Opinions
Inter-American Development Bank debt cancellation for Haiti–just another promise?
(December 7, 2006) Members of the international community got a tongue lashing at a recent donors conference on Haiti, attended by more than 90 delegations of countries and international organizations. After numerous press announcements and pledges of assistance, totaling nearly $1.8 billion over...
DR Congo – Is it a miracle?
When I heard that the losing candidate in the elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jean Pierre Bemba, had accepted defeat, I realised I would have to eat some words. "It would be a miracle," I reported several times for the BBC on visits to DR Congo during the first and second rounds of v...
The world needs its small farmers
October 25, 2006) World Food Day, commemorated on October 16, has become more of an exercise in expiation of sins than a renewal of a serious commitment to end hunger. Throughout the world, the press decries the latest Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics: 852 million people lack ad...
Still the rich world’s viceroy. If the IMF wants to reform itself, why not try democracy?
The glacier has begun to creak. In the world’s most powerful dictatorship, we detect the merest hint of a thaw. I am not talking about China, or Uzbekistan, Burma or North Korea. This state runs no torture chambers or labour camps. No one is executed, though plenty starve to death as a result of i...
The Debacle of Doha
(July 28, 2006) Several guilty parties were responsible for the recent collapse of the Doha round of trade negotiations, but none guiltier than the United States. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab refused to make a serious offer on cutting domestic subsidies for U.S. farmers. Worse, at a late s...
4 Ways To Spend $60 Billion Wisely
In the world of philanthropy, development and foreign aid, it's not as easy as it sounds. So here are some humble bits of advice for the new Bill and Melinda Gates/Warren Buffett Axis of Altruism:1 The business world and the developing world are worlds apart. Your success in business may make you un...
The Handouts That Feed Poverty
(April 30, 2006) Foreign aid today perpetrates a cruel hoax on those who wish the world's poor well. There is all the appearance of energetic action — a doubling of foreign aid to Africa promised at the G-8 summit last July, grand United Nations and World Bank plans to cut world poverty in half by...
Bono’s Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast
{Remarks — as prepared for delivery and courtesy of DATA — by Bono to the National Prayer Breakfast; Feb. 2, 2006). BONO: Thank you. Mr. President, First Lady, King Abdullah, Other heads of State, Members of Congress, distinguished guests … Please join me in praying that I don't say somethi...
Chad: Oil and Development.
FIVE YEARS AGO, the World Bank lent money and credibility to a risky experiment. Despite the depressing record of oil projects in poor countries -- they tend to fuel corruption rather than boost development -- the bank provided $190 million to kick-start the oil industry in one of the world's most i...
Wanted: A Famine Fund
HUMANITARIAN crises are seldom just humanitarian: Almost always, the malnutrition and the misery have political causes. The brutal wars in Sudan and Congo account for those countries' appalling civilian death tolls. Political repression explains the hunger in North Korea and Zimbabwe. Even the HIV p...
-
World Hunger Education
Service
P.O. Box 29015
Washington, D.C. 20017 -