In The News

US Congress Blocks World Bank Move to Slash Safeguards

January 16, 2015
The US Congress has inserted a provision in an appropriations act that requires greater “protection for the environment or for human rights than the bank’s current safeguards,” reports Environment News Service. The United States is the largest contributor for World Bank operations, and the measure formalizes criticism about the World Bank’s 2014 proposal on environmental and social safeguards: “...

US Congress Blocks World Bank Move on Safeguards

January 12, 2015
The US Congress has inserted a provision in an appropriations act that requires greater “protection for the environment or for human rights than the bank’s current safeguards,” reports Environment News Service. The United States is the largest contributor for World Bank operations, and the measure formalizes criticism about the World Bank’s 2014 proposal on environmental and social safeguards: “...

Afro-Optimism: Has the Pendulum Swung Too Far?

Raila Odinga December 2, 2014
Development and economic growth in Africa offer great potential, yet poverty, conflict, preventable infectious disease and other challenges remain. Leaders cannot rest easy, warns Raila Odinga, former prime minister of Kenya in an article based on his remarks during the Annual Coca-Cola World Fund Lecture at Yale University, October 9, 2014. Odinga reviews Africa’s many accomplishments over the...

Trans-Afghan Pipeline Initiative: No Pipe Dream

Marc Grossman August 28, 2014
Despite a stream of bad news, development plans are underway even among nations with adversarial relations. Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and India signed an agreement in early July to move forward with a 1,700-kilometer natural gas pipeline. “This $7.5 billion project known as TAPI, or the Trans-Afghan Pipeline Initiative, has the potential to catalyze investment and trading opportunities...

All Eyes on Africa

J. Peter Pham August 14, 2014
Disturbing news out of Africa, whether about extremist Boko Haram or the outbreak of Ebola, are aberrations for a young continent eager to grow and innovate. Like China and Europe, the United States is ready to court Africa as signaled by the first US-Africa Leaders Summit, explains J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council. “The summit itself underscores the broad...

Beijing Invites US to Link Up Over Africa

Geoff Dyer August 6, 2014
As the United States hosts the first ever summit of nearly 50 African heads of states and governments in a bid to regain influence in the continent China has invited the United States to cooperate in developing Africa with more finance and infrastructure, writes Geoff Dyer for the Financial Times. Both countries have shown a desire in recent years to invest in the poor continent that is one of...

Big Projects Face Growing Resistance

Sven Böll, Horand Knaup and Paul Middelhoff July 16, 2014
The internet and social media have transformed grassroots protesters into rapid-response teams. Modern movements are “Well-informed, confrontational and devoid of respect for authority” with a “radical undercurrent,” notes an article in Spiegel Online: “Wherever ambitious construction ventures loom on the horizon in Germany – from the cities to the countryside, from the coastlines in the north to...