Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
A few month's ago, Ruth Levine recommended that I read Steve Berkman’s book “The World Bank and the Gods of Lending” and yesterday I had the chance to listen over the phone while he gave an informal talk about it at the Center for Global Development.
Nigeria is proposing to transfer a 10 percent stake in the national oil company to delta communities; citizens of the delta would then be entitled to cash benefits, delivered through a trust-type mechanism. Read about it here.
That would be a real live breakthrough on a good idea proposed in CGD papers for Iraq and Ghana.
Zimbabwe is not only a problem for all of Africa, it’s a vexing dilemma for U.S policymakers. Some facts:
President Obama's first visit to Africa will be to Ghana. This is no surprise: Ghana is a close U.S. ally and has been in many ways a model of both political and economic reform.
What would Barack Obama be like if he was still president in 2051? We would expect that despite whatever initial good intentions, that four decades in power would inevitably give way to entrenched corruption, mindless sycophancy, and probably destroy our democracy. Such an outcome is not only barred by the U.S. constitution, but sounds like an absurd question today.
Nuhu Ribadu, the former anti-corruption czar of Nigeria, is no longer on the job, but is still fighting the good fight. Nuhu was profiled in the Washington Post Outlook section, and explained why corruption “is the reason why Africa is Africa today.” Nuhu also testified to the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services late last week.
Last week, the Aluminum Corp. of China, otherwise known as Chinalco, received regulatory approval to proceed with its investment of $19.5 billion in the Australian-based mining giant Rio Tinto, giving the Chinese access to a large and secure supply of iron ore, copper, aluminium and other resources in Australia and Latin America. Is this a signal that China is losing interest in Africa? Or that African governments are becoming disenchanted with their Chinese partners?
Perhaps it is because people interested in combating corruption in resource-rich countries are of impeccable ethics themselves, but it took only the smallest of "bribes" -- cookies, but no lunch -- to draw a packed house in freezing weather to CGD today to discuss the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
On January 5, the University of Pennsylvania's International Relations Program and Foreign Policy magazine released a first-ever ranking of think tanks.
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