Hapless New Year for Global South

As dire economic predictions for 2023 did not materialise, pundits began 2024 far more optimistically. But policy ghosts from the last half-century will likely undermine such wishful thinking. Optimistic forecasts As New Year celebrations of different cultures decline with the coming of spring in the northern hemisphere, it is useful to review

Neocolonial ISDS abused, biased, costly, and grossly unfair

Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions in international trade and investment agreements – long abused by opportunists with means – are slowly being rejected by cautious governments. Developing country governments need to be much more wary of ISDS and its implications, and should urgently withdraw from existing commitments. They should expunge ISDS

PPPs’ private gain at public expense

At high cost and with dubious efficiency, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have increased private profits at the public expense. PPPs have proved costly in financing public projects. PPPs’ high costs Eurodad has shown high PPP costs mainly due to private partners’ high-profit expectations. Complex PPP contracts typically involve high transaction costs. Worse, contracts

World Bank enables private capture of profits, public resources

The World Bank insists commercial finance is necessary for achieving economic recovery and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but does little to ensure profit-hungry commercial finance serves the public interest. By failing to address pressing challenges within their purview, the second-ever Bretton Woods institutions’ (BWIs) annual meetings on the African continent,

Rich nations, IMF deepen world stagnation

With the US Fed raising interest rates, the world economy is slowing as debt distress spreads across the global South, increasing poverty worldwide to pre-pandemic levels, with the poorest countries faring worst. Extreme poverty continues to be high and is now worse than before the pandemic in low-income countries (LICs) and

Middle-income country trap?

In recent decades, failure to sustain economic progress has been blamed on a supposed middle-income country (MIC) trap. Such blaming obscures as much as it supposedly explains. The ‘middle-income trap’ fable began as a World Bank story about why upper MICs in Latin America failed to become high-income countries (HICs) after

Even rich nations now worried about ISDS

Governments the world over are worried about investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) rules. These allow foreign investors to sue them for billions over new laws or policies reducing their profits. Typically favouring powerful transnational corporations (TNCs), ISDS blocks policy changes needed to address new challenges. Companies have successfully sued governments for policy

Don’t count on PPP solutions

In recent years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have spread rapidly. While usually profitable for the private partners, PPPs have generally not served the longer-term public interest. PPPs as miracle all-purpose solution As Eurodad has shown, PPP financing has grown in recent years, particularly in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) funding discourses. Adopted by

Finally, a real chance for international tax cooperation

After decades of resistance by rich nations, African governments successfully pushed for the United Nations to lead on international tax cooperation. All developing countries and fair-minded governments must rally behind this initiative. UN leadership The official UN Secretary-General’s Report (SGR) was mandated by a UN General Assembly resolution, unusually adopted by consensus