BY STEPHEN RUTH If one were setting up a rural wireless project in a developing nation nearly all site options would be easier than the rugged upper mountains of central Nepal, near the famous 27 thousand foot Annapurna range. Yet a very small, dedicated cadre from the remote village of Nangi began a process over [...]
BY AGNIESZKA PACZYNSKA 1 The last two decades have witnessed fundamental shifts in international economic dynamics and the gradual reshaping of global political relationships and collaborations. In particular, emerging powers in the global south are now playing a much more prominent role in the global economy and are beginning to rewrite transnational political frameworks. As their [...]
BY TERRENCE LYONS In April 2011, the Center for Global Studies (CGS), George Mason University, sponsored a conference on Emerging Donors: Shifting Agendas in Development and Security. This conference brought together academics, researchers, and practitioners to investigate one of the central questions relating to one aspect of South-South relationships. This conference followed a 2010 CGS [...]
BY SEAN W. BURGES One of the hot potatoes being passed around the policy branches of most major international development agencies is the question of what to do about the rising group of development actors who are not part of the exclusive club that meets in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance [...]
BY APRIL R. BICCUM Global poverty has become an important global issue in the last 20 years and activism on behalf of the global poor has become increasingly popular. Both a symptom and effect of this popularity, is the increased involvement of individual Hollywood celebrities, activists and advocates in development and the increased visibility of [...]
BY DEBORAH BRÄUTIGAM On hearing of one major Chinese deal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an editor at the Financial Times wrote: “Beijing has thrown down its most direct challenge yet to the West’s architecture for aiding Africa’s development.” I think he was right. This challenge is not just about low environmental, governance, [...]
BY JAIME DAREMBLUM The Organization of American States (OAS), an international institution with headquarters in Washington D.C. consisting of 35 independent states of the Americas, was once the premier democratic forum in the Western Hemisphere. Now it is headed for irrelevance. In recent years, the OAS has been infected with the virus of radicalization, thanks [...]
BY AGNIESZKA PACZYNSKA Over the last three years food and fuel price increases followed by the global financial crisis have placed tremendous strains on fragile and post-conflict states, raising concerns about their ability to maintain political and social stability. At the same time, what these multiple crises have revealed is that even countries in remote [...]
BY LISA ECKENWILER Thanks in part to over a century of progress in public health and medicine, many people are enjoying longer lives. These changing demographics are generating a greater need for long-term care (LTC). In the US, while there has been considerable debate concerning the nature and extent of future LTC needs given declining [...]
BY ARNAUD KURZE After over half a century of modern foreign aid practices, a vast literature has addressed the question of aid effectiveness1, particularly with regards to the questionable and perturbing record of poverty alleviation in least developed countries. Since the 1990s, however, post-Soviet countries and the war-torn Balkan region have also appeared on the [...]