20 November 2008
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• Source: Reuters News

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The Group of Eight major industrialized countries should be doubled to include Brazil, China and India and other nations to better tackle global challenges like climate change and economic stability, a blue chip panel said on Thursday.

The panel, which included European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, argued that the G8 has become “outdated.” (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Other, Development, Climate Change

22 September 2008
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• Source: Xinhua News Agency

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in remarks at the high-level meeting on Africa’s development needs on Monday, urged donor countries to implement their 2005 pledge to double their aid to Africa.

“I appeal to all donors to implement the 2005 Gleneagles summit to more than double aid to Africa,” Ban said, referring to the summit meeting held at the Scottish town of Gleneagles by the Group of Eight — the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Russia. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development

8 September 2008
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• Source: Financial Times

In 2005, Vietnam had to host 791 separate missions from visiting aid bureaucrats, more than three every working day. You might think a developing country, particularly one with a very good record in reducing poverty, should have other priorities. You would be right.

Last week in Accra, Ghana, ministers met to discuss something of more importance to developing countries than any pontificating about aid in a Group of Eight summit - in fact, probably more important than all the G8 summits of the past decade put together. For once they were talking about the quality, not the width: specifically about how aid from dozens of different donors can be co-ordinated and delivered in ways that strengthen rather than undermine public finance systems in the recipient. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development

5 September 2008
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• Source: Trend News Agency (Azerbaijan)

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that development aid would have to increase to 18 billion dollars a year if the world was to remain on track to achieving a set of anti-poverty goals by 2015, reported dpa.

Countries have committed to eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, and Ban’s comments came ahead of a high-level meeting on stepping up global efforts to reach the MDGs in New York on September 25. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development, Democratization and Human Rights

5 September 2008
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• Author: Frederick Asiamah
• Source: All Africa

Sep 05, 2008 (Public Agenda/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) — World leaders have been told to gear up or miss international commitments and targets for effective aid by 2010.

According to the findings of the “2008 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration”, progress towards aid effectiveness is being made, “but not fast enough.” (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development, Democratization and Human Rights

5 September 2008
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• Author: Thalif Deen
• Source: Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Sep. 4, 2008 (IPS/GIN) — When the United Nations approved a set of development goals on poverty, health, gender empowerment and environmental sustainability, back in September 2000, it set a deadline of 2015 to reach these targets.

Of the eight millennium development goals endorsed by the General Assembly, seven had a clear-cut deadline of 2015 as the target date. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Multilateral Trade, Development

4 September 2008
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• Author: Larry Elliott
• Source: The Guardian

Britain’s international development secretary, Douglas Alexander, will today announce a global initiative aimed at preventing the misuse of western aid to developing countries through bribery, corruption and waste.

In a plan backed by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the European commission, Britain intends to make it easier for people in poor countries to track how aid budgets are being spent. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Development

3 September 2008
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• Source: Kyodo News

The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday it has reached an agreement in principle with Georgia to provide a $750 million loan package to the country to help it rebuild its economy hurt by recent clashes with Russia.

The IMF Executive Board is expected to approve the loan package, which will be provided in the form of an 18-month stand-by arrangement, at its meeting in mid-September. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Development, East-West Relations: Central and Eastern Europe

31 August 2008
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• Author: Joshua Kurlantzick
• Source: The Boston Globe

JUST THREE YEARS ago, at the G-8 summit of industrialized nations, it looked like the world of foreign aid was about to change. As the 2005 conference ended, British Prime Minister Tony Blair ascended the steps of a resort in the quaint Scottish village of Gleneagles and announced that rich nations would double their aid to Africa by 2010, giving some $50 billion annually. “It is progress — real and achievable progress,” he concluded. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development, Health and Infectious Disease

28 August 2008
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• Source: States News Service

The following information was released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:

UN refugee agency chief António Guterres today completed a three-day visit to Pakistan during which the government agreed to revise its Afghan repatriation strategy beyond 2009. Both parties also reached a strong consensus on projects to develop refugee-hosting areas in Pakistan.
(more…)

Filed by Anita Li under Development, Conflict Prevention and Human Security

27 August 2008
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• Source: Korea Times

The Horn of Africa, the region that encompasses Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea, has in recent times hit the international news for all the wrong reasons. (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Development

21 August 2008
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• Source: The Press Trust of India Limited

New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) India and China, two of the fastest growing economies in the Asia Pacific region, will fuel global growth in the coming century driven by rising opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses, a report says.

The Asia Pacific Capital Markets Guide by Grant Thornton projects that India would catch up with the US by 2050 and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as a group will surpass the G7 by 2032. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development

20 August 2008
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• Source: All Africa

The governments of Japan and Liberia Monday signed an agreement for the provision of US$7.1 million food aid to Liberia. (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Global Financial Crises, Development, The Environment

20 August 2008
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• Source: Kyodo News

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven major economic powers said Wednesday that they are ready to support the economic reconstruction of conflict-hit Georgia through international financial institutions. (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Development, East-West Relations and Russia

20 August 2008
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• Source: Agence France Presse

Russia must respect Georgia’s territorial integrity, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday, while insisting NATO is not in a “stand-off as in the old Cold War days” with Moscow. (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Development, East-West Relations and Russia, Conflict Prevention and Human Security

17 August 2008
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• Source: The Washington Times

Millions of children worldwide face a gathering storm that poses a greater threat this summer than any tsunami, cyclone or hurricane.

A perilous combination of factors - including soaring energy prices, bad weather (possibly linked with climate change), poor harvests, and dwindling food stocks - has created the most dangerous hunger crisis in decades. Adding to the crisis: a growing demand for biofuels that is further depleting the food supply. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under Development

16 August 2008
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• Author: Forrest Laws
• Source: Western Farm Press

The World Trade Organization negotiations have broken down once again, ostensibly because “developing” countries want to protect their farmers. Imagine that.

As representatives of 40 nations left the failed talks July 29, developing and developed countries were pointing fingers at each other for causing the collapse of the “mini-ministerial” meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Multilateral Trade, Development

15 August 2008
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• Source: The New Nation

Dhaka, Aug. 15 — The current food crisis has several causes-rising demand for food and feed, biofuels, high oil prices, climate change, stagnant agricultural productivity growth-but there is increasing evidence that the crisis is being made worse by the malfunctioning of world grain markets. Given the thinness of major markets for cereals, the restrictions on grain exports imposed by dozens of countries have resulted in additional price increases. A number of countries have adopted retail price controls, creating perverse incentives for producers. Speculative bubbles have built up, and the gap between cash and futures prices has risen, stimulating overregulation in some countries and causing some commodity exchanges in Africa and Asia to halt grain futures trading. Some food aid donors have defaulted on food aid contracts. The World Food Programme (WFP) has had difficulty getting quick access to grain for its humanitarian operations. Developing countries are urgently rebuilding their national stocks and re-examining the “merits” of self-sufficiency policies for food security despite high costs. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development

13 August 2008
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• Author: Peter Clark
• Source: National Post

The rumours about the death of the mini-ministerial talks of the Doha Development Round of global trade talks appears to have been exaggerated. While those rumours may only be premature, another attempt at political high levels is now underway to resurrect Doha, focusing on President George Bush, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil as well as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other top leaders. (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Development

13 August 2008
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• Source: All Africa

A mother and child in Ghana with insecticide-treated bed nets to protect against mosquitos carrying malaria. Japan is financing projects to promote greater use of bed nets across Africa (more…)

Filed by Sarah Cale under Development

10 August 2008
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• Source: The Nation (Thailand)

The latest, perhaps the last, attempt to bring the Doha Round of trade negotiations to a successful conclusion has ended in dismal failure. After nine days of intense discussions, which seemed at one stage to have broken through to success, the assembled delegates found they had hit the wall and were obliged to pack up and leave Geneva. There is no agreement on when, or even whether, they are to resume their efforts. Understandably, so much work having been put in night and day, with the will o’ the wisp of a breakthrough glimmering ahead, there is deep disappointment among those involved, and with it a readiness to blame each other for what went wrong. The West sees China and, especially, India as the ones that scuttled the deal at the eleventh hour. But Western countries also blame each other. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under Development

10 August 2008
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• Author: Li Xiang
• Source: China Daily

Italy will seek closer engagement with China on major global issues when Rome holds the presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) next year, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.

“I intend to closely engage with China on key topics on the G8’s agenda such as climate change, sustainable energy policy, global terrorism and poverty,” Frattini said in an interview with China Daily in Beijing on Friday. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under Development, Climate Change, Energy and Nuclear Safety

10 August 2008
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• Source: CNN: LATE EDITION W/WOLF BLITZER

BLITZER: Russian tanks roll into the neighboring Republic of Georgia. Thousands are reported dead and the conflict is growing. We’ll speak to both sides. What will impact be on U.S.-Russian relations? Two top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Cornyn and Carl Levin, weigh in on that and more. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under Development, East-West Relations and Russia, Conflict Prevention and Human Security, Democratization and Human Rights

10 August 2008
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• Source: The Sunday Telegraph

Russia’s ruthless attack on Georgia is a dramatic and depressing reminder of the willingness of the Soviet Union (and, before it, imperial Russia) to pursue its foreign policy across the borders of sovereign nations. It is true that Georgia - unlike, say Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 - walked into a trap. What did it imagine would be Moscow’s response to its own assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of the Russian-supported breakaway province of South Ossetia? Did the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, not realise that he was providing his enemy with an excuse not just to invade the rebel province but also to launch air strikes on central Georgia? Yet the excuse is not a valid one. Russia’s behaviour is indefensible. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under Development, East-West Relations and Russia, Conflict Prevention and Human Security, Democratization and Human Rights

10 August 2008
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• Author: Jitendra Joshi
• Source: Agence France Presse

Prominent supporters of White House runners John McCain and Barack Obama clashed Sunday over the crisis in Georgia as a McCain adviser came under fire for his links to the government in Tbilisi.

As the Russian military seized control of the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, the campaign of Democratic hopeful Obama defended its attacks on McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under Development, East-West Relations and Russia, Conflict Prevention and Human Security, Democratization and Human Rights