Development NGOs of the Week- DAI

DAI’s mission is to make a lasting difference in the world by helping developing nations become more prosperous, fairer and more just, cleaner, safer, healthier, more stable, more efficient, and better governed.

DAI Washington traces its origins to 1970, when three graduates of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University combined their savings, aspirations, and career goals to establish a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., focusing on market-based approaches to economic development. DAI Washington's founders were bold and persistent. They named the company “Development Alternatives, Inc.”—now known simply as DAI—to emphasize their commitment to innovation and new ways of solving problems.

See more job opportunites at DAI

MDG T-Shirt Ideas

Source: you know from whom

Economic Growth Officers' Conference

Didn't know USAID had economic growth officers- I wonder what Prof. Easterly would say about it. Anyway I have collated some of the the podcasts of the sessions below- Romer's session is highly recommended.

Technology Drive Growth, Rules Drive Development
Paul Romer, Stanford University
Steve Radelet, Department of State

The Millennium Development Goals: The Road to 2015

Global Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation

Global Climate Change: Leveraging Investment Flows for Mitigation

Reinventing Government: Designing Programs to Enhance Public Sector Effectiveness and Performance
H.E. Minister Imad Fakhoury, Ministry of Public Sector Development, Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Ms. Widad Qutaishat, Results-Oriented Government Component Lead, USAID/Jordan Fiscal Reform II Project, DAI
Dr. Emil Bolongaita, Director, Management Systems International
Moderator: Dr. Mark Gallagher, Chief of Party, USAID/Jordan Fiscal Reform II Project, DAI

A Behavioral Approach to Economic Development
Sendhil Mullainathan, Poverty Action Lab and Harvard University
Michael Kremer, Harvard University

Government ICT Applications that Save Businesses Time and Money
Valentina Mintah, Crown Agents
Efrain Laureano, Chemonics International
Judy Payne, USAID/EGAT/I&E/ICT

Accelerating Job Creation and Growth
Steve Kapsos, ILO/Geneva
Mary Hobbs, USAID/Kosovo
Eduardo Tugendhat, CARANA Corporation
Lili Stern, U.S. Department of Labor

Access to Innovative Financial Services

World Bank’s Doing Business Indicators: Lessons Learned and New Directions
Svetlana Baguadinova, Doing Business Project, The World Bank
Rita Ramalho, Enterprise Analysis Unit, The World Bank
Carolin Geginat, The World Bank

Monitoring and Evaluation for Economic Growth

Shared Growth Diagnostics: Finding the Binding Constraint to Growth and Poverty Reduction

USAID Economic Growth Programming: Ultimate Impacts

Assorted

OMB's FY 2012 Budget Guidance

Reducing Unnecessary Spending

The Defense of Computers, the Internet and Our Brains

A High-Five for the Invisible Hand

Lübeck as the First Charter City

Burundi Fact of the Day

GDP per capita is about $139, and only 18 percent of the population has food security. The IMF and World Bank have cancelled more than 90 percent of Burundi's debt, worth about $1.4 billion.

-Burundi's Debt Relief Savings to Go to Food, Health, Schools

Assorted Reports

World Economic and Social Survey 2009: Promoting Development, Saving the Planet

Reconstructing Public Administration after Conflict

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in an Era of Global Uncertainty: Asia-Pacific Regional Report 2009/10

Women, Business and the Law 2010

Hoisted from Comments- World Bank's blogs

Thanks to Ryan Hahn for clarifying;

Almost all of the Bank's blogs can be seen in a single format here: http://blogs.worldbank.org. I believe the only exceptions are the PSD Blog and the new blog, All About Finance.

As a general point, I don't think it makes sense to think of all the blogs as a single unit. The Bank is a large institution with experts covering many different areas. If I want to read about finance, I'd rather not have a lot of information on, say, ICT mixed in.

The Silo of World Bank Blogs

Two new additions to the World Bank blogs:

Prospects for Development
All About Finance

Advice to World Bankers: Please consolidate your blogs- may be it's a reflection of the Bank's management style? What do you think readers? Do include settings for blogger feeds in all the blogs.

Currrent Favorite Authors at IMF/World Bank Joint Library:

Stiglitz, Joseph E/ Reinhart, Carmen M. / Collier, Paul / Eichengreen, Barry J.
/ Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. / Yusuf, Shahid, (World Bank Staff)/ Sen, Amartya /Baum, Christopher F. / Ahmad, Ehtisham / StataCorp LP / Shephard, Neil / Pozen, Robert C./ Hayek, Friedrich A. von (Friedrich August) / Greene, William H. / Gladwell, Malcolm / Fabozzi, Frank J. / Cameron, Adrian Colin

Development Jobs

World Bank Job Offer: Public Financial Management Specialist

The closing date:February 14, 2010

MIGA Professionals Program (MPP)
Looking for a Risk Officer, Accounting Office, and Underwriter

Marco-Fiscal Advisor- Afghanistan
Deloitte
Apply By: 11 February 2010

The Advisor will:

* Review appropriateness of MOF macroeconomic model for macro-fiscal analysis and forecasting.
* Review the process for integrating the MOF macroeconomic model to the revenue projections model and medium term fiscal framework (MTFF)
* Document data requirements for model and assist MOF in developing MOU's with DAB and statistical agency for the periodic provision of updated data for the model.
* Develop manuals and training materials to assist in building the knowledge and expertise of MOF staff in use of the Macroeconomic model.
* Provide coaching, formal training and mentoring to MOF staff in the use of the model.

Institutional Development Expert - Sri Lanka
Sinclair Knight Merz
Apply By: 20 January 2010

Namibia - Support to the National Planning Commission Secretariat
ECORYS
Apply By: 11 February 2010

ADB has a lot of anticipated vacancies for economists and PFM experts

Who is Chalmers Johnson?

The idea of the Developmental State is most closely associated with Chalmers Johnson and his seminal analysis of Japan’s very rapid, highly successful post-war reconstruction and reindustrialization. Johnson’s central contention was that Japan’s quite remarkable and historically unparalleled industrial renaissance was neither a fluke nor inevitable, but a consequence of the efforts of a Developmental State. A developmental state was one that was determined to influence the direction and pace of economic development by directly intervening in the development process, rather than relying on the uncoordinated influence of market forces to allocate resources. The developmental state took it upon itself the task of establishing substantive social and economic goals with which to guide the process of development and social mobilization. The most important of these goals, in Japan’s case, of course was the reconstruction of its industrial capacity, a process made easier by widespread consensus about the importance of industrial development.
The emphasis has to be placed on the influence over the direction and pace of development by directly intervening in the development process, rather than relying on the uncoordinated influence of market forces.

- Address by the Minister in The Presidency: National Planning Commission, Trevor Manuel, at the Wits Graduate School of Public Development Management

For Discussion: Where's South Africa heading?

Best Development Idea of 2009

World Bank should take heed:

Paul Romer's Charter Cities

Assorted

2009 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO)

If Statisticians Could Turn Back Time

Effective Habits for writers?

I'm interested in doing very few things. I don't have a cell phone. Don't have a computer. Don't have a TV set. Don't go to movies. Don't read. I ignore the world so I might live obsessively.

New software makes it easier to fight corruption

Twenty questions for would-be MPs

Animal Spirits

International Trade Statistics 2009

Global Wage Report 2008/09: Minimum wages and collective bargaining: Towards policy coherence

Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report 2009 : Trade-led Recovery and Beyond

The Arab knowledge report 2009: towards productive intercommunication for knowledge

Catalysing Low Carbon Growth in Developing Economies: public finance mechanisms to scale up private sector investment in climate solutions

Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium

Global health risks

Global Report on Human Settlements 2009: Planning Sustainable Cities


Improving Effectiveness and Outcomes for the Poor in Health, Nutrition and Population

Human development report 2009

Paying a Price for the Thrill of the Hunt

A Primer on Complexity

It's a complex world we live in.

Need a motivation to study international development

"The greatest challenge for me is remaining hopeful and optimistic when the changes that you see are so small and they come so slowly," Meyer said. "It is a slow and incremental process, and it can be discouraging, but you must stay connected to your personal vision even if its realization may take long periods of time."

-Amy Meyer: Leading Efforts to Spur the Economy in a Volatile Region

F & D is out

Finance and Development June 2009

Book recommendation

Perspectives on Development: Memoirs of a Development Economist
by V. V. Bhatt

World Economic Prospects -World Bank

World Bank: Global Economic Update

View more presentations from worldbank.

South Asia (SAR) has been marked down to 3.7 percent growth for 2009 from 5.4 percent anticipated earlier—and down from 5.6 percent registered in 2008. Though terms of trade have moved in favor of the region with the falloff in oil prices, weakening demand in export markets (including burgeoning Indo-Sino trade) is being felt sharply, as is a tempering of services exports from India’s high-tech centers, as capital spending wanes globally. Remittances are anticipated to ease as conditions in host countries falter, albeit with some lag. Capital inflows have diminished, contributing to falloff in investment growth, notably in India. Fiscal support for slowing economies may face constraints in already quite high budget deficits.

External financing requirements for developing countries as a group are anticipated to increase to $1.3 trillion in 2009, comprised of current account deficits ($330 billion) and principal repayments on private debt coming due ($970 billion). With a decline in capital flows to developing countries underway, this would generate an estimated financing gap of between $270-$700 billion, depending on the size of roll-over risks and the magnitude of capital flight. Regions with the largest funding gaps are Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In the current projections, 84 of 109 developing countries would face financing gaps, in most cases too large to cover by drawing down reserves alone. This suggests that in the absence of sufficient international support, countries could be forced into generating a sharp reversal in current account balance, implying further decline in domestic demand and imports.

Debates regarding the possible “shape” of recovery from the current downturn continue. But there is little question that the outlook for 2010 in particular, is surrounded by extreme uncertainty across a wide array of policy- and other variables that will eventually bring about a revival in economic activity. The pronounced cycle in worldwide investment could have sufficient dynamic to carry global growth back to positive territory by 2010, as the pace of decline in investment moderates, and postponed demand for durable consumer goods begins to catch up. Together with the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus this results in the modest global recovery in the baseline forecast presented here.

However, continued banking problems or even new waves of tension in financial markets could lead to stagnation in global GDP or even to another year of decline in 2010. In all cases, the estimated output gap1 would increase in 2010 because (in the baseline as well), growth falls well short of potential (figure 1.e). This implies that unemployment and fiscal deficits will increase further into 2010, in high-income and developing countries alike, while disinflationary conditions could persist well into the year.

World Economic Prospects 2009

The Man to save Pakistan Tax System?

Something to think about

"the IMF estimates that the balance of payments needs of low-income countries will be about $25 billion this year."

See
Appendix VI. Balance of Payments Financing Needs, The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Low-Income Countries.

Development Podcast of the Day- Shanta Devarajan

With Shanta Devarajan and Sheila Page. Discussion of the impact of the economic crisis on developing countries, the food crisis, moves towards a new Free Trade Area for Africa, and the Mo Ibrahim Prize for good governance.

Listen to the podcast

For Discussion: Shanta mentioned that poor African countries can be provided with additional loans through the IBRD window, for infrastructure and productive investments.