In The News

Pacific Trade Deal Needs to Harmonize With Sustainable Development Goals

Shuaihua Wallace Cheng October 22, 2015
Developed and poorer developing nations often struggle to agree on global initiatives. But two major deals have been announced: The 193 members of the United Nations approved global action on 17 Sustainable Development Goals to reduce poverty, and 12 nations concluded negotiations on the Transpacific Trade Partnership, the largest regional trade agreement in history. The trade agreement supports...

Narrow Court Ruling May Offer Room for Diplomacy on South China Sea Claims

Ashley Townshend October 13, 2015
The announcement is expected any day from the Arbitral Tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on whether it has jurisdiction to rule on the Philippines’ case against China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea. In the ensuing hearing, a narrow ruling against China’s “nine-dashed line” is the most likely outcome, suggests Ashley Townshend, a research fellow in the...

Refugee Camps Empty as Syrians Head for Europe

Elisa Oddone and Alisa Reznick October 9, 2015
The United Nations, international charities and neighboring nations like Jordan have organized camps for refugees streaming from the civil war in Syria since 2012. At one point Zaatari Camp was Jordan’s fourth largest population center. But the conflict has lasted too long. Syrians are impatient for jobs, education and stability. Elisa Oddone and Alisa Reznick, writing for Time, describe a...

North Korea: Nuclear Bomb Fuel Plants Restarted

September 22, 2015
North Korea threatened to launch rockets in mid-September and also announced that fuel production plants for an atomic bomb have been restarted. It’s an old pattern, the country acting up to receive aid and attention. The international community has repeatedly and soundly condemned the isolated nation for breaking UN resolutions related to production of weapons of mass destruction. “North Korea...

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...

UN Credibility on Trial in Cambodia

John D. Ciorciari May 14, 2015
The Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, killing more than two million, displacing and ruining the lives of millions more. A hybrid tribunal, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, organized by the United Nations, was established for trying those most responsible for atrocities committed during the China-backed Pol Pot era. Cambodia's Hun Sen embraced the hybrid...