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EVENTS GUIDES PARTNERS JOBS ABOUT
23 November 2009
University of East London
City University London
Al-Maktoum Institute
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Whatever is necessary for the economy

GuidesWeek for week ending October 18th 2008

We’ve seen more interest in our Aid Guide since last month’s UN High Level meeting reviewed progress of the MDGs. Ban Ki-moon declared that the $16 billion of additional aid promised by rich countries “exceeded our most optimistic expectations”.

Elusive aid
A fortnight later, we learned that a single country (the UK) had earmarked $35 billion to rescue a single Rotten Bank. Plus a similar sum for other banks of that ilk.

In the days that followed European countries and then the US fell over each other to pluck even greater lollipops from their bottomless exchequers. If developing countries had the power to impose a tiny tax on the aggregate of this largesse, the MDGs would be a done deal.

Politicians are going to hate these comparisons over coming years. But they dug themselves a hole to fill with debt-driven votes and they kept digging.

we must go deeper to deconstruct the primeval fear that drove governments to “do whatever is necessary”
Anti-poverty campaigners must stay smart in mining this rich seam of dysfunctional values. And we must go deeper to deconstruct the primeval fear that drove governments to “do whatever is necessary” to prevent something terrible happening.

Was it the prospect of life without bank accounts? of barter transactions? of shaky title to our property? of dependence on our allotments?

Sounds rather like real life for a big chunk of the world’s population. So let’s include them in this brave new vision of doing whatever is necessary.

A nervous glance at my cheque book reminds me that my worldly goods lie with a subsidiary of the Rotten Bank. But OneWorld Guides have a reassuringly virtual presence…..

These fragments I have shored against my ruins....

Now who was it who wrote that line? In need of a clue?

He was a banker.

******

OneWorld Guides for reference:
Aid, MDGs Progress

GuidesWeek home


GuidesWeek
Bill Gunyon
These articles are personal reflections on my work in editing OneWorld Guides over the past week. I often try to make sense of the global divide by looking at events in the UK and in my home city of Winchester.

Bill Gunyon
Editor, OneWorld Guides
My Pick of the Week
These are not necessarily new articles but I came across them this week.
Wind farms produce more than half of the electricity in Spain. Why can't we do it here the UK where there is much more wind? IPS News
Owen Barder argues that the rights of immigrants should be no different from those of existing citizens. These are tough questions. Owen Abroad
The oceans slow down global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide. But there is a heavy price to pay in their own ecosystem. Cosmos Magazine

Books on my table
Selections from
OneWorld Books
It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower by Michela Wrong
The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning by James Lovelock
More Reflections on a Divided World

Zambian Economist, economic perspectives on Zambia from Chola Mukanga

Owen Abroad, thoughts from Owen Barder in Africa

Global Dashboard, cutting edge comment on international affairs, largely from UK perspective

From Poverty to Power, a stream of expert comment on latest development issues from Duncan Green at Oxfam

Chris Blattman, impromptu thoughts on global affairs by Assistant Professor of Political Science and Economics at Yale. Excellent comments.

Aid Watch, William Easterly and Laura Freshci offer stimulating criticism of the aid industry but little in the way of constructive alternatives.
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