Category: Poverty Alleviation
There are 130 entries in this category.
Apr 16, 2008
Global Food Inflation: What Can Be Done?
Rapidly rising food prices around the world are capturing front page headlines daily. The problems in the agricultural sector of been decades in the making and will take several years to fix.The biggest danger is that in the rush to short-term fixes, we’ll simply create more distortions that don’t deal with the real issues and make future food crises even worse.
Apr 11, 2008
Cash Is More Addictive than Nicotine
Economists from Innovations for Poverty Action and the World Bank have found that money might be the most powerful tool to help smokers quit.
Apr 07, 2008
Grim News From Afghanistan
Poppy cultivation and wasted foreign aid are like twin sisters perpetuating the cycle of poverty within Afghanistan.
Mar 21, 2008
Emerging Opportunities in the US, Part II
More opportunities for high-impact philanthropy in the US.
Mar 19, 2008
More News of an Africa on the Economic Upswing
The commodities boom and bust in the 1980’s left most developing nations worse off than they started. Particularly hard hit was sub-Saharan Africa.
Mar 14, 2008
Legalization and Criminalization of Illicit Trade
Experts in a variety of fields passionately debate how to combat illicit trade in everything from drugs to endangered species to, worst of all, people. There are rational, credible arguments for both criminalizing and aggressively prosecuting those engaged in illicit trade and for legalizing and regulating the trade.
Mar 12, 2008
Remittances and Foreign Investment Trends Tell a Mixed Story for Latin America
Foreign direct investment is a critical element of poverty reduction in emerging market economies because it correlates directly with the creation of businesses, and therefore formal jobs, in those countries. By that calculation Brazil appears to be on a promising path.
Mar 05, 2008
Ethiopian Exchange Looks Promising
A group of donors, including the Ethiopian government, the World Bank and a few countries, such as the US, are funding the creation of a grain exchange in Addis Ababa
Feb 28, 2008
Emerging Opportunities for Philanthropy in the US
The current economic situation is generating many other possible opportunities for innovative and high-impact philanthropy. Here are a few ideas that are worth exploring.
Feb 25, 2008
China’s Role in African Infrastructure Development
It’s important to understand the reasons for the differences between Western aid/philanthropy and Chinese aid in Africa. While “fashion” in aid plays a role, Western donors have largely moved away from infrastructure projects because of the way in which they have been historically mired in deep corruption; and Western-funded buildings and roads have rarely been maintained once they’ve been built. Because of Chinese insistence on using Chinese firms and labor and the lack of transparency in many of these deals, there is reason to be concerned that China is undermining Western philanthropy’s investment in good governance and human development.