The Bottom Billion
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Paul Collier's the Bottom Billion Wins
Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion wins 2008 Lionel Gelber Prize Tuesday, March 4, 2008 (Toronto and Washington, D.C.) — Oxford University economist Paul Collier has won the 2008 Lionel Gelber Prize for his book The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford University Press). Judith Gelber, Chair of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board and niece of Lionel Gelber, announced the winner today in Toronto. Presented annually by The Lionel Gelber Foundation in partnership with the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto and FOREIGN POLICY magazine, the Lionel Gelber Prize is awarded to the author of the world’s best book on international affairs. The Economist has called it “the world’s most important award for non-fiction.” Paul Collier will accept the $15,000 award in Toronto on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, at the Munk Centre, where he will also deliver the Lionel Gelber Lecture. The event begins at 6 p.m. People wishing to attend can register online at www.utoronto.ca/mcis/gelber. FOREIGN POLICY magazine hosts an event in Washington later in April. Jury Chair Barbara McDougall, Canada’s former Secretary of State for External Affairs, says The Bottom Billion “provides a penetrating reassessment of why vast populations remain trapped in poverty, despite endless debate over foreign aid policy among wealthy countries and institutions.” Born in Yorkshire, England, Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University. He formerly served as Director of Research at the World Bank and as an advisor to the British government’s commission on Africa. -
Industrial Development Report 2009 Breaking in and Moving Up: New Industrial Challenges for the Bottom Billion and the Middle-Income Countries
Industrial Development Report 2009 Breaking In and Moving Up: New Industrial Challenges for the Bottom Billion and the Middle-Income Countries UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION Industrial Development Report 2009 Breaking In and Moving Up: New Industrial Challenges for the Bottom Billion and the Middle-Income Countries Copyright © 2009 United Nations Industrial Development Organization The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Designations such as “developed”,“industrialized” and “developing” are intended for statistical convenience and do not necessarily express a judgement about the state reached by a particular country or area in the development process. The mention of firm names or commercial products does not imply endorsement by UNIDO. Material in this publication may be freely quoted or reprinted, but acknowledgement is requested, together with a copy of the publication containing the quotation or reprint. UNIDO ID No.: 438 UN Sales No.: E.09.II.B.37 ISBN: 978-92-1-106445-2 ii UNIDO Industrial Development Report 2009 Contents Page Page Foreword vii 4. Understanding structural change: Acknowledgements ix The growing role of manufactured exports 39 Explanatory notes xi Overview xiii 4.1. Manufactured exports and the developing countries 39 4.2. Export sophistication, structural change and growth 45 Part A 4.3. Trade in tasks 49 4.4. Conclusions 52 Industrial structural change and new challenges: The policy space for breaking in and moving up 1 5. -
Global Political Ecology
Global Political Ecology The world is caught in the mesh of a series of environmental crises. So far attempts at resolving the deep basis of these have been superficial and disorganized. Global Political Ecology links the political economy of global capitalism with the political ecology of a series of environmental disasters and failed attempts at environmental policies. This critical volume draws together contributions from 25 leading intellectuals in the field. It begins with an introductory chapter that introduces the readers to political ecology and summarises the book’s main findings. The following seven sections cover topics on the political ecology of war and the disaster state; fuelling capitalism: energy scarcity and abundance; global governance of health, bodies, and genomics; the contradictions of global food; capital’s marginal product: effluents, waste, and garbage; water as a commodity, human right, and power; the functions and dysfunctions of the global green economy; political ecology of the global climate; and carbon emissions. This book contains accounts of the main currents of thought in each area that bring the topics completely up-to-date. The individual chapters contain a theoretical introduction linking in with the main themes of political ecology, as well as empirical information and case material. Global Political Ecology serves as a valuable reference for students interested in political ecology, environmental justice, and geography. Richard Peet holds degrees from the London School of Economics (BSc (Econ)), the University of British Columbia (MA), and the University of California, Berkeley (PhD). He is currently Professor of Geography at Clark University, Worcester, MA. His interests are development, global policy regimes, power, theory and philosophy, political ecology, and the causes of financial crises. -
UNA Mag July-Sep 2007.Qxp
NEWWORLD News and comment on the United Nations and UNA–UK On track or derailed? Progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goals PLUS: Justice not Vengeance It’s time to ditch the death penalty 2007 Review of UN Peace Operations Page 14 War and Democratic Accountability Page 20 UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION OF THE UK 3 Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EL The UN Human Rights Council Page 22 www.una.org.uk Cartooning for Peace Page 35 £3.00 July–September 2007 Global Warming and the WI Page 38 UNA-UK CONTENTS Letter from the Executive Director 3 UNAUK Directory 4 UN: Miscellany 5 070707: the MDG Halfway Point 6 2007 Review of UN Peace Operations 14 UNAUK in Parliament 17 Annual Conference 2007 18 Waging War and Democratic Accountability 20 The UN Human Rights Council 22 It’s Time to Ditch the Death Penalty 26 The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations 29 Cartooning for Peace 35 UNA Westminster Pays Tribute to Peacekeepers 36 The Women’s Institute Tackles Waste 38 The Membership at Work 39 What’s On? 40 Books on the UN 41 Web Resources and Letters 42 Young Professionals Network 43 Newer World 46 MDGs Progress Chart 48 New World Subscription: is published by UNA-UK, 3 Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EL Copies of New World are included in the membership fee for UNA-UK. www.una.org.uk Design: Advertisements: John Schwartz, [email protected] To advertise please call Veronica Lie on 020 7766 3451. The United Nations Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is ISSN: a company limited by guarantee (registered no. -
Smart Samaritans: Is There a Third Way in the Development Debate? by Michael Clemens September 2007
CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ESSAY Smart Samaritans: Is There A Third Way in the Development Debate? By Michael Clemens September 2007 http://www.cgdev.org ABSTRACT In this CGD Essay, research fellow Michael Clemens reviews Paul Collier’s new book The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. Poor countries showing signs of growth such as India and Brazil are well on their way to pulling themselves out of poverty, but there are a billion people living in impoverished countries showing no signs of economic growth. Paul Collier’s new book, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, argues that many developing countries are doing just fine and that the real development challenge is the 58 countries that are economically stagnant and caught in one or more “traps”: armed conflict, natural resource dependence, poor governance, and geographic isolation. In this Essay CGD research fellow Michael Clemens explores whether or not Collier’s proposed solutions constitute a practical middle path between William Easterly’s development pessimism and Jeffrey Sach’s development boosterism. The centerpiece of Collier’s argument is his plan for the G-8, comprised of four main elements: aid for post- conflict reconstruction and regional infrastructure development, five international charters (addressing natural resources, democracy, budget transparency, post-conflict politics, and international investment), a trade policy to help bottom-billion countries compete with Asia, and selective and very limited military interventions. Clemens, an economic historian, ends his discussion of Collier’s proposals with a cautionary note: “Helping the bottom billion will be a very slow job for generations, not the product of media- or summit-friendly plans to end poverty in ten or 20 years. -
CBC IDEAS Sales Catalog (AZ Listing by Episode Title. Prices Include
CBC IDEAS Sales Catalog (A-Z listing by episode title. Prices include taxes and shipping within Canada) Catalog is updated at the end of each month. For current month’s listings, please visit: http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/schedule/ Transcript = readable, printed transcript CD = titles are available on CD, with some exceptions due to copyright = book 104 Pall Mall (2011) CD $18 foremost public intellectuals, Jean The Academic-Industrial Ever since it was founded in 1836, Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Complex London's exclusive Reform Club Spelman Rockefeller Professor of (1982) Transcript $14.00, 2 has been a place where Social and Political Ethics, Divinity hours progressive people meet to School, The University of Chicago. Industries fund academic research discuss radical politics. There's In addition to her many award- and professors develop sideline also a considerable Canadian winning books, Professor Elshtain businesses. This blurring of the connection. IDEAS host Paul writes and lectures widely on dividing line between universities Kennedy takes a guided tour. themes of democracy, ethical and the real world has important dilemmas, religion and politics and implications. Jill Eisen, producer. 1893 and the Idea of Frontier international relations. The 2013 (1993) $14.00, 2 hours Milton K. Wong Lecture is Acadian Women One hundred years ago, the presented by the Laurier (1988) Transcript $14.00, 2 historian Frederick Jackson Turner Institution, UBC Continuing hours declared that the closing of the Studies and the Iona Pacific Inter- Acadians are among the least- frontier meant the end of an era for religious Centre in partnership with known of Canadians. -
Greed and Grievance in Civil War
# Oxford University Press 2004 Oxford Economic Papers 56 (2004), 563–595 563 All rights reserved doi:10.1093/oep/gpf064 Greed and grievance in civil war By Paul Collier* and Anke Hoefflery *Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford yCentre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford, 21 Winchester Road, Oxford OX2 6NA; e-mail: anke.hoeffl[email protected] We investigate the causes of civil war, using a new data set of wars during 1960–99. Rebellion may be explained by atypically severe grievances, such as high inequality, a lack of political rights, or ethnic and religious divisions in society. Alternatively, it might be explained by atypical opportunities for building a rebel organization. While it is difficult to find proxies for grievances and opportunities, we find that political and social variables that are most obviously related to grievances have little explanatory power. By contrast, economic variables, which could proxy some griev- ances but are perhaps more obviously related to the viability of rebellion, provide considerably more explanatory power. 1. Introduction Civil war is now far more common than international conflict: all of the 15 major armed conflicts listed by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for 2001 were internal (SIPRI, 2002). In this paper we develop an econometric model which predicts the outbreak of civil conflict. Analogous to the classic principles of murder detection, rebellion needs both motive and opportunity. The political science literature explains conflict in terms of motive: the circumstances in which people want to rebel are viewed as sufficiently rare to constitute the explanation. -
Assisting Africa to Achieve Decisive Change Paul Collier* Summary
SWEDISH ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW 13 (2006) 169-197 Assisting Africa to achieve decisive change Paul Collier* Summary Africa has stagnated despite receiving considerable international aid. I suggest that the most reasonable counterfactual is that without aid Africa would have declined, so that aid has been helpful in averting disaster, although lacking the power to achieve decisive change. Based on a diagnosis of the reasons for past stagnation, I propose five un- exploited opportunities for aid better to complement internal African efforts at transformation. JEL classification: O11, O19, O55. Key words: Aid, Africa, Growth, Governance. * Paul Collier is Professor of Economics at the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University. 169 SWEDISH ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW 13 (2006) 169-197 Assisting Africa to achieve decisive change Paul Collier* Africa is the only substantial low-income part of the world that has persistently failed to grow. Over the period 1960-2000 the popula- tion-weighted grow rate of per capita income averaged a mere 0.13 per cent. It thus appears likely that Africa is the development chal- lenge of the future. This paper asks what will it take to achieve a deci- sive break with this past record, and in particular, what is the role of external actors in assisting this change? The times may be propitious for such change. Since around 2000 African economic performance has improved. This may reflect im- portant fundamental changes that will make the future different from the past. Even if, on a less optimistic interpretation, the recent im- provement simply reflects the temporary boom in commodity prices, African societies may have learnt from past mistakes and use these windfalls as the launch pad to prosperity. -
Where Does China Fit in the Bottom Billion Narrative? JOHN HUMPHREY, IDS
IN IDSFOCUS Research and analysis from the ISSUE 03 IDInstitute of DevelopmentS Studies CONCERN FOR THE BOTTOM BILLION MARCH 2008 Where Does China Fit in the Bottom Billion Narrative? JOHN HUMPHREY, IDS Most of the world’s poor are in China and India, but Paul Collier argues in The Bottom Billion that development efforts should focus on slower-growing countries. This In Focus brief suggests that development agencies still need to focus on China and India as these countries still face development challenges in their poorer regions and with respect to a number of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In addition these countries have become development actors themselves. It is critical to engage with them as equals in order to learn from their successes, deliver global public goods and work with them as they become increasingly important trade, investment and aid partners for the Bottom Billion countries. Three radical arguments in Clearly, this definition does not include Collier on Asia and China The Bottom Billion 95 per cent of the population of South Asia, and it does not include China. For Growth is the cure for poverty. Aid First, Collier argues that development Collier, development efforts should should be focused on slow-growing policy should focus on the Bottom exclude countries where substantial countries, not slow-growing sectors Billion of the world’s poor, defined in shortfalls in MDG attainment exist now, (agriculture) or regions within terms of countries that are failing to perhaps even excluding countries that countries. Most of Asia has escaped grow. Although this group of countries are not in line to reach the MDGs by the poverty traps. -
The Role of Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa Samy Lemos
Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2018 The Role of Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa samy lemos Recommended Citation lemos, samy, "The Role of Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa" (2018). CMC Senior Theses. 1940. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1940 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 Claremont McKenna College The Role of Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa Submitted To Professor Jeffrey Flory By Samy Lemos For Senior Thesis Spring 2018 April 23, 2018 2 3 Abstract Sub-Saharan Africa is the provider of many critical natural resources. With such resources, one would expect these countries to have thriving economies. Why is the opposite case true? To answer such a question, this paper examines a few critical causes that may justify the current economic situation these African countries are experiencing. Specifically, the paper observes the economic impact of civil war and terrorist conflict in sub-Saharan Africa from 1971 to 2016. To explore the changes in GDP per capita for all these years, this thesis sheds light on three independent variables: year of conflict, education level, and foreign direct investment for many of the 47 sub-Saharan African countries. Replicating Paul Collier’s Bottom Billion, this thesis will delve into more recent trends of the past two decades, and why the lack of economic advancement is pertinent to these countries. With the results obtained, this thesis proposes solutions to lowering the impact of civil conflict, and steadily advancing the economies across the African continent. -
POEC 301 Syllabus
Jon Bakija Jim Mahon Schapiro 330 Schapiro 226 office: x2325 office: x2236 Office hours: Office hours: Tu 1:30-3:30 W, F 10:30-noon and by app’t. and by app’t [email protected] [email protected] POLITICAL ECONOMY 250 ECONOMIC LIBERALISM AND ITS CRITICS Fall 2012 This course explores the relationship between politics and economics by surveying influential works of political economy. Its first part examines major systems of thought in relation to the historical development of capitalism in Britain and the United States, from the classical liberalism of Adam Smith to the works of John Maynard Keynes. The second part considers more recent writings, with more of a focus on policy issues and the USA. The historical nature of the course permits you to appreciate the ongoing dialogue between classical and contemporary views of political economy. The Political Economy major at Williams aims to prepare students for active engagement in public life. This course has two purposes in relation to the major: first, to expose you to the intellectual roots of the political- economic theories you will encounter in your senior courses; and second, to provide a space for you to reflect about the ethical issues that arise whenever one seeks not only to analyze public policy, but to make it. This syllabus is the single most important document for the course. It has been annotated with some information about the authors and the themes of their work, in order to contextualize your reading and leave more class time for discussion of ideas. It also includes study questions. -
The Relationship Between Influential Actors' Language and Violence: A
FEBRUARY 2019 The relationship between influential actors’ language and violence: A Kenyan case study using artificial intelligence Chris Mahony Eduardo Albrecht Murat Sensoy Abstract Scholarly work addressing the drivers of violent conflict predominantly focus on macro-level factors, often surrounding social group-specific grievances relating to access to power, justice, security, services, land, and resources. Recent work identifies these factors of risk and their heightened risk during shocks, such as a natural disaster or significant economic adjustment. What we know little about is the role played by influential actors in mobilising people towards or away from violence during such episodes. We hypothesise that influential actors’ language indicates their intent towards or away from violence. Much work has been done to identify what constitutes hostile vernacular in political systems prone to violence, however, it has not considered the language of specific influential actors. Our methodology targeting this knowledge gap employs a suite of third party software tools to collect and analyse 6,100 Kenyan social media (Twitter) utterances from January 2012 to December 2017. This software reads and understands words’ meaning in multiple languages to allocate sentiment scores using a technology called Natural Language Processing (NLP). The proprietary NLP software, which incorporates the latest artificial intelligence advances, including deep learning, transforms unstructured textual data (i.e. a tweet or blog post) into structured data (i.e. a number) to gauge the authors’ changing emotional tone over time. Our model predicts both increases and decreases in average fatalities 50 to 150 days in advance, with overall accuracy approaching 85%. This finding suggests a role for influential actors in determining increases or decreases in violence and the method’s potential for advancing understandings of violence and language.