Views from the Center

Kudos to our friends at the African Development Bank for their recent launching of a new blog, Building Africa Today. So far it is providing regular updates of African currencies, stock markets, commodities, and other data relevant to those following economic trends on the continent. Any quick scan of the blog also shows that this is not your father’s AfDB of the 1980s: the blog and the Bank are both heavily focused on private sector activity.

I wrote in a CGD Note last week with Tom Slayton about how the Philippines are engaging in aggressive buying techniques that seem designed to drive up prices, raising the specter of another rice price crisis such as what befell us in early 2008.

Earlier this week, Ruth Levine called for aid to be unbranded as a further step to rebrand America. Nancy Birdsall, Bill Savedoff and I have heard the same plea during conversations we’ve had with government officials about Cash on Delivery Aid.

Danielle Kuczynski contributed to this post