joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). Piracy costs Russian and foreign f...

Interview with CIPE’s Pakistan Country Director

I wanted to highlight a recent interview with Moin Fudda, CIPE’s country director in Pakistan. The interview appeared in the weekly magazine “Investors” published by The International News, which Moin describes as the largest circulation international daily in Pakistan. The article...

Declining Trust and Russia’s “Miracle”

Citizen's trust in governments, international institutions, and companies continues to decline, shows a new WEF survey conducted in 20 countries. Some interesting findings: Trust in companies is falling in developed countries, yet in some developing economies (China, Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia, and...

Latest on WTO Talks

The Economist takes a critical look at the recent WTO meeting in Hong Kong. The meeting's most notable accomplishment was that it did not collapse as previous gatherings had in Seattle, in 1999, and Cancún, in 2003. The main new achievement was to agree on a date, the end of 2013, for the elimina...

Rights vs. Reality in Uzbekistan

The Uzbek Constitution and its law "On Education" grant everyone the right to seek higher education. Educational establishments, according to the Law, can be public or private, provided that the organization is licensed. It is a surprisingly liberal policy for a government that has become increasing...

Corruption or Death?

Recent economic liberalization and expansion has brought China face to face with a new issue that threatens to undermine much of the progress made over the last five years – corruption. In November, the Los Angeles Times reported on the estimated one million illegal land seizures that took place i...

Notes from the Field: Uzbekistan (Part 1 of 3)

Driving around Tashkent, it is remarkable how slowly business has been developing. I arrived on the Constitution Day holiday, yet the commercial district was virtually deserted, unlike the main boulevards on holidays in Baku, Tbilisi, Chisinau, or Almaty. The bazaar was the exception, where people c...

NGO Bill Passed in Russia

The bill which establishes tighter control over NGOs operating in Russia was passed today with an overwhelming majority (357-20-7) in the State Duma just before it left for the winter break. Before the law comes into force, it still has to be approved by the Federal Council and signed by the Preside...

Markets and Predictability

Free markets work, was the message relayed by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan recently. "On average, world standards of living are rising in large part because of the widening embrace of competitive free markets, especially by populous and growing China and India," he said. and Open an...

Solutions to Bad Governance

Jeffrey Sachs talks about good governance in this op-ed that appeared in The Korea Herald. Elections, he argues, although important, are not enough to limit the abuse of power and hold governments accountable for their actions – a host of other mechanisms need to be put in place to improve gov...

Armenia Gets $235 Million

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) decided to give Armenia more than $230 million over the next 5 years. But the money comes with a set of conditions. Addressing reports of irregularities in the referendum on reforms to the Armenian constitution held in November, Ambassador Danilovich contin...
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