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Trade, growth: weep not for Doha
Daniel Ikenson
2008-07-20
The Doha Round staggers through another meeting on 21-25 July, with dire predictions of what will befall us if it fails, but this research shows the cheerful news that trade is expanding massively without the WTO and that unilateral bureaucratic reforms can be even more valuable to trade than tariff reductions. Read More »
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Trusting the African private sector with aid
Philip Stevens
2008-07-03
Because it is channeled through corrupt and dysfunctional ministries of health, most foreign aid for health never makes it to patients. Donors should abandon this model and instead take advantage of Africa's massive private sector. Read More »
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Aiding poverty: the G-8's role in Africa's progress
Caroline Boin & Alec van Gelder
2008-07-02
The G8 meeting Hokkaido from 7 to 9 July will inevitably culminate with more calls for more aid to Africa, where US$2.3 trillion over the last 40 years has failed to remove poverty or improve production: there must be a reason that makes poverty perpetual.
Caroline Boin and Alec van Gelder argue that bad policies create bad economies and that aid supports corrupt and incompetent governments as they keep the poor in serfdom - Ethiopia being a particularly nasty example.
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Health tourism can be healthy
Fredrik Erixon and Lucy Davis
2008-06-23
The benefits of trade have for too long been driven away from healthcare by ring-fenced nationalised systems and vested interests. Now evidence suggests that trade can slow the rise in healthcare costs and be a valuable source of revenue for developing countries. Read More »
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How surveys twist rankings on health care
Glen Whitman
2008-06-11
Proponents of nationalised healthcare systems frequently refer to the WHO ranking the US system a lowly 37th in the world. Yet how reliable are these rankings? Glen Whitman reveals their faults and underlying, ideological bias. Read More »
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Twelve step programme to poverty
Kofi Bentil
2008-06-06
World Environment Day on 5 June offers the poor a tempting formula: developing countries must slow economic growth to avoid becoming eco-vampires like the industrialized economies. Its "Twelve Steps to Help You Kick the CO2 Habit" mean we Africans should be content to live quaintly in our mud huts lit by solar and wind power. Read More »
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How bad government caused the food crisis
Julian Morris
2008-05-30
Recent shortages and price rises of staple food in Asia and Latin America have been caused as much by parasitical politicians as by poor harvests. Read More »
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UN’s Russian roulette for poor patients
Jeremiah Norris
2008-05-26
Sub-standard AIDS and malaria drugs can cause parasite resistance and clinical failure. Yet the Global Fund has been procuring such drugs for millions of low-income patients. Read More »
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The Food Crisis and Restrictive Trade Practices
Thompson Ayodele
2008-05-19
The food crisis in Nigeria and Africa can be linked to inappropriate agricultural policies that have stifled the continent’s great agricultural potential. Over the years nothing has been done to address low yields--on the contrary, it seems as though government has gone out of its way to stifle production: governments remain part of the problem, not part of the solution.
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Myths behind AIDS might lead to billions in misspending
James Chin
2008-05-18
Global and regional HIV rates have remained stable or have been decreasing during the past decade except in sub-Saharan Africa; HIV continues to be concentrated in populations with the highest levels of HIV risk behaviors; and HIV is incapable of epidemic spread in the vast majority of heterosexual populations. Let's face the data and put the money where the real problems really are.
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Poor medicine for poor people
Roger Bate
2008-05-16
New field research by Africa Fighting Malaria shows that a third of anti-malaria drugs collected in six African cities fail at least one quality test - yet aid agencies continue to fund untested, substandard drugs. Read More »
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Funding for sub-standard drugs
Jeremiah Norris
2008-05-15
Sub-standard AIDS and malaria drugs can cause parasite resistance and clinical failure. Yet the Global Fund has been procuring such drugs for millions of low-income patients. Read More »
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Why I am bothered by Neo-Colonialist NGOs
Temba A. Nolutshungu
2008-05-03
Soon after the real colonialists left Africa, a new breed of Western colonialists emerged: the statist Non-Governmental Organisations that want to save us from everything from genetically-modified food to globalisation - and growth. They have enormous influence even though their ideologies have failed in their own countries: before taking the neo-colonialists' medicine, we must carefully read the label or suffer nasty side effects.
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Threat to Modern Medicines
Philip Stevens
2008-04-28
The WHO’s plans to push subsidised local drug production in Africa threaten to worsen the problem of substandard generics, placing the most vulnerable at risk. Read More »
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Mugabe overstretches voters’ patience
Rejoice Ngwenya
2008-04-16
The 18th of April is Zimbabwe’s Day of Independence but, after throwing off white rule, we have still not overthrown one-man rule. Read More »
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Attack on patents hurts the poor
Franklin Cudjoe & Alec van Gelder
2008-04-09
The “patients not patents” campaign has a simplistic appeal but will only make things worse for the poor, as well as distracting attention from the real causes of ill health: poverty and corruption. Africans must not let their health and growth be damaged by populist propaganda.
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What's killing the poor is poverty, not climate change
Nonoy Oplas
2008-04-08
There is a growing idea that rich countries should slash imports from poor countries whose antiquated factories are heavy carbon emitters: this eco-protectionism is in fact good old-fashioned protectionism and would hit the poor hardest. What hurts the poor right now is not climate change but poverty: growth is the only way out.
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In Africa, it's death by leadership
James Shikwati
2008-03-30
Kibaki and Odinga are being hailed as great leaders for the political settlement in Kenya and there is even talk of a similar settlement in Zimbabwe - but leadership is part of our problem: Africa suffers from strong leaders and weak institutions. Read More »
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Rising food prices, protectionism and the poor
Caroline Boin and Alec van Gelder
2008-03-20
Food prices have drastically risen over the past year, causing street protests from Mexico to India to Senegal; it is the poorest countries that will benefit most from dropping their own tariffs in response to this. Read More »
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Cuba needs economic as well as political freedom
Andrés Mejía-Vergnaud
2008-02-26
The only important question right now is whether Fidel Castro's resignation means any real change to the life of ordinary Cubans after decades of economic and political oppression. Economic freedoms and private property are the keys to any economic development and the debate must start now.
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