Press Center

By The Economist From the article: At kicoshep school in Kibera, a vast Nairobi slum, Grade 3 is learning English. The teacher, Jacinter Atieno, asks questions about a story on the exploitation of children as domestic servants. At the back of the class, a coach logs information about Mrs Atieno’s performance into a tablet. Halfway through the class, the coach summons three children and tests their reading. The scores go into the tablet, which then makes suggestions—that, say, Mrs Atieno might watch one of its instructional videos, or improve her English pronunciation with its letter-sound tool. The information is uploaded to the county office that runs the local schools, and can be reviewed by the teachers’ bosses there. … The big problem is teachers: often too few, too ignorant—or simply not there. Unannounced visits to classes across seven sub-Saharan African countries by the World Bank found that in nearly half of them, the teacher was absent. Many teachers who do turn up are startlingly underqualified. In Bihar in northern India, for instance, only 11% of government-school teachers could solve a three-digit by one-digit division problem, and show the steps by which to do it. Paying teachers more is not likely to improve the situation. As research by Justin Sandefur of the Centre for Global Development shows, poor-country teachers tend to be remarkably well-paid, by local standards (see chart). And evidence from countries as diverse as Indonesia and Pakistan suggests that teachers’ pay levels have little impact on learning. Ideally, governments would invest in training teachers properly and promote or fire them on the basis of their performance. But the first of these ambitions requires levels of governance lacking in many developing countries, and a time-horizon beyond that of many elected governments. The second is often politically unrealistic: teachers’ unions can be exceedingly powerful outfits for a range of reasons—including that polling stations are often located in schools and run by teachers. Read the full article here.  

By Elliot Gardner  From the article:  A convoluted legal battle is taking place over the Port of Doraleh in Djibouti. The country has illegally seized control of the port from operator DP World and reneged on its contract. And now a special report on the arms trade in the Horn of Africa has warned that the port could potentially be used as an illegal weapons hub. Elliot Gardner untangles the story behind the fight for control over the disputed port.  ...  The China factor: Djibouti’s imposing creditor It’s been hypothesised that the reason behind the port seizure is Djibouti’s significant public debt to China. According to US-based think tank the Center for Global Development, Djibouti’s debt is projected to soon reach 88% of its $1.72bn GDP and by the end of 2016, 82% of this debt was owned by China. It has been floated that the Government of Djibouti’s actions may be a veiled attempt at appeasing its East Asian creditor.  Read the full article here.   

By Joanne Lu From the article: U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is on a mission this week to win the hearts and minds – and cooperation – of Southeast Asian leaders. He’s doing so with the help of a recently passed bill that creates a new U.S. development bank that will help American businesses invest in developing economies. In a recent op-ed for the Washington Post, Pence said the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act will “spur renewed private investment in regional infrastructure.” And it will more than double the U.S.’ current development finance capacity to $60 billion. Politically, many analysts say it’s a move to counter China’s growing influence in developing countries, as China has financed and built hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure and other development projects over the last couple decades. Pence himself described it as part of the Trump administration’s “Indo-Pacific strategy.” But experts and organizations within the global development sector are also praising the passage of the BUILD Act as a much-needed move to modernize U.S. development efforts. The Center for Global Development called it the “the biggest step forward in U.S. development policy” in 15 years. What is the BUILD Act? In short, it will consolidate the U.S.’ existing development finance institutions –  the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Development Credit Authority  – into one new agency. That agency will be called the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC). The new bank will not only have a much higher investment ceiling than the current institutions, but it will also offer technical assistance, give “preference” but not be limited to U.S. investors and have new finance capabilities, like making limited equity investments (buying shares of stock in companies). Doing so will give the U.S. “more flexibility to support investments in developing countries to drive economic growth, create stability, and improve livelihoods,” says OPIC. The new bank also aims to have a stronger focus on low-income and low-middle income countries, be more transparent with project-level reporting and maintain stronger human rights, labor and environmental standards. To be clear, the push for a new agency wasn’t because the existing agencies were defective. In fact, in 2016, the Center for Global Development described OPIC as a “high-performing, if still little-known, agency.” That year was the 39th year in a row that OPIC, running at a profit, paid into the U.S. Treasury. OPIC says that over the last decade, it has contributed $3.7 billion to reducing the deficit. It just hasn’t been significantly updated since it was founded in 1971. “OPIC is a very influential development finance agency, but it operates using old methods and outdated authorities,” wrote Daniel Runde and Romina Bandura, senior vice president and senior fellow, respectively, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “OPIC needs a remodeling to allow it to fully compete in today’s global economy.” And that’s why more than seven years ago, the Center for Global Development proposed a new consolidated finance agency. Sponsored by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Chris Coons (D-DE) and Representatives Ted Yoho (R-FL) and Adam Smith (D-WA), the BUILD Act was finally signed into law on October 5. By October next year, the bank is expected to be operational. Meanwhile, the president, Congress, OPIC and USAID will work on a reorganization plan. Read the full article here.