Policy Wise

Global warming is most certainly the hot button issue of the day. Recently, a U.N panel held that global warming is ‘most likely’ caused by human activities and concluded that it has become ”a runaway train that cannot be stopped.” Unfortunately, as it usually happens in such cases, the debate has become completely politicized and [...]

Robert W. Klein is right on the money.
In an effort to expand program participation and reduce disaster aid, the number of insurance-eligible crops and the amount of federal subsidies going to the insurance program have increased dramatically since 1938. This expansion has come at a high cost, even in recent years; from 2000 to [...]

China is sitting on more than 1 trillion$ of foreign reserves. So what will it do with all that money? Offer aid. However, Chinese aid practices are raising some concerns.

His story is about Nigeria’s trains. The Nigerian government operates three railways, [...]

M Bukri Musa explains why micro credit, so sucessful in Bangladesh, has failed to deliver the same results elsewhere.
But these well-intentioned endeavors will fail — as with the Malaysian experience — if they focus only on lending, and not on changing underlying attitudes and behavior. The Malaysian initiative could be enhanced by not linking the [...]

In spite of the fact that humans occupy less than 1% of the total land available on Earth, land scarcity is an omnipresent urban reality. Partly due to urban aggregation behavior and availability of conducive habitable spaces, the fight for space especially in urban areas has been intense. Be it the ever-growing slums in Mumbai [...]

University of Illinois professor Andrew P. Morriss explains how to help Africa.
Bono is following up on his hug of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel at Davos last January and with a visit to Germany to launch ???a series of debates with German thinkers on African development and the role of the west.??? (???Geldorf and Bono [...]