Democracy that Delivers

Good resource for critical review of Dead Aid

Materials presented on this website detail how and why democracies and market economies are inextricably linked and are based on a conference held in Washington D.C. by the Center for International Private Enterprise. 

http://www.democracythatdelivers.com/2009/

Videos of talks on:

• The dilemma of development assistance
• What are the linkages between democracy and high quality growth?
• What is a market economy?
• How can democracy work for all levels of society?
• What is the role of the business community in making democracy work?
• Building partnerships for prosperity and democracy

China-Africa Relations and INTERNSHIP DATABASE

Obviously we can't go to this lecture, but the event description is interesting and there's a link to an interesting India China Institute at the bottom.


Also, many of you might just be interested in checking out The New School for grad school : ) AND there are a LOT of resources on their website, including a list of internships at a bunch of great orgs!! Check it out! http://gpia.info/internships/current


Development, Thought & Policy @ The New School and The India China
Institute would like to invite you to a lecture with:

Khalid Malik

Understanding China in Africa
Potential for New Development Strategies in Africa

Thursday, March 3rd, 6pm-8pm
66 West 12th Street, room 702

Please RSVP to development.newschool@gmail.com

In a relatively brief period, only 6-7 years or so, China has now
emerged as a leading trade, investment and aid partner in almost all
countries in Africa. Trade for instance between Africa and China went up
from a modest $ 2 billion to a whopping $108 billion in 2008. Its
investments now surpass financing from the World Bank. Not only is China
viewed as displacing long established political arrangements, it
steadfastly refuses to condition its investment or aid to political or
economic reforms, taking the view that national policies and governance
are matters of national sovereignty. Africa has thus become one of the
controversies generated by the rise of China as a world power. In 2006,
as a further confirmation of this global shift, one of the largest
gathering of African leaders ever met in Beijing to chart for the future
this new and expanded Africa China partnership.

All this has added fuel to the fire. Often vilified as a
neo-imperialist, China's role in Africa deserves consideration as a new
form of partnership between Africa and the rest of the world.  Will
Chinese investment influence ideas about development strategies in
Africa?  Will it reshape the political economy of aid relationships?
Having grown at 9-10 percent annually for over 30 years and lifted over
500 million people out of poverty, China is being increasingly looked at
as a model of development for other developing countries. Would the
Beijing Consensus displace the Washington Consensus?

Educated at the universities of Punjab, Cambridge, Essex and Oxford,
Khalid Malik is a development economist who served as the UN Resident
Coordinator in China for 7 years until 2010.  He is currently Special
Advisor in UNDP on relations with China, and on other partnerships with
'new donors', and has just completed a book entitled, “Why Has China
Grown so Fast for so Long”.


Development Thought & Policy @ The New School is a new seminar series
that brings to the fore contemporary research and policy proposals for
development that is equitable and human centered.
www.gpia.info/development/dtp <http://www.gpia.info/development/dtp>

The India China Institute (ICI) fosters study, research, and connections
between India, China and the United States—countries that increasingly
share interests and challenges, but have not yet been fully engaged in
trilateral conversations. ICI is the hub of an international network of
institutions and activities that nurtures these conversations and
deepens our understanding of global processes.

www.indiachinainstitute.org <http://www.indiachinainstitute.org/>

Global Studies Program
The New School
66 West 12th St., Suite 401
New York, NY 10011

(212) 229-8590
http://nsglobal.info/

Christine Chun-Week 4 Response

As the UNAIDS article shows, HIV/AIDS is a large issue in Sub-Saharan Africa. The development field seems to associate the virus with underdevelopment and billions of dollars go into HIV/AIDS treatment. This is not necessarily wrong, but these readings reveal that although the environment of developing countries may increase the chances of HIV/AIDS, it still does not excuse the fact that in general, Africans are very sexually active consensually. According to Pisani, how sex is viewed in a culture, and not poverty, is the real issue. She gives examples with countries like Bangladesh and Guinea who are developing countries, but yet do not have a high HIV/AIDS prevalence rate such as South Africa. Reading Chapter 4 of her book made me realize that I too have generalized all African countries of having high rates of HIV/AIDS because they were poor. She also does a great job of explaining the basics of how HIV is spread. Points from Pisani that are worth noting are that HIV spreads in Africa mainly through concurrent relationships, that strong leadership is needed to stop HIV/AIDS, and that cultural stigmas on the virus increase the spread of the virus.

I believe that strong leadership is the solution in reducing the spread of HIV; Leadership not only in a nation’s government, but also in individual households. Leclerc-Madlala’s article uses an example where a political leader in South Africa was acquitted of charges of rape in 2007. This example and other cultural scripts tell the younger generation that “Sexual violence is sometimes a way to demonstrate passion or caring” and that it is the woman’s responsibility (or fault) for how a man behaves sexually. In addition, similar to Pisani’s example of Noerine, I had a professor in Kenya who talked about how sex, condom use, and HIV/AIDS needed to be more publicly addressed, but when we asked him if he talked about these things with his own children, he said he felt too embarrassed to. It also makes me mad how religious groups caused the banning of sexual education in many schools in Kenya. They say abstinence is the best way, but they do not even talk about that to students. Isn’t it better to have people use condoms then for them to get HIV/AIDS or any other STI? If parents do not talk about these issues and schools do not also, then how can girls learn that having a “sugar daddy” is not safe, and where will boys learn that they should get circumcised (if their society doesn’t normally)? If African countries truly want to see HIV/AIDS disappear they must have stronger prevention initiatives like Uganda’s Zero Grazing, where “partner reduction and faithfulness” are encouraged. There must also be a large availability of condoms to the general public, and girls need to learn that they have the right to be respected and boys need to understand that. Unfortunately in many parts of Africa, “no” means “yes” to men. This information and the benefits of condom use must be engrained in people’s minds for change to happen on a society’s views on HIV/AIDS.

As for funding towards HIV/AIDS, money towards antiretroviral drugs is essential, but I also agree with Obama that more money should be spent on other diseases that will save more lives for less money. More people, especially children from the slums, die from diseases like cholera, diarrhea, and malaria than HIV/AIDS. Plus if more money and effort was spent on prevention of HIV/AIDS (which is far cheaper than treatment programs), then less people would have the virus and more money could go into improving the overall health systems in countries as Levine and Oomman suggest. As I discovered in Kenya, the HIV/AIDS treatment programs were excellent, but hospitals did not have enough doctors to deal with problems. My friend who was a medical intern told me how one person came in with his back cut and bleeding, but that there was no one qualified in that hospital to fix him or an ambulance to take him to another hospital. Therefore, they had to wait for an ambulance to come, but instead of bandaging him or giving him something to help with the pain, the other medical workers went on a lunch break. That person’s life was just as important as someone with HIV/AIDS, but this example shows what the country and donors would rather invest in. The best way to deal with this is to work on preventing HIV/AIDS, so that more funding can go into other health concerns.

Feed the Future

Feed the Future
US govt sponsored food security and malnutrition program
Implementation plans, etc. available by region and by country on the website.

United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

UN Women Official Website

A New Era Begins at UN Women

by Anne-christine d'Adesky  |  February 4, 2011

Once sidelined, women are now gaining momentum within the UN system. UN Women opened it's doors in January—and with it the doors to women's leadership at the global level.

"...Kavita Ramdas says that UN Women must define a new role and agenda at the UN—taking gender demands into new spheres. Up to now, she feels, the creation of women's agencies has somewhat siloed them—and allowed other agencies off the hook for gender reform. UN Women should continue building upon the bricks put in place by UNIFEM and its sister agencies to support women's programs, but it needs to redefine the problems. “It's not, 'Oh, here is your money to fund a few nice women's projects,'” she says. UN Women, especially with powerhouse Bachelet in charge, “has the chance to engage in a different way.” She points to sexual violence as an example. “I think one of the things the women's movement is trying to show are the deep links of sexual violence to structures of militarism and violence institutionally, on a wide society level, and what is directed against women.” She wants UN Women to “sit in on Security Council decisions on war and peace. It's very important for agencies to take part in deliberations when you are negotiating peace settlements.” Whenever there are major critical political questions or crises like Sudan, nuclear stand-down in North or South Korea”—she ticks off examples—“this agency is at the table. That is a very different role for the agency.”

...

War, peace, migration, disasters, global warming—these may not be thought of as 'women's issues', but UN Women can bring analysis of how these issues overlap and run along gender lines to the negotiating table; how war may impact women differently, leading to mass rape in the Congo, for example. It can build on powerful policy tools like Security Council Resolution 1325, which was adopted to strengthen women's roles in the UN's peace and security efforts. It can tackle thorny social issues like reproductive rights and the gaps between religious laws and international laws. And it can help reframe a national, political reponse to gender crimes."

...

Ritu Sharma is eyeing more concrete goals that would spell immediate improvement in women's lives. On her wish-list: “Getting every woman and girl child a birth certificate. Without that, [they] do not exist, have no rights, and can't get many services like education.”

...

Stephen Lewis, ever the outspoken feminist, minces no words: “Men have one role above all others in the pursuit of gender equality and the empowerment of women,” he says, “and that is to relinquish our power so that women can assume the share that is rightfully theirs.” If they do, Ramdas feels, they will gain, too. “I hope it will be a new decade for gender equality and I hope it not be narrowly defined, but a world in which men will be free too. Ideally this should be an agency that is passionate and that shows by liberating women, you liberate men too.”

 

Read the whole article here.

Response to Initial Conditions - Linn Groft

Linn Groft

African Poverty & Western Aid: Response to Initial Conditions

7 February 2011

            In “Disease and Development in Historical Perspective”, Acemoglu et al discuss the effects of disease on economic growth, and dispute the argument that health is a first-order determinant of growth. They argue with various data sets that improvements in health have not led to increased rates of growth in many populations. They acknowledge health as a social and humanitarian concern, and that health differences affected whether or not the “liberal” and democratic institutional structures of Western colonists were installed, but not as an important factor for economic growth for today’s societies. These authors too readily dismiss the influence of health on the future of a society.

            Perhaps they are correct that a health population is not a first-order determinant of growth, but certainly it is a necessary prerequisite. To say that health initiatives should not be part of economic growth initiatives is naïve because while a healthy population is not inherently a productive population, an unhealthy population will not produce rapid growth. I know of no unhealthy countries that are wealthy, industrialized countries. Of course, which comes first is a question of importance, but if a country like Kenya has a significant portion of its working-age population dying off, any growth in GDP is likely concentrated in the hands of the few. And, as Sokoloff and Engerman note, the concentrations of power and money affect the institutions that are built and the degree to which those institutions build up the population as a whole or simply further benefit the elites.

            Furthermore, Acemoglu et al acknowledge that only recently have scientists begun to look at how health might be a determinant for wealth, but that it has been long acknowledged (and they offer no dispute to this) that wealth is a determining factor of health. Economically poorer populations are predisposed to have poorer health. Thus, within a given society, those who are less financially set are going to have poorer health and be individually less capable of contributing to GDP and bettering their own lives. Now, perhaps as an aggregate, this does not make a huge difference. And aggregate growth seems to be all that these authors are concerned with. But let us consider, again, equity within a society and the influence of such equity on the types of institutions and the type of growth that will occur within that society. Sachs et al demonstrate to us that if the poor are getting sick and getting poorer because they are less productive, and their family members become less productive because they have to care for them, and the rich are staying healthy and thus capable of continuing to be productive members of society, then we see an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, the healthy and the sick. The poor can never catch up; little social and economic equity within the country can be achieved. Can we not then conclude that the institutions that continually develop will continue to—and perhaps even increasingly—benefit those elites and not the unhealthy masses? And that unlike the rather democratic, popular development in the US and Canada, these countries will evolve more like the exploited, highly disparate economies in the Caribbean at the very same time.

            Another point is that money and energy—whether domestic budget or foreign aid—that has to be spent on health initiatives is money and energy that is not being invested elsewhere. Investments in schools and public services and industry must take a back seat to immediate health and sanitation needs, otherwise those services and industries are obsolete.

            Finally, my last point is that maybe these authors are actually just flat-out wrong. While, yes, OECD countries made huge strides post-WWII and Latin-American and South- and Southeast-Asian countries continued to lag behind. But what of other factors? First of all, while health advances were made, those health advances were never as available in Latin American and S/SE-Asian countries as in North American and European nations. OECD countries also had the benefits of industrialization and war-time efforts that spurred growth and innovation, plus favorable geography and a long history of strong infrastructure that do account for many of the differences in growth rates.

            I find Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson’s conclusions naïve and faulty. While their research is perhaps informative in some respects, they discredit or simply fail to address many important determinants of economic growth.

Week 3 Response-Christine

This week’s readings lead to the basic understanding that colonization has left Africa and other civilizations (Inca, Aztecs, Native Americans) with more problems than before they were colonized while the colonialists left better off economically. In addition the readings seem to make Africans look like helpless victims to their environment (in which they seemed perfectly fine in before colonialism) instead of what they can do to fix the issues themselves. Herbst points out that the size and shape of African countries were given to them, and although history has said that larger is better in terms of the size of a nation, smaller African countries have a better chance of controlling their population. He also mentions that small states may not be as “economically viable”, but I disagree. What about Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, or even South Korea? One of the solutions that I believe will help the economies of African countries (especially those not on the coast) is a regional trade cooperative. East African countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda should trade with each other, strengthening the region and its own countries and the same with the Southern, Northern, and Eastern regions. It would be like a mini-European Union and citizens of the cooperative countries should be able to travel easily between countries. Currently there is more trade between individual African countries and foreign countries, but if the majority of trade were to occur within Africa, the money would remain in Africa too.

Diamond, Sachs, Mellinger, Gallup, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson all seem to say something about how diseases have played a major role in impeding development in Africa. Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson says that “unhealthy people are less productive”, but also thinks that health conditions are not the main issue in economic development. I agree. Obviously fighting diseases is important, but the underlying issue is still poverty. My professor in Kenya told a story about how an NGO gave malaria nets to people at a coastal village, but when the organization came back a few months later, they found that the people had sold the nets to fishermen for money because they needed food. Sachs recommends increasing donor funds to fight diseases and poverty, however they need something more long-term and sustainable to get themselves out of poverty, so they will not become dependent on aid. Regional cooperatives can be a solution along with governmental support of informal markets where majorities of the African population get their income. Geography and history may play a part in Africa’s slow growth, but they can be overcome.