On Development
|
United Nations
Development Policy and Analysis Division
World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008
Executive Summary
The world economy facing uncertain times
After several years of robust growth, the world economy is now facing some serious challenges
in sustaining its brisk pace. The end of the housing bubble in the United States of
America, as well as the unfolding credit crisis, the decline of the United States dollar visà-
vis other major currencies, the persistence of large global imbalances and high oil prices
will all threaten the sustainability of global economic growth in the coming years.
Slower, but nonetheless robust, global economic growth in 2008
The growth of the world economy moderated somewhat from 3.9 per cent in 2006 to a
nonetheless robust 3.7 per cent during 2007. The baseline forecast of the United Nations
for 2008 is for growth of the world economy to slow further to 3.4 per cent, but the darkening
clouds of downside risks are looming much larger than a year ago...
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Institute for Policy Research and Development
See its International Academic Advisory Board
The Institute for Policy Research & Development (IPRD) is an independent research institute for interdisciplinary
security studies, analysing international terrorism, military interventions, as
well as national and international conflicts, in the context of global
ecological, energy and economic crises. Founded in April 2001 in Brighton, a UN
‘Peace Messenger’ City for 20 years, the Institute now runs from the heart of
London as an informal, non-profit international network of specialist scholars,
experts and analysts.
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DP2004/09
Tony
Addison:
Development
Policy: An Introduction for Students
(PDF
151KB)
This paper discusses development policy objectives, noting how these have changed
over the years, with a more explicit focus on poverty reduction coming recently to the
fore. It also examines the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction.
The paper then discusses how to achieve economic growth, starting with the caveat that
growth must be environmentally sustainable, and moves on to the big question of the
respective roles for the market mechanism and the state in allocating society’s
productive resources. The paper next discusses how economic reform has been
implemented, and the political difficulties that arise. It concludes that getting
development policy right has the potential to lift millions out of poverty.
RP2005/23
Tony Addison, George Mavrotas, and Mark McGillivray:
Development
Assistance and Development Finance: Evidence and Global Policy Agendas
(PDF 202KB)
Understanding the development effects of official aid is crucial to building a better bridge
between research and policy. This paper reviews the current evidence regarding the impact of
aid on growth and poverty reduction, and develops a new narrative. In the light of this
narrative, the paper then examines aid trends, focusing on the regions of sub-Saharan Africa
and the Pacific. The paper then turns to recent discussion of new and innovative sources of
development finance and considers how research has influenced the policy debate through a
recent UNU-WIDER study for the UN General Assembly. The paper concludes that aid
broadly works, that poverty would be higher in the absence of aid, and that the shortfall in aid
during the 1990s has, by implication, made it more difficult to meet the Millennium
Development Goals. Hence, a considerable catch-up in aid and other development finance
flows is now necessary if poverty is to be substantially reduced by 2015.
RP2006/52
John Toye:
Modern
Bureaucracy
(PDF 181KB)
Max Weber believed that bureaucracy could be understood by analysing its ideal-typical
characteristics, and that these characteristics would become more pervasive as the modern age
advanced. Weber’s horizontal account of bureaucracy can be criticised on various grounds,
including its unrealistic notion of bureaucratic rationality. An alternative view is proposed,
namely, that the development of state bureaucracies is driven by the trajectory of the highpower
politics in which they are nested.
This claim is examined in the light of historical examples of the evolution of bureaucracies – in
Prussia, Britain, the USA and Japan. In analysing these cases, the paper examines the original
visions behind different institutional designs in different countries, and discusses how the vision
was formed and how durable it proved to be. In contrast to sociological and historical
explanations, the analytical contribution of new institutional economists to understanding the
problems of bureaucratic evolution is assessed.
Then, moving from positive to normative, it is asked why there is an evaluative ambiguity in the
idea of modern bureaucracy. In other words, why is it at the same time regarded as an essential
requirement of a developmental state, and as a pathological aspect of the state’s executive
action? Five common complaints about bureaucracy are discussed in the light of Peter Evans’s
‘hybridity model’ of public action, leading to the conclusion that some of these problems are
quite deep-seated and likely to be unyielding to recent attempts at reform.
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RP2006/08
Louis Emmerij:
Turning
Points in Development Thinking and Practice
(PDF
90KB)
Why and when do turning points occur? How are they prepared? What are the choices
before us when it comes to economic and social development policies? What is the role
of culture in development? Do ideas play a role? What are the interests behind the
ideas? The present paper tries to answer these and other questions and compares the
advantages and disadvantages of global development theories with regional and local
development policies that put more emphasis on the role of culture in economic
development.
Original version presented to WIDER in June 2005
DP2003/38
Maiju Perälä:
‘Looking
at the Other Side of the Coin’: The Relationship between Classical
Growth and Early Development Theories
(PDF
229KB)
This paper extends the history of thought narrative on Allyn Young to recognize the
close relationship that the classical growth theory has with the early development
theory, as Young’s externalities-fuelled, cumulative growth process influenced the
theoretical thought of the early development theory pioneers, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan
and Ragnar Nurkse. The conditions that prevent the development of underdeveloped
regions, indivisibilities and inelasticities of supplies and demands, represent the
breakdown of the conditions that Young highlights as necessary for self-sustaining
growth to occur. Hence, Young’s cumulative growth process underlies the view of these
early development theorists, though their focus is on the malfunctioning and restarting
of this process.
DP2003/37
Maiju Perälä:
Persistence
of Underdevelopment: Does the Type of Natural Resource Endowment Matter?
(PDF 283KB)
This paper examines growth successes and failures across countries and notes the
latter’s perplexing predominance among ex ante low-income economies. An
explanation for this persistence of underdevelopment is proposed through an empirical
investigation that brings forth evidence on the importance of natural resource
endowment type on growth or, more appropriately, lack of it. The results show that, in
the absence of social cohesion, the nature of natural resource abundance bears great
significance as a natural resource endowment characterized by oil and/or mineral
resources is more negatively correlated with growth than a resource endowment that is
agricultural. The robustness of this result is tested across a number of growth regression
specifications within the literature.
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From the International Monetary Fund
- April 2008
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From the United Nations Organisation - April 2006
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International
Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda
(7 April)
SECRETARY-GENERAL OBSERVES INTERNATIONAL DAY OF REFLECTION ON 1994 RWANDA
GENOCIDE
Launches Action Plan to Prevent Genocide Involving UN System in Speech to
Commission on Human Rights
Following is the speech delivered
today by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the Commission on Human
Rights at a special meeting to observe the International Day of Reflection on
the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. The meeting was held at the Assembly Hall of the
Palais des Nations. The speech was delivered after the participants observed two
minutes of silence in memory of the victims of the genocide:
“It is good that we have observed those minutes of silence together.
We must never forget our collective failure to protect at least eight hundred
thousand defenceless men, women and children who perished in Rwanda ten years ago.
Such crimes cannot be reversed.
Such failures cannot be repaired.
The dead cannot be brought back to life.
So what can we do?"...
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World
Health Day (7 April)
Each year on April 7th, the world
celebrates World Health Day. On this day around the globe, thousands of events
mark the importance of health for productive and happy lives.
To reduce child mortality, improve maternal
health and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases are among the Millennium Development Goals which
all Member States have pledged to meet by the year 2015.
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World
Book and Copyright Day
(23 April)
23 April is a symbolic date for world literature for on this
date in 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It
is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice
Druon, Haldor K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.
It was a natural choice for UNESCO's General Conference,
held in Paris in 1995, to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors on this
date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the
pleasure of reading and gain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable
contributions of those who have furthered the social and cultural progress of
humanity. In this respect, UNESCO created both the World Book and Copyright Day
and the UNESCO Prize for Children's and Young People's Literature in the Service
of Tolerance.
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United
Nations Literacy Decade
(2003-2012)
While societies enter into the
information and knowledge society, and modern technologies develop and spread at
rapid speed, 860 million adults are illiterate, over 100 million children
have no access to school, and countless children, youth and adults who
attend school or other education programmes fall short of the required level to
be considered literate in today´s complex world.
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International
Decade for Action: Water for Life
(2005-2015)
A United Nations office to support the International Decade for Action “Water
for Life” 2005-2015 opened in Zaragoza, Spain, on 5 October 2007. The office
will be managed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
(UN DESA) and will facilitate the coordinated implementation of UN-Water’s work
on water and sanitation, especially in the areas of communication and advocacy
to raise awareness of the challenges and opportunities to solve global water and
sanitation issues.
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Water
Day
The United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/47/193 of 22
December 1992 by which 22 March of each year was declared World Day for Water,
to be observed starting in 1993, in conformity with the recommendations of the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) contained in Chapter
18 (Fresh Water Resources) of Agenda 21. States were invited
to devote the Day, as appropriate in the national context, to concrete
activities such as the promotion of public awareness through the publication and
diffusion of documentaries and the organization of conferences, round tables,
seminars and expositions related to the conservation and development of water
resources and the implementation of the recommendations of Agenda 21.
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International
Year of Deserts and Desertification
(2006)
The United Nations General Assembly, at its 58th session, adopted
resolution A/Res/58/211 which declares 2006 the International Year of
Deserts and Desertification. The decision was taken to help prevent the
exacerbation of desertification around the globe. The General Assembly invites
all countries, international and civil society organizations to celebrate the
Year 2006 and to support public awareness activities related to desertification
and land degradation.
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The Reith Lectures.
Reith
2007
Reith
2006
The Triumph of Technology (2005)
This year's Reith Lecturer is the distinguished
engineer, Lord Broers who is President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chairman of
the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.
Lecture 1:
Technology will Determine
the Future of the Human Race
Lecture 2:
Collaboration
Lecture 3:
Innovation and Management
Lecture 4:
Nanotechnology and
Nanoscience
Lecture 5:
Risk and
Responsibility
--------------------
I am Right, you are Dead (2004)
This year's Reith lecturer is Nobel Prize-winning poet and playwright, Wole Soyinka, who
was imprisoned in Nigeria for his opposition to dictatorship.
Lecture 1:
The Changing Mask of Fear
Lecture 2:
Power and Freedom
Lecture 3:
Rhetoric that Binds and
Blinds
Lecture 4:
A Quest for Dignity
Lecture 5:
I am Right; You are Dead
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The Emerging Mind (2003)
This year's Reith lecturer is the noted neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director
of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California (San Diego).
Lecture 1:
Phantoms in the Brain
Lecture 2:
Synapses and the Self
Lecture 3:
The Artful Brain
Lecture 4:
Purple Numbers and Sharp
Cheese
Lecture 5:
Neuroscience - the New
Philosophy
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A Question of Trust (2002)
Onora O'Neill challenges current approaches to
accountability, investigates sources of deception in our society and re-examines questions
of press freedom.
Lecture 1:
Spreading Suspicion
Lecture 2:
Trust and Terror
Lecture 3:
Called to Account
Lecture 4:
Trust and Transparency
Lecture 5:
Licence to Deceive
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The End of Age (2001)
Tom Kirkwood, Professor of Medicine and head of the
Department of Gerontology at the University of Newcastle.
Dramatic increases in life expectancy are shaking the structure of societies around the
world and profoundly altering our perceptions of life and death.
1: Brave Old World
2: Thread of Life
3: Sex and Death
4: Making Choices
5: New Directions
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Reith 2000
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Reith 1999
The subject of the 1999 lecture series is the Runaway World
Anthony Giddens speaks to audiences
around the world on the theme of globalisation.
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Friends of the
Earth - 8 November 2005
Britain: Young people take action on climate
change
Sixty per cent of young people, aged 8-14, are
concerned that the world will suffer the effects of climate change when they are adults
and more than seventy per cent of them already take action at home or school to save
energy, a new survey reveals today. The results are published as part of Friends of the
Earth's activity week for schools `Shout about climate change', which runs from 7-11
November 2005.
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| Issues
of Journal of Third World Studies:
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From PAE, No 33, 14
September 2005
The Rise and
Demise of the New Public Management
Wolfgang Drechsler
(University of Tartu and Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia)
Within the public sphere, the most important reform movement of the last quarter of a
century has been the New Public Management (NPM). It is of particular interest in the
post-autistic economics (pae) context because NPM largely rests on the same ideology and
epistemology as standard textbook economics (STE) is based, and it has had, and still has,
similar results.
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From PAE, No. 33,
14 September 2005
Forum on Economic Reform
Can the World
Bank Be Fixed?
David Ellerman
(University of California at Riverside)
If the goal of development assistance is to foster autonomous development, then most aid
and "help" is actually unhelpful in the sense of either overriding or
undercutting the autonomy of those being "helped." The two principal forms of
unhelpful "help" are social engineering and charitable relief. The World Bank is
the primary example over the last half century of the failures of social engineering to
"engineer" development. Frustration over these failures, particularly in Africa,
is now leading the Bank and many other development agencies towards the other form of
unhelpful help, namely, long-term charitable relief. The paper outlines some of the
reasons for the failure of socially engineered economic, legal, and social reforms both in
the developing world and in the post-socialist transition countries. Finally, the argument
is summarized in five structural reasons why the World Bank cannot be
"fixed."
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The World Bank
Group - 31 May 1994
Governance -
the World Bank ' s experience
This report summarizes the governance work undertaken
by the World Bank in the last two years. It provides an overview of governance activities
in lending, economic and sector work, and in research and dialogue. Progress across
regions is reported under the four major components of governance identified in the 1992
governance report: 1) public sector management; 2) accountability; 3) legal framework for
development; and 4) transparency and information. In addition, other issues that are
related to Bank activities - such as more participatory approaches to policy, program, and
project design and implementation, military expenditures; and human rights - are raised.
Internal procedures and organizational issues relevant to the Bank ' s governance work are
also discussed
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Jeffrey Sachs - 8
April 2005
Message to Washington: get serious about development
Giving to developing countries has been underrated by
U.S. policymakers for years. And yet, the Bush Administration has recently proclaimed it
to be a pivotal part of U.S. national security. Jeff Sachs, the Director of the Earth
Institute at Columbia University, wonders: Are these claims for real — or just empty
promises?
------------------ |
New Economic
Foundation:
The Real World Economics
The international economic system creates damaging
inequalities between rich and poor, and fuels climate change and environmental
degradation. Through Real World Economic Outlook, nef aims to expose the problems
with the international finance and economic systems and create appropriate remedies. We
are also researching and campaigning on changes to global governance to tackle
international issues like climate change, and work by jubilee research
continues nef’s pioneering involvement in tackling international debt. transforming
markets goes beyond corporate responsibility to set out a new vision for harnessing and
channelling enterprise to meet social and environmental need.
------------------------ |
World Bank:
Prospects for the Global Economy 2005
------------------------ |
From The World Bank
Group
The Role and
Effectiveness of Development Assistance
Lessons from World Bank Experience
A Research Paper from the Development Economics Vice Presidency of the World Bank
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18 March 2005
Development and Security
By The Globalist
Is too much emphasis put on the military dimension of security today? And how does global
poverty factor into the equation? These are the issues explored by Horst Köhler —
now Germany’s President and previously the Managing Director of the International
Monetary Fund. In this Read My Lips feature, Mr. Köhler argues that the world needs a
broader interpretation of the term “security.”
------------------------ |
15 March 2005
Robber Barons of the Internet Age?
By Guy Pfeffermann and Bernard Wasow
Poor countries lack infrastructure and IT hardware that could accelerate development. For
that reason, there are calls for a so-called digital solidarity fund for developing
nations that would permit these nations to acquire technology as a way of promoting
economic growth and improving the life of its people. Guy Pfeffermann and Bernard Wasow
examine how and why many of the world's poorest countries are being denied access to the
global web.
------------------------- |
The
World Bank Group acknowledges the dramatic social and economic damage caused by its
economic policies imposed on developing societies in the last 30 years, and launches a new
neo-liberal recipe called "development policy lending". Of course, being The
World Bank Group the "visible hand" of the big international capital, its new
development policy lending looks very much the same old wine in new bottles. Below
are the official press releases (Dr. Róbinson Rojas)
..
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| United Nations Millennium Declaration - September
2000 |
Millenium Development Goals
1.-Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2.-Achieve universal primary
education
3.-Promote gender equality
and empower women
4.-Reduce child mortality
5.-Improve maternal health
6.-Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and
other diseases
7.-Ensure environmental
sustainability
8.-Develop a global partnership
for development
|
The World Bank
Group
World
Development Indicators 2004
--------------------- |
Fighting against
poverty (16-12-2004)
Reflect and ICT Project
This DFID-funded project is exploring potential
applications of ICTs for poor and marginalised people, linking to existing Reflect groups
in Uganda, Burundi and India.
During the first year (2003), participating groups were encouraged to analyse issues
around their own access to and control of information relating to their livelihoods:
looking at the value of information to their own lives, the control of information
resources, existing sources of information and communication mechanisms
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ICT for Development: empowerment or exploitation?
Learning from Reflect ICTs project
By Hannah Beardon et al
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United Nations - Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribbean
Twenty-Ninth Session, Brasilia, Brasil
6-10 May 2002
Globalization and Development
The process that has come to be known as globalization, -i.e.,
the progressively greater influence being exerted by worldwide
economic, social and cultural processes over national or regional
ones— is clearly leaving its mark on the world of today. This is not a
new process. Its historical roots run deep. Yet the dramatic changes in
terms of space and time being brought about by the communications
and information revolution represent a qualitative break with the past.
In the light of these changes, the countries of the region have requested
the secretariat to focus the deliberations of the twenty-ninth session of
ECLAC on the issue of globalization and development.
Globalization clearly opens up opportunities for development.
We are all aware -and rightfully so- that national strategies should
be designed to take advantage of the potential and meet the
requirements associated with greater integration into the world
economy.
This process also, however, entails risks:
risk generated by
new sources of instability in trade flows and, especially, finance;
the
risk that countries unprepared for the formidable demands of
competitiveness in today’s world may be excluded from the process;
and the risk of an exacerbation of the structural heterogeneity
existing
among social sectors and regions within countries whose linkages with
the world economy are segmented and marginal in nature.
Many
of these risks are associated with two disturbing aspects of
the globalization process:
The first
is the bias in the current
form of market globalization created by the fact that the mobility of
capital and the mobility of goods and services exist alongside
severe restrictions on the mobility of labour. This is reflected in the asymmetric, incomplete nature
of the international agenda that accompanies the globalization process. This agenda does not, for
example, include labour mobility. Nor does it include mechanisms for ensuring the global coherence
of the central economies’ macroeconomic policies, international standards for the appropriate
taxation of capital, or agreements regarding the mobilization of resources to relieve the
distributional tensions generated by globalization between and within countries...The
second...
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United Nations University
World Institute for Development Economic Research
WIDER Conference on The New Economy in Development
Helsinki, Finland, 10-11 May 2002
The role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the process of development
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Third
World Network:
"Economically speaking, we are more
dependent on the ex-colonial powers than we ever were. The World Bank and the IMF are
playing the role that our ex-colonial masters used to play."
Martin Khor,
---
World
Bank-IMF
---
Structural
Adjustment Policies
---
Third
World Debt
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Transnational
Corporations
---
Social
Development
---
Globalization
---
General
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Andre Gunder Frank
(1995)
The
Underdevelopment of Development
"I intend to undertake a political sociology of
knowledge of the study of development based on my own experience and perspective. I review
the three varieties of development economics; neo-classical (right), Keynesian (center)
and Marxist (left) and autobiographically my own participation in all of them. Perhaps I
can also clarify how on further reflection my choice for the study of development is now
none of the above. I would not wish to find myself in any of these camps when H.W. Arndt
(1987: 162-3) can write:..."
|
Róbinson
Rojas on:
The
'adjustment' of the world economy
1997
The 'structural adjustment' of today's world
economy, like in earlier periods, is an interactive process between firms, markets and
states. The process, like in earlier periods, entails that the political establishment
serves the economic establishment, and the economic establishment serves the most powerful
capital, the latter being, in the second half of the twentieth century, what in general
terms is defined as 'transnational corporations'.
-
The transnational corporate
system in the late 1990s
1997
Transnational direct investment in less
developed societies in the 1990s is consolidating further the historical regional spheres
of influence by the former colonial powers. By and large, Latin America, Africa, Asia and
Eastern Europe are becoming more than ever "spheres of control of production and
trade" by the financial and industrial centers of the world. Globalization is a task
undertaken by the transnational corporate system, and the system has three clear centers
(United States, Japan, and the major economies of the European Union). Those centers
attract almost totally the flows of international payment to factors of production,
creating a financial situation where capital flows from poor societies to rich societies,
as it was in the times of colonization and imperial expansion from the 1500s to the 1930s.
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A market-friendly strategy
for development
1998
Since the mid-1970s in the case of Chile and
the early 1980s in the case of the rest of the countries in the region, Latin America have
been applying "a market-friendly strategy for development" (see R. Rojas, International capital and
intellectual dishonesty). The model, being based on what I call "free-market
fundamentalism", will develop very well defined features, which will affect one
factor of production (labour) in several negative ways while it will give the other factor
of production (capital) the opportunity to become stronger, and more efficient. (The
effects on the pattern of production, mainly leading to a fractured and dependent
capitalist economy, are described in R. Rojas: 15 years of monetarism in Latin
America: time to scream ).
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Notes on agribusiness in the
1990s
1998
The enormous economic-political power that transnational corporations
in agribusiness can exercise in the host countries where they operate
comes mainly from the links between production and trade in what is
called 'vertical integration'.
United Nation's World Investment Report 1996, "Investment, Trade and
International Policy Arrangements", U.N., 1996, describes the dynamics
driving agribusiness towards oligopolistic markets:
"...renewable resources products are imported by firms of the home
country (as a rule, a developed country), normally in the first instance
through arm's length contracts, i.e. by trade between...
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Transnational corporations
in developing countries
1998
"The politics of the new imperialism is characterized by the
collusion of the multinationals, Latin American militaries,
the managers of state enterprises, and a Latin American
bourgeoisie that has accommodated itself to the new international
division of labour. Within this context, the hypothesized
relationship between economic development and democracy examined
above becomes irrelevant because in the imperialist system it is
not the form of the government that matters but the fact of
economic and political domination by the agents of international
capitalism. Wether the game is populist, democratic reformist,
or military authoritarian makes little difference because real
power continues to be held by the same players" (G. W. Wynia,
"The politics of Latin American Development", Cambrige University
Press, 1978, p. 319)
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Latin America: blockages to
development
1984
It is argued that, so far, all theories of the Latin American process
have been biased by an external approach. Examining the theoretical
foundations of these theories, it is concluded that these cannot
explain the class and production structures existing in the region,
neither can predict the emergence of qualitatively new phenomena.
Having criticised the discourses of underdevelopment, dependency,
development ( modernization ), and world system theories, the
analysis then proceeds with the argument that a theory of the Latin
American process must conceptualize the social organization of the
continent as an entity in itself, and not as an appendage to the
development of capitalism in the industrialized countries. Such a
theory must be centered on the internal dynamics of the Latin
American social structure, and then assess the actual role played
by capitalism and imperialism in its policy.
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Development Studies: Researching for the big bosses?
1996
In the late 1990s, development research, following the path
of development studies in Western European and North American
universities, have been concerned almost totally with how
international agencies can and should encourage development, and
very little with the empirical study of social change as taking
place in a global environment in which the policy framework at the
international level reduces the scope for manoeuvre at the national
level. By and large, contemporary research in development has become
a "subcontracting" activity, where the financing bodies are the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund and large transnational
corporations, all of them interested in imposing a particular type of
"modernisation" on less developed societies, regardless the suffering
inflicted on large sectors of the population. Other sources of finance,
of course, are governmental organizations in the industrialized
countries interested more on expanding their trade than helping to
"develop" other societies. Thus, by and large, contemporary
development research became a third rate non-scientific
activity loosing the scientific ground conquered in the 1960s and
early 1970s mainly by Latin American scholars and by a few academics
in the United States and Western Europe.
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International
capital and intellectual dishonesty
1999
The basic rationale of what loosely is quoted or misquoted as "export-
led growth" has its foundation on the ideological position that
capitalist market always clears, and therefore delivers goods and
services as needed by those members of society who can buy them.
The old triple alliance between the state, domestic monopolic capital
and foreign capital was changed to a double alliance (domestic
monopolic capital and foreign capital) with a political warden (the
state) making sure that the domestic market was firmly in the hands
of the double alliance.
In a more sophisticated fashion, the intellectuals employed/hired by the
World Bank did put together, in 1991, the following conceptualization:...
|
United
Nations:
Declaration on the
Right to Development
1986
...
Article 1
1. The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of
which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in,
contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development,
in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.
2. The human right to development also implies the full realization of
the right of peoples to self-determination, which includes, subject to the
relevant provisions of both International Covenants on Human Rights, the
exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural
wealth and resources.
Article 2
1. The human person is the central subject of development and should be
the active participant and beneficiary of the right to development...
---
International
Conference on Financing for Development
The
International Conference on Financing for Development
was held from 18-22 March 2002 in Monterrey, N.L., Mexico.
This United Nations-hosted conference on key financial and
development issues attracted 50
Heads of State or Government, over 200 ministers as well
as leaders from the private sector, civil society and all
the major intergovernmental financial, trade, economic, and
monetary organizations.
The
culmination of a four-year preparatory process, the
Conference adopted the Monterrey
Consensus, in which developed, developing and
transition economy countries pledged to undertake important
actions in domestic, international and systemic policy
matters.
December of 2002, the General
Assembly set in motion a detailed follow-up
intergovernmental process, as called for in the
Consensus, to monitor implementation and carry foward the
international discussion of policies for financing
development. The Assembly also called on the
Secretary-General to establish a standing secretariat to
support the process. The
Financing for Development Office was then created in the
Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
This web
site, maintained by the Financing for Development Office,
serves to disseminate information on all aspects of the
follow-up process.
|
Social Watch Annual Reports:
2007:
In dignitiy and rights. Making the universal right to social security a reality
2006:
Impossible architecture
2005:
Roars and whispers
2004:
Fear and Want. Obstacles to Human Security
2003
: The Poor and the Market
2002:
The social impact of globalisation in the world
2001:
Much ado...
2000:
From the summits to the grassroots
1999:
From the summits to the grassroots
1998:
Equity and social development
1997:
From the summits to the grassroots
1996:
Women and citizenship in Latin America
|
S. Raghavan/S.
Chatterjee (June 24, 2001)
How your chocolate may be tainted
DALOA, Ivory Coast - There may be a hidden
ingredient in the chocolate cake you baked, the candy bars
your children sold for their school fund-raiser o
that fudge ripple ice cream cone you enjoyed on
Saturday afternoon.
Slave labor.
Forty-three percent of the world's cocoa beans, the
raw material in chocolate, come from small, scattered
farms in this poor West African country. And on some
of the farms, the hot, hard work of clearing the
fields and harvesting the fruit is done by boys who
were sold or tricked into slavery. Most of them are
between the ages of 12 and 16. Some are as young as
9.
The lucky slaves live on corn paste and bananas. The
unlucky ones are whipped, beaten and broken like
horses to harvest the almond-sized beans that are
made into chocolate treats for more fortunate children in
Europe and America.
|
Project Syndicate is an international association of 208 newspapers in 105 countries,
devoted to the following objectives:
*bringing distinguished voices from around the world to informed national audiences so as
to create a global forum for broadening debate and exchanging ideas;
*strengthening the independence of newspapers in postcommunist and developing countries
through a variety of training programs;
*fostering professional links among member papers.
|
Submerging markets. Tracking the global development crisis
|
A. Tausch: Submerging markets.
The development marathon, 1960-2000, and its lessons for East Central Europe
|
IMF: Finance & Development
|
The
World Bank:
Financial
structure and economic development
---
World Development Sources
( for World Bank reports)
---------------------------- |
U.S.
Department of State:
1999
Country Reports on Economic Policy and Trade Practices
1998 Country Reports on Economic Policy and Trade Practices
1997 Country Reports on Economic Policy and Trade Practices
1996 Country Reports on Economic Policy and Trade Practices
1995 Country Reports on Economic Policy and Trade Practices |
| J.
Foran: The future of revolutions at the
fin-de-siecle |
| DEVELOPMENTS (published by the DFID) |
| REPORTS: science from the developing world |
| SciDevNet: news, views and information about science, technology and development |
United Nations
Economic and Social Development
Department of
Economic and Social Affairs
Overview
Division for Development
Policy Analysis
Division for
Economic and Social Council Support and Coordination
Division for Social Policy
and Development
Division for Sustainable
Development
Division for the Advancement of
Women
Office of the Special
Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries
Population Division
Statistics Division
DESA News - the
newsletter of the Department produced by the Information Support Unit with feature
articles by DESA staff
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Other United Nations economic and
social development secretariats
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U.N. Agenda 21: Implementation of the Rio
commitments
------------------------- |
Third World Institute
----------------------- |
Progress in Development Studies (journal)
--------------------------- |
| |
|
|
Social Indicators of
Development:
A World Bank data collection for
over 170 countries, targeting the social effects of economic development. Indicators for
each country include: size, growth, and structure of population; determinants of
population growth; labor force; education and illiteracy; natural resources; income and
poverty; expenditure on food, housing, fuel and power, transport and communication; and
investment in medical care and education.
---------------------------- |
International Development
Research Centre
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Development Assistance Committee
(OECD)
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Center for Economic and Social
Rights/ UN
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Economic and Social Council /UN
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Development Programme /UN
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Economics Journals on
the Web:
Economic Review
Taylor and Francis
Journals Online
Third World Quarterly
CatchWord Home Page
Carfax Publishing, Taylor & Francis
Ltd.
Development in Practice (Oxfam site)
Development in Practice
(Carfax site)
---------------------------- |
Development Journal (SID)
--------------------- |
| TOOLKIT A |
The making and unmaking of the Third World through development
By Arturo Escobar - 1995
The following text is extracted from Chapter 2, 'The Problematization of Poverty: The
Tale of Three Worlds and Development', of Encountering Development The Making and
Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1995. The
book poses a number of fundamental questions. For example, why did the industrialized
nations of North America and Europe come to be seen as the appropriate models of
post-World War II societies in Africa, Asia and Latin America? How did the postwar
discourse on development actually create the so-called Third World? The book shows how
development policies became mechanisms of control that were just as pervasive and
effective as their colonial counterparts. The development apparatus generated categories
powerful enough to shape the thinking even of its occasional critics, while poverty and
hunger became widespread. 'Development' was not even partially 'deconstructed' until the
1980s, when new tools for analysing the representation of social reality were applied to
specific 'Third World' cases. The author deploys these new techniques in a provocative
analysis of development discourse and practice in general, concluding with a discussion of
alternative visions for a post-development era.
|
The State, the community and society in social development
by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil
(Translation of the revised text of President Cardoso's address at the First
Regional Follow-up Conference on the World Social Development Summit Meeting (Sao Paulo,
6-9 April 1997))
"The World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen on 11 and
12 March 1995, brought up once more the ideals which gave rise to the United Nations at
the San Francisco Conference and which have since been reasserted in many forums of the
Organization. The maintenance of peace and security, although an irreplaceable element in
the peaceful coexistence of nations, was not the only objective of that Conference,
however: it also sought to lay the foundations for a form of coexistence which would make
possible more harmonious development. The United Nations Charter which emerged from that
meeting was the clear expression of a humanistic spirit and of the quest for democratic
ideals and values which made human beings the centre of governments’ concern."
|
United Nations - The General Assembly - 1 May 1974
Declaration on the establishment of a New International Economic Order
We, the Members of the United Nations,
Having convened a special session of the General Assembly to study for
the first time the problems of raw materials and development, devoted to the consideration
of the most important economic problems facing the world community,
Bearing in mind the spirit, purposes and principles of the Charter of the United
Nations to promote the economic advancement and social progress of all peoples,
Solemnly proclaim our united determination to work urgently for THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORDER based on equity, sovereign
equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all States, irrespective
of their economic and social systems which shall correct inequalities and redress existing
injustices, make it possible to eliminate the widening gap between the developed and the
developing countries and ensure steadily accelerating economic and social development and
peace and justice for present and future generations, and, to that end, declare:..."
|
| The
Progress of Nations 1999 |
| Global
Development Finance 1998 Vol.1 |
| Global
Development Finance 1999 |
| Global
Development Finance 1999. Country Tables |
| Global
Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries 2000 |
| The
State of Food Insecurity in the World 1999 |
| The
State of Food and Agriculture 1998 |
| World
Resources 1998-99: Data Tables |
| World
Resources 1998-99: Global Trends |
| World
Data Center for Human Interactions in the Environment |
|
| TOOLKIT B |
| Economic
Literacy |
| Action
Literacy |
| Marx, K. Capital, volumen 1 |
| Marx, K. Capital, volumen 2 |
| Marx, K. Capital, volumen 3 |
| Marx, K. Grundisse |
| Marx, K. Production, Consumption,
Distribution, Exchange |
| Marx, K. Wage-labour and capital |
| Marx, K./Engels, F. Bourgeois and
proletarians(1848) |
| Marx/Engels Library |
| WCC: Ecumenical Reflexions on Political
Economy (1988) |
| UNDP: Growth as means to human development
(1996) |
| UNDP: Ten years of Human Development
(1990-1999) |
| TOOLKIT
C |
| S.
Saumon: The IMF and the World Bank, tools of
"Development Diplomacy"? |
| S. Saumon: From state capitalism to neo-liberalism in Algeria: the
case of a failing state |
| S. Saumon: External domination via domestic states: the case of
Francophone Africa |
| S. Saumon: French
neo-colonialism in Francophone Africa? The role of the state in processes of foreign
domination |
|
| Artefacts |
| Calculator |
| Index and Conversion Factors |
| Revision |
| Introduction to economics |
| Introduction to macroeconomics |
Human
Development Report 2007/2008
Fighting climate change: Human
solidarity in a divided world
Climate change is the defining human development challenge of the 21st
Century. Failure to respond to that challenge will stall and then reverse
international efforts to reduce poverty. The poorest countries and most
vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks, even
though they have contributed least to the problem. Looking to the future, no
country—however wealthy or powerful—will be immune to the impact of global
warming.
The Human Development Report 2007/2008 shows that climate change is not just
a future scenario. Increased exposure to droughts, floods and storms is already
destroying opportunity and reinforcing inequality. Meanwhile, there is now
overwhelming scientific evidence that the world is moving towards the point at
which irreversible ecological catastrophe becomes unavoidable. Business-as-usual
climate change points in a clear direction: unprecedented reversal in human
development in our lifetime, and acute risks for our children and their
grandchildren.
Human
Development Report 2006
Beyond scarcity: power, poverty and the
global water crisis
Throughout history water has confronted humanity with some of its greatest
challenges. Water is a source of life and a natural resource that sustains our
environments and supports livelihoods – but it is also a source of risk and
vulnerability. In the early 21st Century, prospects for human development are
threatened by a deepening global water crisis. Debunking the myth that the
crisis is the result of scarcity, this report argues poverty, power and
inequality are at the heart of the problem.
In a world of unprecedented wealth, almost 2 million children die each year
for want of a glass of clean water and adequate sanitation. Millions of women
and young girls are forced to spend hours collecting and carrying water,
restricting their opportunities and their choices. And water-borne infectious
diseases are holding back poverty reduction and economic growth in some of the
world’s poorest countries.
|
Human
Development Report 2005
International
cooperation at a crossroads: Aid, trade and security in an unequal
world
| This
year's Human Development Report takes stock of human
development, including progress towards the MDGs. Looking
beyond statistics, it highlights the human costs of missed
targets and broken promises. Extreme inequality between
countries and within countries is identified as one of the
main barriers to human development and as a powerful brake
on accelerated progress towards the MDGs. |
|
|
Human
Development Report 2004
Cultural Liberty in
Today's Diverse World
| Accommodating
people's growing demands for their inclusion in society, for
respect of their ethnicity, religion, and language, takes
more than democrac | | | |
