Last week the Development Research Group released new estimates of poverty around the world, and the press and the blogosphere have definitely taken notice. Here are some of the reactions.
First off, the Economist covered the new estimates in a piece called The bottom 1.4 billion. The author gives a pretty neutral review, although she comes to the defence of the numbers in one particular instance:
Yesterday saw an interesting day-long event that brought together the paired topics of financial literacy and consumer protection. (Many of the day's presentations are available here.) Although I only managed to attend the first couple of sessions, I caught a lot of interesting material.
Looking back at this post on E-government - another chance to leapfrog?, I now realize I may have gotten it wrong. The real opportunity for some governments is not to develop more participatory and easy-to-use websites. Whatever solutions a government comes up with - even one as cool as Estonia's TOM that allows citizens to comment on laws and propose new legislation - will quickly become outdated by the development of new and better internet tools.
The Guardian reports that organic food sales in the UK have started to tumble (Hat tip: African Agriculture). Sales have fallen nearly 20 percent in the last four-week period.
Homi Kharas has a less than optimistic outlook on the 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, scheduled from September 2 to 4: "[T]he Accra Agenda repeats the good intentions of the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, but offers few specifics for significant changes on the ground. There are not surprises." If Kharas had his way, participants in the forum would focus on three priorities:
The Institute of Public Affairs, a free market-oriented think tank in Australia, has issued a mini-manifesto on combating climate change. In Undermining Mitigation Technology, Tim Wilson puts forth two arguments about how best to develop and spread new technologies to combat climate change. His big argument is that patent rights ought not to be violated.
Just how far has the international development community come in its attitudes toward corruption? Here are classic lines from Samuel Huntington's 1968 opus Political Order in Changing Societies:
Although it's not a new paper, I thought it would be good right about now to dig up a little bit of wisdom from Dani Rodrik and Romain Wacziarg called Do Democratic Transitions Produce Bad Economic Outcomes? The short answer is no. But I'll let them speak for themselves:
Althought the point has been made before, Foreign Policy has some searing words for the aid industry in a piece called The New Colonialists (subscription required). Money quote:
