Congratulations to Slovakia!
Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Easterly channels Lenin
Well, sort of. Bill Easterly reviews Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion in the most recent New York Review of Books. As Easterly points out, Lenin argued that the capitalist powers would divide up the globe between them; Easterly himself comments on the increasingly intertwined ventures of foreign aid and military intervention.
Entrepreneurship - the key to prosperity?
Following the G20 summit this weekend, the leaders of the world's largest economies issued a statement explaining how they intend to remake the world's economic architecture. On the very first page of the statement you'll run across the following:
Real Simple Reporting, continued: Can web 2.0 help companies report on their performance?
I recently ventured that "real simple reporting" could be the killer app for development 2.0. At that time, I had project reporting to donors in mind. But what about corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting: Is there a role for web 2.0 there?
Crunch time for microfinance ctd.
As I argued previously, microfinance will not escape the impact of the financial crisis. CGAP is staging a virtual conference over the next three days on precisely this topic. Here are some of the highlights so far:
Results from the poll of participants:
What Argentina can learn from Argentina
Just a few weeks ago, Argentina nationalized its private pension system. This kind of action is not without precedent - Argentina froze bank deposits in 2001. The result? According to a paper from the World Bank on The Unfolding Crisis: Implications for Financial Systems and Their Oversight:
Bankers are people too!
Where might you find a bank president, an ambassador, an attorney, a journalist, a café owner, and other assorted characters in a single place? On stage, of course! The UB Players, an expat theater group, just put on Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. It was a great show, and to my surprise, I recognized about half the cast.
An Evolving Discussion
The online discussion on ‘the evolving regulatory context for private sector education’ began two weeks ago with an opening post asking participants to identify the challenges inherent in regulatory change. The responses have been as varied as the contexts and countries from which the authors come. Subsequent posts have introduced new strands to the debate and certain aspects of the discussion have clearly resonated with readers and we hope will continue to do so.
Shameless self-promotion
It may not be 100 percent in line with private sector development, but, hey, what else are blogs for? The Institute for Higher Education Policy today released a new (and long awaited) report by Ryan Hahn and Derek Price on College-Qualified Students Who Don't Enroll in College. Among its many findings on college-going in the US, I thought I'd highlight one in particular:
The private sector vs. poverty
The World Bank released the results of a global poll today about international development and the role that the World Bank should play in the world. Poverty was the top concern. I find it curious - but perhaps telling - to see how respondents thought that poverty could most effectively be addressed:
Liberalization and inequality
The OECD has just released a massive report on inequality - see the press release, data and related materials, and the report itself, Growing Unequal? (gated).
China is not the only one courting Africa
Turkey is making big strides in building relations with Africa. The Jamestown Foundation reports that:
Stand to the right
Newcomers to Washington DC rapidly learn that to stand on the left-hand side of the metro escalator at rush-hour is to risk being run down by an impatient, backpack-wielding local. At an event today in Bishkek to celebrate the Krygyz Republic's appearance at #3 on the Doing Business 2009 list of top reformers, Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Mr Akylbek Japarov, compared reform to an escalator ride where you can choose to ride or to climb. Kyrgyz reformers want to climb. Less active reformers may want to stand to the right.
Weight-watchers in Tirana
The will to reform
What does it take to be a top ten Doing Business reformer? I just ran across a survey from World Public Opinion.org that might shed a little light on this question. The populations of both Azerbaijan and Egypt appear to be quite pro-globalization (or at least not very negative about the phenomenon):