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871. A Risky Business: Saving Money and Improving Global Health Through Better Demand Forecasts

Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Today's global health programs will attain their objectives only if products appropriate to the health problems in low-and middle income countries are developed, manufactured and made available when and where they are needed. Achieving this requires mobilizing public and charitable money for more and better products to diagnose, prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, reproductive health problems and childhood killers. But more money is only one part of the story. Weak links in the global health value chain—from research and development (R) through service delivery—are constraining on-the ground access to essential products. The consequences of those weak links are many: supply shortages, inefficient use of scarce funding, reluctance to invest in R for developing country needs and, most important, the loss of life among those who need essential products.
Topic:
Globalization, Health, Political Economy, and Poverty

872. It's One World Out There: The Global Consensus on Selecting the World Bank's Next President

Author:
David Wheeler
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In May 2007 CGD launched an online survey of the global development community on three issues: the selection process for the next World Bank president; criteria for rating the candidates; and actual ratings for nine candidates who had been named by the international media. Between May 22 and May 31, CGD received nearly 700 responses from people whose characteristics reflect the diversity of the international development community. Survey participants represent 71 nations; all world regions; high-, middle- and low-income countries; a variety of professional affiliations; and all adult age groups. About 30% of respondents are women.
Topic:
Globalization, Political Economy, and Third World

873. Blair, Brown and the Gleneagles agenda: Making poverty history, or confronting the global politics of unequal development?

Author:
Anthony Payne
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the United Kingdom Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer respectively, set out a highly ambitious 'development' agenda for 2005 when it was the UK's turn to hold the Presidency of the Group of 8 and thus host than annual summit, held on this occasion in Gleneagles in Scotland. This agenda embraced issues of aid and debt, trade and climate change. It was given additional prominence by the activities of the Making Poverty History campaign. However, the G8 could never have worked to 'make poverty history' because such an achievement was not remotely within its compass. The details of the agreements reached at Gleneagles and at subsequent international meetings reveal a much less impressive record than the initial hyperbole suggested. The global politics of development is not animated any longer—if indeed it ever was—by what the 'North' is willing to do for the 'South'. It is driven instead by a complex 'global politics of unequal development' into which Blair and Brown's Gleneagles agenda has been swept up. The outcome may represent significant change in some of the patterns of global politics, but it will not mark the ending of poverty.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, Human Rights, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Scotland

874. Principles for a U.S. Public Freight Agenda in a Global Economy

Author:
Martin E. Robins and Anne Strauss-Weider
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
All the products consumers use and all the products businesses use get to market via America's freight system. And though Americans are utterly dependent on the freight system and its carriers, there is little understanding of the system's impact on our daily personal and business lives on either the macro level—as the gate- way to the global economy—or the micro level—as deliverer of e-commerce purchases. Freight also affects the nation in other ways. U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) statistics show that truck traffic makes up more than 30 percent of the traffic on about 20 percent of Interstate System mileage and is expected to grow substantially over the next 20 years. 2 And the dynamics related to some freight businesses have, in many locations, consumed inexpensive greenfields on the suburban fringe, lengthening trips, and exacerbating existing congestion problems.
Topic:
Economics and Globalization
Political Geography:
United States

875. Enhancing Development through Better Use of Public Resources: How Independent Watchdog Groups Can Help

Author:
David de Ferranti, Anthony J. Ody, Nick Warren, Justin Jacinto, and Charles Griffin
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The struggle against global poverty may be about to get an important boost from an unexpected quarter. All too often, wellintentioned development programs have been undermined in the past by inefficiency, wrongheaded priorities, and outright graft. It is crucial to enhance the effectiveness of developing countries' public spending on social goals. The public sector, however, cannot, in general, be relied upon to reform itself in isolation. The pressure of informed domestic public opinion is a crucial stimulus.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, and Poverty

876. Stormy Days on an Open Field: Asymmetries in the Global Economy

Author:
Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Openness is not necessarily good for the poor. Reducing trade protection has not brought growth to today's poorest countries, and open capital markets have not been good for the poorest households in emerging market economies. In this paper I present evidence on these two points. First, countries highly dependent on primary exports two decades ago, despite their substantial engagement in trade and a marked decline in their tariff rates in the 1990s, have failed to grow. Second, within high-debt emerging market economies the financial crises of the last decade, whether induced by domestic policy problems or global contagion, have been especially costly for the poor (in welfare terms if not in terms of absolute income losses). I discuss the asymmetries in the global economy that help explain why countries and people cannot always compete on equal terms on the “level playing field” of the global economy.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Poverty, and Financial Crisis

877. Weak States and Global Threats: Assessing Evidence of Spillovers

Author:
Stewart Patrick
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
A key motivation behind recent donor attention and financial resources devoted to developing countries is the presumed connection between weak and failing states, on the one hand, and a variety of transnational threats, on the other. Indeed, it has become conventional wisdom that poorly performing states generate multiple cross-border “spillovers,” including terrorism, weapons proliferation, organized crime, regional instability, global pandemics, and energy insecurity. What is striking is how little empirical evidence underpins such sweeping assertions. A closer look suggests that the connection between state weakness and global threats is less clear and more variable than typically assumed. Both the type and extent of “spillovers” depend in part on whether the weakness in question is a function of state capacity, will, or a combination of the two. Moreover, a preliminary review suggests that some trans-border threats are more likely to emerge not from the weakest states but from stronger states that possess narrower but critical gaps in capacity and will. Crafting an effective U.S. and international strategy towards weak states and the cross-border spillovers they sometimes generate will depend on a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms linking these two sets of phenomena. The challenge for analysts and policymakers will be to get greater clarity about which states are responsible for which threats and design development and other external interventions accordingly. This working paper represents an initial foray in this direction, suggesting avenues for future research and policy development.
Topic:
Security, Globalization, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

878. After Doha: II. Is globalisation history?

Author:
Mark P Thirlwell
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
For some observers, the announcement in late July of the indefinite suspension of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations signalled the beginning of the end for globalisation. The fear was that history would repeat itself; just as an earlier era of globalisation came to a bad end, so too could the current episode.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Africa

879. A Case for Non-Globalization? The Organization of R in the Wireless Telecommunications Industry

Author:
Alberto Di Minin and Christopher Palmberg
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The offshoring of manufacturing has been the most visible ingredient of economic globalization in recent years. However, the rapid change in the global division of manufacturing has overshadowed another – and perhaps even more significant phenomena – namely the internationalization of the R and inventive activities of firms.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology

880. Digitizing Services: What Stays Where and Why

Author:
Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The spatial extension and deepening of capitalism has been a topic of interest to geographers, other social scientists, and activists since, at least, Lenin. This topic has reappeared on the public agenda recently under the rubric of “globalization.” Once again, the spatial redistribution of economic activities is sparking enormous controversy and opinions from nearly every philosophical position. This paper considers two dimensions of this enormous topic and argues that neither dimension has received sufficient attention from geographers. The first dimension is the role of technological advancement in transportation and communication technologies in a capitalist system. The second dimension is the development of a global division of labor in service provision.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Globalization, and International Political Economy