I had the great honor to testify today on US responses to Zimbabwe’s election crisis in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs. Kudos to Chairman Chris Coons (D-DE) and Ranking Member Jeff Flake (R-AZ) for bringing attention to a country that is facing a watershed moment, yet few others in Washington seem to be paying much mind.
This is a joint post with Owen Barder.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Winston Churchill, November 1942
The agenda for action to tackle illicit financial flows has passed an important threshold. While the G-8 meeting which concluded today did not agree everything that had been hoped, there was tangible progress in two out of the three main areas:
The UK Ministry of Justice has released interim results for the Peterborough Prison Social Impact Bond: reconviction of former prisoners in the pilot has been reduced by 6% over two years, compared to a national increase of 16% over the same period.
There are many, many problems with the House farm bill being debated this week but there are two amendments that would make significant improvements. The first (#55 in this list) is a version of the Royce-Bass Food Aid Reform Act that would provide authorization to untie up to 45 percent of the emergency food aid budget and allow the US Agency for International Development to provide assistance in whatever form—food purchased in the US or locally, vouchers, or cash transfers—would help the most people the quickest.
This is a joint post with Stephanie Majerowicz.
When we share the Oil-to-Cash idea with people who are hearing about it for the very first time, the typical response is almost always viscerally negative. (If you aren’t familiar with Oil-to-Cash, here’s the web page and a 4-min jellybeans video.) They usually say “That won’t work because of X” or “Sure, that works in Alaska, but my country Y is very different” or “No, the money would be much better spent on Z”. Often, by the second or third time we talk with people about citizen dividends, however, they start to come around. In a few cases, we’ve even had former skeptics pitching us ideas of how it could work better.
Followers of this blog should hopefully by now know all about Oil-to-Cash, our initiative to encourage a country facing the dilemmas of an oil or gas boom to consider distributing a portion of the proceeds directly to citizens. For the 4-minute summary, see my jellybeans video here.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced in January that his priorities for the G-8 during Britain’s presidency center on three Ts: taxes, trade, and transparency.
LBJ did it. So did Bill Clinton. Gerald Ford did it twice, Jimmy Carter did it just five weeks before being voted out of office, then Ronald Reagan turned around and did it the following year, and three more times after that.
A dispiriting exercise in blame-shifting took place in early June at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Trade negotiators have been trying for months to find a few items where they agree so they can declare the Bali ministerial meeting in December a success, and then bury the broader Doha Round.
On the eve of the Social Impact Investment summit in London this Thursday, 6th June, I am excited that CGD and Social Finance are releasing a consultation draft of the report of the Working Group on Development Impact Bonds that we have convened over the past year.