The new 2009 defense budget has just been released. The more you look into the numbers, the more things become unclear, very unclear. Most of the numbers that have been released are inaccurate or incomplete, or both. Other numbers will change as the year progresses, but we do not know if they will go up or down.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Debt, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
The global financial system has suffered a once-in-a-century meltdown that almost brought the world economy to a halt in late September. Confidence and trust have been shattered. In spite of concerted and extraordinary efforts on the part of central banks and political leaders, including recapitalizing the banks, it is not yet certain that the waves of panic and destruction have been halted. Many of the repercussions have yet to emerge, including possible legal action as well as economic damage. Even before this latest explosion, the leading OECD economies were plunging into an unusually synchronized recession, driven by the simultaneous collapse in consumer and business spending. This will now get worse.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, and Markets
In many of the poorest countries, the provision of decent, accessible public services - delivered by a qualified and properly paid workforce - is threatened by huge debt burdens and damaging policies demanded by creditors. Every day 4,000 children die from diarrhoea, a disease of dirty water, and 1,400 women die in pregnancy or childbirth. In developing countries, public services can mean the difference between life and death.
This is the first in a series of three papers that examines the financing of services in developing countries. This paper focuses on external assistance in the form of aid and debt cancellation. The other papers in the series will focus on internal revenues; first, receipts from taxation and then receipts from extractive industries.
Topic:
Debt, Development, Education, Health, Humanitarian Aid, International Political Economy, and Poverty
Evidence suggests that economic inequalities – particularly “horizontal inequalities” among groups defined by ethnic, racial, linguistic, regional, and religious lines – can generate social tensions and fuel violent conflict. Well-designed fiscal policies can help build a sustainable peace by working to reduce these inequalities. This paper reviews some challenges raised by analyzing the impacts of tax and expenditure policies on inequality in post-conflict settings, and makes recommendations for incorporating distributional effects into fiscal policy making.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Debt, Political Economy, and Poverty
An effective state is able to mobilize revenue and spend it on infrastructure, services, and public goods that both enhance human capital and the well-being of communities (especially the poor), as well as stimulating investment and employment creation by the private sector. An effective state also manages public finance to ensure that macroeconomic balance is maintained—with policy neither too restrictive to discourage private investment and growth, nor too accommodative to create high inflation and crowd out private investment. Fiscal issues are therefore at the heart of the state's role in the development process and failure in this policy area—whether it is in taxation, public expenditures, or in managing the fiscal deficit and public debt—can quickly undermine growth and poverty reduction. Fiscal weakness can also be fatal to social peace when one or more ethnic, religious, or regional groups are taxed unfairly—or receives too little in the allocation of public spending.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Suppose a DAC donor earmarks $1 billion of taxpayers' money for official development assistance (ODA). The donor may use two instruments as an outright grant or in combination with a market loan to produce a concessional loan of $2 billion with a percentage grant element of 50 per cent. Many nowadays think the choice should be clear: provide grants only, leave loans to the market. The purpose of this Policy Brief is to qualify and inform this choice.
Topic:
International Relations, Debt, Economics, and Third World
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is at a critical point in its history. While the forthcoming elections offer the country new opportunities, it is also facing rising tensions, and at least 42 million people still endure appalling poverty and suffering.
Peacebuilding cannot succeed if half the population is excluded from the process. Crisis Group's research in Sudan, Congo (DRC) and Uganda suggests that peace agreements, post-conflict reconstruction, and governance do better when women are involved. Women make a difference, in part because they adopt a more inclusive approach toward security and address key social and economic issues that would otherwise be ignored. But in all three countries, as different as each is, they remain marginalised in formal processes and under-represented in the security sector as a whole. Governments and the international community must do much more to support women peace activists.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Debt, and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Sudan, and Democratic Republic of the Congo
Jubilee campaigns and debt cancellation advocates can be proud of their efforts. The Finance Ministers of the eight rich country governments as represented at the Group of 8 (G-8) have announced a deal on 100% debt cancellation of International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and African Development Fund debt for some impoverished nations.