Upcoming Event
Reuters/Jennifer Szymaszek - Mexican Indian coffee-picker collects beans near Tuzamapa. Juarez earns about $2 per day for the work.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Washington, DC
The Wolfensohn Center for Development will host a discussion with Santiago Levy, nonresident senior fellow and former deputy minister of finance of Mexico. Along with a panel of leading experts, Levy will discuss his new book, which recommends that in order to help bring Mexico’s poor out of poverty the country’s social programs should be improved to increase productivity, workers’ wages, and overall economic growth.
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Latin America Growth and Development, Mexico, Latin America, Economic Development, Developing Countries
SPOTLIGHT: Foreign Aid
Reuters/Luc Gnago - Bill Guyton, President of the World Cocoa Foundation, talks with a farmer in the village of Monga in eastern Ivory coast.
Raj M. Desai and Homi Kharas, April 24, 2008
While the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings made recent headlines, the Global Philanthropy Forum, gathering top private aid donors, fell in the shadows. These private aid donors will likely give more aid to the world’s poor this year than the institutions that convened the Spring Meetings. Raj Desai and Homi Kharas compare these two events and discuss how private aid can help to relieve global poverty.
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Foreign Aid, Global Governance, International Monetary Fund, Global Food Crisis, Development
Spotlight: Development Assistance
Reuters/Zohra Bensemra - Boys stand at the door-step of their house in Nairobi's Korogocho slum.
Homi Kharas and Abdul Malik, April 10, 2008
Poor planning and execution of projects, unachievable goals and a lack of accountability resulting in corruption are a handful of reasons why donors’ development assistance is failing to end poverty. Homi Kharas outlines four short term measures to improve the quality of aid by drawing attention to the growing unmanageable aid delivery system with multiple donors, fragmented projects and divided priorities.
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International Monetary Fund, Global Governance, Development, Developing Countries, Multilateral Development Banks
Spotlight: Global Governance
Reuters/Hyungwon Kang - A delegate looks for his seat at the G24 ministers' International Monetary Affairs and Development meeting, at IMF headquarters in Washington.
Johannes F. Linn, Ralph C. Bryant and Colin I. Bradford, April 09, 2008
IMF governance reform is critical to adequately represent the rapidly growing emerging market economies and protect lower-income developing countries. Brookings experts raise concern over the Fund’s reform proposals and suggest ways to strengthen the legitimacy of the international financial institution.
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Global Governance, International Monetary Fund, Global Economics, Multilateral Development Banks
U.S.-Middle East Relations
Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush and Saudi Arabia's Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz greet people outside of Al Murabba Palace in Riyadh.
Navtej Dhillon, February 22, 2008
While the United States concentrates its Middle Eastern policy efforts on democracy and the war on terrorism, 60% of the region’s population is facing a crisis of their own – a fight for decent education, employment and housing. Brookings Fellow Navtej Dhillon says that the United States and the international community must refocus their efforts on building a future for the Middle Eastern majority; from using hard power to boosting smart power. View related video.
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Middle East, Middle East Democracy and Development, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Politics, Foreign Policy