Making greater use of domestic resources can help African countries achieve sustained and higher economic growth and over the long term will reduce overdependence on donor funding and on the rules that apply to it, according to the new Africa report by UNCTAD, the UN Conference on Trade & Development. The report argues that increased use of domestic financial resources and more productive investments would enhance "policy space" to define development programmes that reflect their countries´ genuine priorities. By Rainer Falk
The new report, Economic Development in Africa 2007: Reclaiming Policy Space: Domestic Resource Mobilization and Developmental States (see reference), points out that “developmental states," in which governments actively manage economic policy to encourage greater economic diversification, are in a better position to boost domestic resource mobilization , giving true meaning to the rhetoric of "ownership" of economic policies ...
After decades of isolation - imposed by major OECD countries out of concern for the country's human rights violations - Myanmar is emerging as a new darling of the "West" - judging by the accelerating succession of visits by senior officials and gurus. New groups of investors are waiting to enter the country as soon as possible.
Persistent high unemployment, the euro area debt crisis and premature fiscal austerity have already slowed global growth and factor into the possibility of a new recession. Now the United Nations have downgraded significantly its forecasts for the world economy in the next year.
Eastern European states are in for a new round of the crisis. The external control of the banking sector and high reliance on external credit has landed the countries of Eastern Europe in a vulnerable position. Now, credit flows from Western banks are drying up again. Hungary has been the first country in the region to ask for IMF support again.
While the G20 efforts to manage global aggregate demand, exchange rate management and stronger regulation of the international financial sector have not worked out quite as planned, in Cannes the Group was further solidifying its role in directing the system of multilateral institutions.
In November 2011, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is celebrating its 50th anniversary.The new Minister, Dirk Niebel of the (neo)-liberal FDP has launched a 'radical change of course'. In the recent edition of the Reality of Aid shadow report the change is analyzed.