Tag: development

New Presidency of the World Bank

Recently, the World Bank has received attention from the media because they are about to appoint the new president. This is the first time that the World Bank has been subject to a competitive process. Previously, the U.S. president selected it. There are currently three candidates for the position, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweal, Jose Antonio Ocampo and …

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Remittances, Poverty and Development

Immigration in the U.S. is a very hot topic that often gets simplified to one word: poverty.  It can very well be that poverty is one of the key issues that has increased immigration trends to the U.S.  However, it is often too easy to compile all the structural and political problems into one big …

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Judging Development: Supercomputers And Your Emotions

On Sept 16th, Foreign Policy magazine printed an article about the predictive powers of computes in foreshadowing revolutions around the world. The writer claims that in the not so distant future, technology and super computers will be able to predict pubic unrest and reveal incredible insights to the functioning of society. Drawing extensively from Klev …

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Recovering and Rebuilding Sustainably

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti and left its capital city of Port-au-Prince in complete ruins. More than 200,000 people died, and an even greater number were left homeless. A little over a year later on March 11, 2011, an 8.9 magnitude earthquake (and subsequent tsunami) hit Japan, but there was …

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Smart Design, Better Solutions

A few weeks ago I was walking in New York City without direction nor destination. By a series of fortunate events, I unexpectedly came across a really good conference held at the New York Center for Architecture. The conferece was discussing the winner of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge (from the Buckminster Institute). The Buckminster Fuller …

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“Poverty Trap” or “Dead Aid”?

For decades, economists, historians, scholars and the like have studied economic development on the continent of Africa, seeking to explain what factors account for the region’s slow growth. From my own research, two interesting schools of thought have emerged: the concept of the “Poverty Trap” as purported by venerated economist and director of the UN …

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