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 Authors: Broad, R.; Cavanagh, J.; World Policy Journal
Produced by: New Rules for Global Finance (2006)
The popular backlash to the Washington Consensus (an agenda of enforced open market policies) has been witnessed in protest marches and anti-globalisation campaigns for quite some time. This revolutionary mood, the authors argue, has been hijacked by the influencial, articulate voices of Jeffrey Sachs and Thomas Friedman. This article presents a critique of these two figures' work, and warns of the risks their policy prescriptions entail.
Arguing that Sachs and Friedman's solutions to ending poverty are over-simplistic, the authors add that such claims are merely loosely-vieled interpretations of the market liberalisation policies of the 1980s and 1990s. Accepted as simple truth by many, these straight-forward answers to poverty eradication are, according to the authors, built upon dubious facts about the poor, aid, trade and the options available to donor countries. |
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 On November 18-19, the G20 meeting in Melbourne will bring together the finance ministers of the powerful G8 group of nations with those of Australia, the European Union and 10 of the largest Third World economies, along with the heads of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. During those two days, more than 50,000 children will die from preventable diseases, 2800 women will die in pregnancy or childbirth, and more than 16,000 people will die as a result of HIV and AIDS. The G20 promotes policies that cause this genocide by poverty.
Spelled out in the 2004 “Accord for Sustained Growth”, these policies include: the elimination of restrictions on the international movement of capital; “flexible” labour market conditions; privatisation; enforcement of intellectual and other private property rights; creating a business climate conducive to foreign direct investment; and global trade liberalisation (through the World Trade Organisation and bilateral “free-trade” agreements). |
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 On Oct. 9, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to economist Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh and the Grameen Bank that he founded. Yunus and the bank were recognized for finding a way to help the poor negatively affected by globalization and capitalism. When contrasted with the current climate of fear following North Korea's nuclear test, Yunus' method of promoting peace by tackling poverty becomes an even more meaningful example of positive peace.
We live in a time in which the technology humans have developed has been used to produce unimaginably awful weapons, and in which we are constantly threatened by mass destruction. Not only has violence released the damaging power of war itself and disrupted international order, but it also threatens the very conditions for human existence.
However, we should not seek to promote peace by using violence to deal with violence. Nor should we limit ourselves to relying on diplomacy or deterrence to protect national security.
The key lies in discovering how to advance all of humanity and use "the science of survival" to confront all forms of violence.
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 For decades development cooperation has been based on the assumption that countries of the global South need to be helped in their development with monies coming from the rich North. A symbol of this “partnership” (a euphemism for what are too frequently paternalistic donor-recipient relationships) is the 35-year-old unfulfilled promise by developed countries to allocate 0.7% of their gross domestic product to official development assistance (ODA). Since the time this pledge was made, the discourse about development financing has concentrated on the question of how to mobilize more money for the South, whether through an increase in ODA or through new financial instruments like global taxes. Yet, however useful, “aid” is not the solution. It is not sufficient and, in the long term, Southern countries can only overcome their dependency on rich donors when their governments are able to mobilize enough domestic resources to guarantee universal access to reasonable quality essential public goods and services. New perspectives are needed. |
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 Nine years ago Nepal's health ministry set up two health posts in remote Dhugesadh village, where the nearest hospital is a three to four day walk away. Till today, no doctors have arrived to staff them.A doctor held one of the jobs for six months two years ago, but since then the posts have been vacant. Even at the district's Taplejung Hospital, only one of two doctor positions is ever filled at one time. "If that doctor goes out for some work, there is no doctor at all," hospital chief Shree Ram Shah told 'Gorkhapatra' newspaper. Delivery of government services like health care must improve if Nepal is to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline, Shankar Sharma, former vice-chairman of the country's National Planning Commission, told IPS prior to an MDG meeting that started here Wednesday. "There's no substitute for improved governance -- sending workers to the districts and keeping them in place," he added. |
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 Several studies in Southern Africa show that the direct transfer of cash to people living on or below the breadline not only prevents hunger, but also further impoverishment. International organisations have conducted studies in Malawi and Zambia to measure the effects of cash transfers on poor people's lives. These studies were presented at a conference held this week (Oct. 9-10) near South Africa's financial centre of Johannesburg.
The gathering was hosted by Oxfam Great Britain and a Pretoria-based non-profit, the Southern African Regional Poverty Network -- as well as the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme, which is backed by the British and Australian governments, and headquartered in Johannesburg. |
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 Introduction
Development and peace have been two of the major concerns of national and international political economy for more than fifty years. Yet there is considerable disagreement as to the nature of the relationship between these two economic and political phenomena.
Some (such as the “liberals/neoliberals”) argue that development encourages peace. People in better economic condition are less likely to initiate violent conflict both because they are more content and because they have more to lose from the physical danger and economic disruption that war brings. Others say that development discourages peace, either because the continued development of some depends on their forceful suppression or control of others (as the “dependency” theorists argue) or because development increases the capacity to build and mobilize military power (as the “neorealists” argue). Still others (such as the old-line “realists”) argue that development and peace have no significant connection to each other.
In order to better understand the power and limits of the relationship between development and peace --- and in particular to explore whether development and peace naturally do, or can be made to, reinforce each other --- it is useful to begin by setting the terms of reference. What do we mean by “development”? What do we mean by “peace”? What do we mean by “militarization”? And what do we mean by “war”?
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