Aid and Development Archive

All bureaucracies need heroes. The employees of most large organizations spend their days taking notes and bickering over their vacation dates. They require a few exemplary individuals, past or present, to inspire them. Bankers laud the financial wizards who landed big deals. Lawyers lionize the legal eagles who won famous cases. The United Nations is no different. U.N. officials tend to be smart, highly educated and distinctly frustrated by the organization’s struggle to stay relevant on the world stage. Anyone who has encountered this admirably cosmopolitan tribe of officials knows that they are also collectively obsessed by their right to […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss European alarm over Donald Trump’s criticisms of NATO. For the Report, Sarah Hearn talks with Peter Dörrie about the prospects for global development in an era of populist retrenchment in the West. If you’d like to support our free podcast through patron pledges, Patreon is an online service that will allow you to do so. To find out about the benefits you can get through pledging as little as $1 per month, click through to WPR’s Trend Lines Patreon page. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes […]

In November, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus warned that a growing gap between the super rich and the rest of the world’s population is a “ticking time bomb” that will lead to exploitation of the poor, immigrants and minorities. There is good evidence that time is running out to keep that bomb from going off. Economic fragility in the eurozone has fueled the rise of populist and nationalist parties in European elections since 2008. The refugee crisis confronting Europe compounded the swing. A wave of populist wins in 2016, from Brexit and Italy’s rejection of constitutional reform to the election of […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on income inequality and poverty reduction in various countries around the world. Indonesian President Joko Widodo recently pledged that his administration would focus on reducing economic disparities in 2017, and he called on his ministers to accelerate the implementation of the government’s poverty-eradication programs. In an email interview, Matthew Wai-Poi, a senior economist at the World Bank, discusses inequality in Indonesia. WPR: What is the rate of income inequality in Indonesia, what are the latest trends in terms of widening or lessening inequality, and what are the main factors […]

When Barack Obama became president of the United States in 2009, few would have guessed that he would be followed by an administration touting nationalism and protectionism. Yet eight years later, with Donald Trump as president, the United States appears to be abandoning Obama’s vision of America as a global partner and the leader of the liberal international order. What happened? World Politics Review has compiled 24 articles that trace Obama’s foreign policy legacy and what it means for the Trump era. The following 24 articles are free to nonsubscribers until Feb. 16. Where It All Began Sworn in during […]