Opinions
Trade can play a role in agricultural development
Gawain Kripke is senior policy adviser on international trade issues with Oxfam America. Kripke has authored numerous opinion pieces and briefing papers on trade and development issues, has testified before Congress, and appears frequently on radio and television programs, including Marketplace, CNN...
What should a billionaire give to save human lives–and what should you?
What is a human life worth? You may not want to put a price tag on a it. But if we really had to, most of us would agree that the value of a human life would be in the millions. Consistent with the foundations of our democracy and our frequently professed belief in the inherent dignity of human bein...
Reflections on Pinochet’s death
By now the world has had enough time to reflect on the irony of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's death Sunday, December 10, International Human Rights Day. Now the dictator responsible for the death, torture and disappearance of thousands will never face justice. It's been over 33 years since Pinochet ros...
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...
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