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Photo: istockphoto.com |
New Year’s resolutions are always of the lofty – but often short-lived kind. I will go to the gym more often, lose more weight, or volunteer more often than I do now. One resolution made by a number of us in the Research Group of the Bank – and elsewhere, has been to find a way to get more people excited about investing in data collection and analysis on trade. I recognize this is not the most glamorous of topics at any time of the year – but nonetheless a resolution as important as any made each year for decades as the calendar turns another page.
Here is why 2011 is different and resolutions made can be kept, however, and why data and research should be high on anyone’s development and trade agenda.
There were a number of high level dialogues in 2010 and 2011 related to global finance, trade, and development issues. These included the High Level Summit on the MDG’s in September 2010 and the G20 Summit in Seoul in November 2010. These events provided important opportunities -- in the post-crisis environment – to inform priorities going forward on aid effectiveness and trade. The President of the Bank, Mr. Zoellick, outlined in October 2010 -- in a very high profile speech at Georgetown University – a new vision of development economics which included new ways of looking at and advancing research tied to make aid more effective and inclusive.