PSD Blog - The World Bank Group

New blog: AfriGadget

Emeka Okafor points us to a new blog, Gadgets for Africa: Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity. A MAKE Blog for Africa if you will. Nice.

A development lottery

Malawi is the latest country to set up a national sweepstake, aiming to use some of the proceeds to fund development projects, but do state lotteries really work?

That’s what the BBC is asking you. Doesn’t make sense to me.

Private sector roles in fighting corruption

Fighting corruption with a multidimensional approach is picking up more speed.  At a recent conference in Hong Kong, sponsored by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the gathering challenged some of the common notions of measuring corruption, focused on evidenced based policy, and looked at the roles that the private sector can and needs to play to reduce corruption.  Some 400 business and policy leaders from around the world recognized that closer engagement with associations of businesses, including small and medium-scale entrepreneurs and multinationals, is also required.  In addition they called for better integration of anti-corruption and integrity standards into corporate governance and guidelines for corporate social responsibility.   Much of the proceedings are available online.  You can also click on the following links for more information on World Bank's work on anti-corruption and business ethics, or see this reading list.  Hopefully, the event will contribute to generating more action on the private sector side.

Dialogue for better policy design

If you wonder how to put oil in your reform engine, see the latest on PublicPrivateDialogue.org. The proceedings of the workshop held in Paris earlier this year present the Charter of Good Practice in Public-Private Dialogue, which was drafted in real-time by practitioners from 30 countries. The report also presents 10 case studies submitted by PPD facilitators – each only 4 pages long. Learn about how the investment climate reform process can benefit from private sector input into policy design, but also how the potential risks of dialogue can be tamed through good practice processes. Case studies include: how a group of farmers from the Philippines succeeded in impacting WTO renegotiations, how a joint business-government task force in Fiji tackled key regulatory reforms, how a public-private dialogue initiative in Peru increased the “market for reform” or how the the National Action Group in Malawi monitors its performance.

Arvind Subramanian interviews Paul Krugman

Economics made Paul Krugman famous. Punditry has made him a celebrity, famous for being famous… as public persuader [he] was so successful that the New York Times offered him an op-ed column, the most prestigious piece of real estate in mainstream U.S. journalism. Almost by accident, he moved from demystifier of arcane economics to hard-hitting political commentator…

Over the past five years, Krugman the columnist has overshadowed Krugman the economist. Has it been worth it?... Does Krugman the economist have any regrets?

Some teasers. Read the whole thing in the lastest issue of Finance & Development.

Global Development Finance 2006

The 2006 Global Development Finance report came out today.

Net private capital flows to developing countries reached a record high of $491 billion in 2005, driven by privatizations, mergers and acquisitions, external debt refinancing, as well as strong investor interest in local-currency bond markets in Asia and Latin America… The surging flows, including record bank lending and bond issuance, among others, coincided with 6.4-percent economic growth in the developing world last year, more than double the 2.8-percent growth in developed countries.

Poisonous profit

The slime from a poisonous Brazilian tree frog has united Amazonian village elders and shamans with the Brazilian government. The story touches everything from biopiracy and the economics of the global pharmaceutical industry to the future of WTO trade talks.

Africa’s economic outlook

The OECD has released their African Economic Outlook 2005/2006. See the press release:

The African economy is expected to grow by 5.8 per cent this year and another 5.5 per cent next year. Oil-exporting countries are outpacing others by a substantial margin while other countries continue to face serious problems.

SUV driver, ease your conscience

Feeling guilty about the damage your Ford Taurus does to shrinking ice caps? Ford has teamed up with TerraPass to create a Greener Miles program where you can calculate your CO2 emissions and pay the equivalent to support renewable energies and become carbon neutral. This is one of a growing number of schemes out there to help those concerned at climate change offset the impact of using planes, trains and automobiles.

Update: You can now also use blog links to offset carbon emissions. (Though perhaps just a traffic/Google-rank ploy?). And continuing with the focus on individual action, the EU lanched on Monday their ‘You Control Climate Change Campaign’ - via Alex Steffen.

China and India’s impact on Africa

New from the OECD: The Rise of China and India - What's in it for Africa? By the end they lean towards the conclusion that the “Asian Drivers’ rise in the world economy are largely positive for Africa.” The real determinant will of course be the wisdom of future policy decisions - this is where we need to focus. See a short summary or this policy insight note. I personally found the papers and presentations of an earlier conference more interesting.