Development

Donor countries will undermine the integrity of aid if they continue reporting debt relief as ODA

10 July 2020 - by Jan Van de Poel, Nerea Craviotto

Debt relief should not be reported as ODA. In the coming weeks, DAC members need to decide what is most important to them: allowing ODA double counting and inflation to create incentives to reward debt relief or upholding the credibility, integrity and solid reputation of DAC statistics. This (...)
South/North / Developing Countries/Developed Countries – What is it all about?

11 February 2020 - by CADTM

Lexical choices that are not neutral The terms used to designate the different categories of countries convey the theoretical and political divergences in terms of analysis and strategy. Generally, these divergences are related to the social contents of the economic concepts: the economic (...)
Debt Against the People: an ABC

29 January 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

Introduction Over the last ten years Greece has been a prime example of how a country and a people can be deprived of their liberty through clearly illegitimate debt. Since the 19th century, from Latin America to China, Haiti, Greece, Tunisia, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire public debt has been (...)
The accomplices to austerity are also responsible for human rights violations

21 November 2019 - by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky

The question is not whether austerity plays a role in violating human rights but how big a role it plays: how much of an impact it has on indicators such as mortality rates, employment, equality, health, housing and levels of violence. Adjustment and austerity measures are often among the (...)
Illicit financial flows thwart human rights and development in Africa

5 February 2019 - by Imani Countess

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights turned 70 on 12 December and governments and civil society organisations around the world were commemorating the day with a range of activities. However, the threat of illicit financial flows to the respect of human seems to have been forgotten on that (...)
With its controversial pension reforms, Russia is looking after its rich

17 December 2018 - by Karine Clément

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced a drastic reform of Russia’s pension system this June, just as the World Cup began: the retirement age would be increased from 55 to 63 for women and from 60 to 65 for men. Although President Vladimir Putin tried to stay out of the debate, the (...)
Once upon a time there was a popular government that wanted to do away with the export-oriented extractivist model

22 August 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Damien Millet

Large popular mobilizations resulted in the creation of self-organized committees in the neighbourhoods, workplaces, universities and several higher education schools; this has led to the constitution of a people’s government. It has just held its first meeting. In this government, the women and (...)
China-Africa relations without Africans’ contributions

28 May 2018 - by Daouda Cissé

The piece relates that, at times, Africans are not invited to debates, conferences and other key platforms on Africa-China relations even though the topic is about Africa’s and Africans’ relations with China and Chinese. Recent discussions and exchanges among members of a research network on (...)
Official development assistance at the antipodes of solidarity

6 April 2018 - by Jérôme Duval

On the 11th of April, 2017, at the end of its report , the OECD proudly announced an increase in official development assistance for the past year: “In 2016, net official development assistance ODA) of the member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) OECD reached a new high of (...)
Falling BRICS endanger their citizens’ health, starting with South Africa’s Jacob Zuma

21 August 2017 - by Patrick Bond

As he launched the African Regional Centre of the New Development Bank (NDB) in Johannesburg on Thursday, nearly 18 months behind schedule, South African President Jacob Zuma must have had mixed feelings. Strife-riven Brazil, Russia, India and China are more risky allies than Zuma reckoned when (...)
Exclusionary growth – Southeast Asian civil society to ASEAN: 50 years of exclusion is enough

14 August 2017 - by InterAksyon.com

MANILA – While officials of ASEAN governments and their dialogue partners met behind closed doors for the ASEAN and East Asia meetings, over 1,000 members of civil society marched Monday to call for an end to what they said had been 50 years of exclusionary, elitist growth. The fishers, (...)
The dark side of infrastructure investment in Africa

12 June 2017 - by Collective

With its Compact with Africa the German G20 presidency is actively promoting private loans and investment as solutions to infrastructure deficiencies on the African continent. The Compact aims at using public resources in order to improve the investment climate and mobilize private capital to (...)
Honest Accounts 2017 - How the world profits from Africa’s wealth

6 June 2017 - by Mark Curtis, Tim Jones

Profiting from Africa’s wealth Africa is rich – in potential mineral wealth, skilled workers, booming new businesses and biodiversity. Its people should thrive, its economies prosper. Yet many people living in Africa’s 47 countries remain trapped in poverty, while much of the continent’s wealth (...)
Beware of the dragon bearing gifts – Chinese loans and investments in the Philippines

1 June 2017 - by Randy David

Following President Duterte’s state visit to China in October 2016, 27 deals have been signed with Chinese state entities and business corporations covering around US$9 billion in loans and US$15 billion in investments. The President proudly touts these achievements as having been made possible (...)
50 years of ADB : Debt, Destitution, Destruction, Disparity, & Displacement

30 May 2017 - by Sushovan Dhar, Ratan Bhandari, Hasan Mehdi

The Manila based Asian Development Bank (ADB) celebrated its 50th year at Yokohama from May 3-7, 2017 with a great display of extravagance and grandeur. Japan’s Crown Prince, Naruhito while inaugurating the 50th annual meeting emphasised on ADB’s remarkable ‘achievements’ in the last half a century (...)
ADB in Bangladesh: More Than Four Decades of Pillage & Devastation

8 May 2017 - by Hasan Mehdi

The ADB was established in 1966 at the initiative of UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP). Two years after the great liberation war of 1971, it started working in Bangladesh. Since then (till 2016) Asian Development Bank (ADB) has contracted 259 loans, 411 technical (...)
ADB violates its own safeguard policies in Nepal Hydropower Project

27 April 2017 - by Ratan Bhandari

The 140 MW Tanahu Seti Hydroelectric Project (THP) is located in the Tanahu District of Nepal’s Western Development Region. It is a storage type hydropower project with a capacity of 140 MW. As part of the project, a dam with a height of 140 metres would be constructed in the Vyas Municipality (...)
UNCTAD14: A mirage of distorting mirrors

12 September 2016 - by Yash Tandon

People not versed in the complexities of the diplomatic world of distorted mirror images in Geneva or Accra or Nairobi may wonder in awe at the agreements negotiated in their name by their representatives in multilateral forums like UNCTAD. But, truth be told, UNCTAD is in no position to (...)
Poverty in Africa, the unvoiced failures of the World Bank

15 April 2016 - by Salaheddine Lemaizi

A recent report from the World Bank tells us that the number of Africans living in extreme poverty has considerably increased since 1990, rising from 280 million people living on less than $1.25 per day in 1990, to 330 million in 2012. For the standard-bearer of neoliberal ideology in the (...)
2030 Agenda and the SDGs: indicator framework, monitoring and reporting

23 March 2016 - by Barbara Adams, Karen Judd

On 11 March 2016 the UN Statistical Commission agreed “as a practical starting point” with the proposed global indicator framework by which to measure progress towards the 17 goals and 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It recognized that the development of a robust and (...)
Rich country governments put national interests ahead of world’s poorest

22 February 2016 - by Eurodad

Governments of rich states today cleared the way for the diversion of development aid away from those most in need. Development ministers at a meeting of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in Paris agreed to allow member countries to use aid money to pay for extra security costs. (...)