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Publications (44)
Blog
– The Earth Trembles in Haiti
Evans Jadotte On Tuesday January 12 2010, a 7.0 Richter scale earthquake, off the coast of Haiti destroyed its capital Port-au-Prince. It also razed the cities of Léogane, Petit-Goâve, Grand-Goâve, Jacmel, and Les Cayes. It came as a terrible unexpected shock to one of the poorest countries in the...
Blog
Heidi Hautala Over the last decade the international community has striven to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Thanks to global cooperation much has been achieved. For example, over 600 million people have been lifted out of poverty and 56 million more children get to go to school now...
Blog
The tragedy for the Afghan people of the Taliban re-taking control of the country in August 2021 is the denouement of a process 20 years in the making. The sudden collapse of the Afghan government and the national security forces over the course of a few days is not a “surprise” to anyone, but was a...
Blog
– The World Turns Brighter
by Tony Addison This year is set to see a new chapter open in Africa’s debt story and, for once, it looks like a positive story—as the region begins to access the international capital market in ways that could fund development and poverty reduction. Today 20 African countries have a sovereign...
Blog
by Stephen BrowneEvery ‘conflict country’ is a special case. What distinguishes Rwanda is the intensity of human destruction to which the country succumbed in 1994. One seventh of the population, mostly from the Tutsi minority, was massacred in the space of three months. The academic, commercial...
Blog
– Reflections from the Stockholm Results Meeting
17 April 2013 Tony Addison and Miguel Niño-Zarazúa We learnt much from the ReCom Results meeting on 13th March in Stockholm on aid and the social sectors. We not only learnt about successes, but also challenges—and importantly what to do to increase success, especially amongst the world’s poorest...
Research Brief
– Exploring the Fatal Flaw
Aid to Haiti has not been effective due to failure of the country’s political and economic elites to participate and assist in the development process. US foreign policy has in some cases reinforced the tendency for elites to personally profit from aid initiatives. Haiti has received more than US$20...
Blog
Tommaso Ciarli, Saeed Parto and Maria Savona Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world with an estimated per capita income of 300 US dollars and average mortality age of 47 years. By all accounts, progress to date for moving Afghanistan out of poverty and on to a path of economic...
The situation of Afghanistan has drawn a picture of a poor, conflict-prone, doomed country. But this does not have to be the case. We have examples of several countries able to rise out of poverty, despite conflicts, climate challenges, or large population. International co-operation for eradicating...
Blog
– Economics of Urban Hazard Risk
Somik V. Lall and Uwe Deichmann Following the terrible disaster which struck Haiti last month, in which more than 200,000 people are estimated to have died, the degree to which human populations are vulnerable to natural disasters as they agglomerate in urban areas has received renewed attention...
– What are the challenges?
Diversifying the agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa is important for the combat against poverty and climate change. In Malawi there are plans for legalizing the cultivation of industrial hemp, which would at best bring possibilities for Malawi and South Africa to complement each other in...
Blog
– Big Challenges in Small States
by Simon Feeny The Pacific region covers Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia. Its developing countries and territories include the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu...
Research Brief
It is a widely accept projection that many low income countries (LICs) will remain low income for some time to come. Consequently, when assessing the policy options available to LICs it is important to take a long-term view. In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Aid, Fiscal Policy, Climate Change, and Growth’...
Policy Brief
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Many of the world’s poorest countries can be described as 'fragile states' wherein governments cannot or will not provide an environment for households to reduce, mitigate, or cope with poverty and other risks to wellbeing. Many of these states are in conflict or just emerging from conflict. The UNU...
Blog
30 October 2013 Roger Williamson The UNU-WIDER meeting held last week in New York on the topic of fragility and aid argued forcefully that you cannot ‘fix’ failed states as you would a broken window. Drawing on over 80 papers from the governance and fragility theme of the ReCom—Research and...
Research Brief
Even the most optimistic analyses accept that many low-income countries (LICs) will remain low income for some time to come. Consequently, when assessing the policy options available to LICs it is important to take a long term view. In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Aid, Fiscal Policy, Climate Change, and...
Displaying 16 of 44 results