Development Blogs.com

Climate change, peak oil and all the other unfolding crises associated with pollution and resource depletion are all symptoms of one problem. There has been a fundamental change in the relationship between people and the Earth. We no longer have new frontiers to expand into when resources get scarce or our waste becomes intolerable. This change marks the maturity of the human species. Well-being now requires an equally fundamental change in how we manage our societies. As long as the goal of expanding production and consumption is considered legitimate, we are in danger of overshooting planetary limits and collapsing. When sustainability gains legitimacy, as our primary goal, the possibility will emerge for evolving a mature social form, capable of long-term well-being. It is a...

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In an increasingly globalized world when two countries pick a fight with one another the rest will suffer in some way. While I am not suggesting that pressures on supply chains and the oil market can ever be equated with the horrors of war, the fact remains that when two modern national economies pick a fight with one another the effects will be felt worldwide. Georgia seems to be the more economically damaged of the two countries thus far. Its credit rating has recently been reduced from a B+ to a B by the ratings agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) immediately after the start of the conflict. An economy that has been averaging 10 percent growth for the past few years also faces high inflation and a much smaller growth in GDP this year. Also, oil and gas companies that were...

If you ask almost any volunteer or professional who has been in the field confronting the AIDS pandemic, the single greatest obstacle to relief is the social stigma attached to AIDS. It was the subject of the second plenary session at the 17th annual International AIDS Conference that ended August 8th in Ciudad Mexico, for the first time taking place in a developing country. For various reasons depending on local customs and cultures, HIV-positive populations remain overwhelmingly silent about their status, and as many as half of all infected persons may not realize they are HIV-positive. Without a social setting where such populations can feel safer enough to reveal their status, progress will remain limited. The poor make up the vast majority of the labor force in developing markets....

Despite the results of the referendum in which Venezuelans rejected President Chávez’s attempt to strengthen his constitutional grip over the economy and public institutions, the de facto government takeover goes on unfettered. The New York Times reports: Faced with shortages of foods, building materials and other staples, President Hugo Chávez is intensifying state control of the Venezuelan economy through a new wave of takeovers of private companies and the creation of government-controlled ventures with allies like Cuba and Iran. According to the government’s rhetoric, those steps are necessary to advance the vision of the 21st century socialism promising prosperity for all. But this lofty goal is foundering on the shoals of rampant inflation and shortages of basic consumer...

The converging mortgage, financial, food, fuel and climate crises are all symptoms of a massive global ecological bubble Excerpt from "Earth Meanders" personal essay by Ecological Ecological 's President, Dr. Glen Barry: Ecological overshoot whereby humanity exceeds the Earth's carrying capacity is the mother of all "bubbles". Within the current sub-prime mortgage and financial bubbles, and food and energy price increases, we are witnessing the logical and inevitable economic consequences of over-population, resource scarcity, inequitable and unreasonable consumption, and unsustainable economic growth. Growth and livelihoods based upon unreasonable presumptions of continued resource outputs from dwindling ecosystems are a dangerous, unprecedented "ecological bubble" that...

The converging mortgage, financial, food, fuel and climate crises are all symptoms of a massive global ecological bubble Excerpt from "Earth Meanders" personal essay by Ecological Ecological 's President, Dr. Glen Barry: Ecological overshoot whereby humanity exceeds the Earth's carrying capacity is the mother of all "bubbles". Within the current sub-prime mortgage and financial bubbles, and food and energy price increases, we are witnessing the logical and inevitable economic consequences of over-population, resource scarcity, inequitable and unreasonable consumption, and unsustainable economic growth. Growth and livelihoods based upon unreasonable presumptions of continued resource outputs from dwindling ecosystems are a dangerous, unprecedented "ecological bubble" that threatens...

Entrepreneurship involves risk. According to a March 6th article in the Economist, “Betting the Fazenda,” Brazilian entrepreneurs are less willing to take risk than their Chinese and Russian counterparts. What could account for this? Well it doesn’t take long to figure out why once you look at the stats from the IFC’s “Doing Business” report. Here’s what the Economist points out:  Starting a business takes 152 days and requires 18 different procedures, according to the IFC’s annual worldwide “Doing Business” study. It takes 2,600 hours for a medium-sized business to keep up with its taxes each year. The same hypothetical business would pay 69% of its second-year profits in tax, if it played by the rules and did not receive special tax breaks. Geez!  Considering...

What are the issues of concern for Russians ahead of the upcoming presidential elections?  Corruption? Erosion of democratic freedoms? One would think so from following the headlines, but its neither.  According to the recent poll by the Levada Center (in Russian), an authority on polling in the country, people are most worried about…rising prices. So, high prices top the list – 80% think its one of the key problems facing the country.  It is followed by poverty (50%), unfair distribution of incomes (34%), poor medical care (33%), and a possible economic crisis (31%).  Corruption is down the list (23%) and worries over erosion of democratic freedoms and civil rights…get the last place with 1%. What is quite interesting is that despite praises for high economic...

Free media, of course, if an integral part of democracy, and it depends just as much on the climate within which it operates (laws and regulations) as it does on the people behind the scenes.  Skilled journalists, in this regard, play a very important role in making democracies work, whether its by exposing corruption and providing citizens with access to information and critical thought.  Many organizations get involved in building the professional skills of journalists - and the importance of such efforts can’t be understated.  Still, what we often see is that it is not just the reporting skills that journalists lack - it is the understanding of issues that they are reporting on, particularly in the economic and business areas.  Take corruption for example - it is not enough...

Zimbabwe continues to supply entries for record books - unfortunately, not of a good kind.  This time its the news that the central bank will be printing 10,000,000 dollar bills.  Sounds like a lot.  Well, its not.  Its not even enough to buy a hamburger in a cafe.  And, with the way things are going in the country, you may be lucky if you find anything to buy - especially, since goods are disappering from the store shelves into the black market as police are attempting to prosecute entrepreneurs for raising prices.  I wonder, why, unlike many others, Zimbabwe hasn’t been able to benefit from high global prices on natural resources (of which it has plenty)?  Some think corruption is one of the major......

In the eight years of Vladimir Putin’s term as president of Russia the country has seen dramatic economic growth, a repayment of debts and the creation of a large hard currency reserve.  These are notable achievements and are reflected by the popularity of Mr. Putin domestically.  The Kremlin has argued that the spectacular growth is a direct result of Mr. Putin’s establishment of socioeconomic order through managed democracy.  If a few personal freedoms or democratic institutions were eliminated in the process of managing democracy this was purveyed as a necessary sacrifice in the name of stability and economic growth. In the new edition of Foreign Affairs, Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stone-Weiss argue that the creeping authoritarianism has hindered, not enabled, economic growth...

As in a pendulum movement, the reflections about the impact of ICTs in the Economy have swung from enthusiasm to realism and back to optimism, being each of these states really subjective and implying a wide range of shades within. After a first period of cyberoptimism, people that “wanted to see” and people that thought “waiting to see” was a bad strategy because “it will then be too late”, followed a timespan where scientists — mainly economists — stuck to strict evidence from reality, being their main conclusion that the more you spend/invest in ICTs the more they affect both the share and the growth of the GDP — an obvious conclusion to many, I’d dare say, as it’ll happen with sweets if you spent half your national budget in......

Among the news coming from crisis-tormented Zimbabwe there is this peculiar story of workers at a government-owned company exercising an unusual form of protest: sleeping in at work. At least 70 workers from Kingstons Limited, which specialises in stationery and music, have been sleeping at the Kingstons’ head office for a week now. The workers, from eleven branches across Harare, are protesting at poor working conditions and a paltry salary. … The workers are accusing the government of paying them “slave wages” as they can hardly cover transport costs with their monthly wages. They reportedly earn as little as Z$11 million a month, when transport costs each worker an average of Z$20 million. … According to statistics released by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade...

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation has just published the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which rates countries by the best available measures of security, rule of law, human rights, economic opportunity and human development. The 2007 index is based on scores for 2005, the most recent year for which reasonably complete statistics are available, though I imagine the biggest limitation of the project is the dearth of credible statistics. (That and the risk that the prize rules may put off leaders with no plans to leave office in the next decade.) I’m afraid did not fall out of my chair when I saw that the Democratic Republic of Congo is ranked at 47 out of all 48 African countries, just ahead of Somalia. A quick look at the breakdown suggests that if Kabila has an urge to move up the...

A post-electoral privy. In an inspired example of recycling prowess, someone has found a new use for all those election banners with which the city was briefly festooned last year. Likewise, many of the cardboard posters have been transformed by origami into vending trays for peanuts, pens, cigarettes, medicinal twigs, and the like. I’ve just seen a sneak preview of the new government’s agenda. My favourite line promises: “la lutte contre toutes formes de tracasseries dont sont victimes les populations et les hommes d’affaires“. It translates quite awkwardly: ‘the struggle against all forms of nuisance of which the population and business-men are victims’. Quite apt, on the day we learn that DRC remains the hardest place in the world to do business....

Transforming Africa with Digital Technologies OVF Nigeria Director Olaposi Obiola says that GSM cellphones came into Nigeria about 3 years ago. He says that this was a great development as it contributed immensely to the improvement of the communication...

Joy Tang reports that a juice company in San Francisco (about 50 minutes away from San Jose where I live) called Adina World. have adopted the sustainable development concept into their business creation linking people with juice and...