In The News

Stuffing Data Gaps With Dollars: What Will It Cost to Close the Data Deficit in Poor Countries?

Laurence Chandy and Christine Zhang September 18, 2015
Data collections, as simple as population counts, contribute to good planning on services that benefit a nation’s development, health and prosperity. Yet such collections are lacking in low-income countries. The International Monetary Fund has set standards on data dissemination and 66 countries don’t meet those standards for population surveys, more than 70 lack living standard surveys and 39...

“The Last Mile”: Laying the Political and Security Foundations First for Peace, Then Development

Bruce Jones August 5, 2015
Poverty, while declining worldwide, is increasingly concentrated in regions fraught with violence and instability. Roughly half of the world’s poor live in fragile states. The international community encourages peace agreements, focusing less on the long-term stability needed for economic development. The Central African Republic is an example, facing cyclical violence and lack of economic...

Are Foreign NGOs Rebuilding Haiti or Cashing In?

Nathalie Baptiste August 3, 2015
Since the 2010 earthquake, billions of dollars in aid have poured into Haiti. But most of this money has gone towards salaries for expatriate NGO workers, not towards rebuilding Haiti. The trend has created a class of well-compensated expats who take jobs that might have gone to Haitians and drives up the island’s cost of living, suggests Nathalie Baptiste for Foreign Policy. Projects like...

Cuba: Transforming a Revolution

Patricia Alejandro July 23, 2015
The United States and Cuba are reopening their respective embassies and preparing for more exchanges in diplomacy and trade. “Cubans and Americans are equally curious about exploring the other side since December when President Barack Obama and Raúl Castro made the surprise announcement on restoration of full diplomatic relations between the two countries,” writes Patricia Alejandro, a Harvard...

Will Africa’s Growth Help Africa’s People?

Kanayo F. Nwanze July 23, 2015
Africa has 11 of the world’s 20 fastest growing economies, yet thousands of African youth risk their lives to cross the Mediterranean to pursue opportunities in Europe, notes Kanayo F. Nwanze, president of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development. He questions if growth and development are improving lives for a broad segment of Africans or just a few. Money won’t solve the challenge...

Beijing’s Maritime Silk Road Passes Through Islamabad

Dilip Hiro July 21, 2015
Ties between China and Pakistan run strong and often aim at containing India. In recent decades, China helped Pakistan with its nuclear-weapons program and after 1991 became the country’s chief arms supplier. The relationship could signal that China’s One Belt, One Road project is as much about developing a strategic military network as trade and cultural exchange, suggests historian and author...

Can Beijing Make AIIB Transparent?

Nayan Chanda July 2, 2015
The world will judge the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank by the rules being drafted. Asia needs infrastructure development, and China initiated the bank after global groups like the International Monetary Fund did not reform their structures in recognition of China’s growing contributions. The United States is not a founding member, but the AIIB curtailed criticisms on governance...