A street market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Photo: Flickr user luvjnx)

There are so many versions of Haiti right now.

Shattered Haiti still lingers. This week marks one year since the earthquake that reduced much of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince to dust, and by all accounts rebuilding efforts have been disappointing at most. Generations without effective democratic governance deprived construction firms and workers any guidance or codes to which they could adhere for earthquake-proofing or just general solid construction. Meanwhile without effective property rights administration, as is common throughout the developing world, migrants from rural areas settled into shantytowns without any formally-recognized documentation of residency or ownership that might have entitled them to insurance or maybe public compensation for lost property.

Hopeful Haiti has captivated many imaginations. Read the rest of this entry »

In the United States it seems like you can’t do anything these days without being asked to partake in a survey. These range from the practical email survey from an airline asking you to rate the service on a recent flight (VERDICT: fair, verging on poor), to the mundane survey question posed on your friend’s Facebook profile (VERDICT: Diet Coke is better than Diet Pepsi). Simply put, surveys are a staple of our everyday lives. In the policy arena as well, the US government, think tanks, and NGOs have regularly used surveys to gather data on various topics in an effort to better delineate policy priorities.

It now seems that Turkey is picking up on the trend. Read the rest of this entry »

Top-level football matches scheduled in Algeria on Friday and Saturday were scrapped in wake of the riots. (Photo: Al Jazeera English/EPA)

The riots that gripped Algeria’s capital last week and spontaneously spread to most major cities across the country have started to die down, in their wake leaving five dead, hundreds injured, and a slew of torched government buildings and businesses. Protests broke out after the announcement of a 30 percent increase in food stuffs, but quickly unleashed the bottled up wellspring of frustration and desperation lived daily by the country’s jobless youth. Although riots are not new to Algeria, there are several points worth noting about this latest wave of protests.

Algeria is not Tunisia: These riots are not a simple extension of pent up angst that blew over the mountain from Algeria’s eastern neighbor. Tunisia’s uprising has been going on for a month now and continues to escalate, with a curfew just announced for Tunis. The extent of bloodshed in Tunisia is commensurate with the Ben Ali regime’s insecurity amidst the first real challenge to his rule in the past 20 years. Nobody knows for sure what next week will hold for Tunis. Authorities in Algeria, by contrast, have exercised restraint, recognizing that these riots lack a broad constituency and do not threaten the regime. Read the rest of this entry »

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are among the serious and chronic ailments of Pakistan’s wobbling economy. They are responsible for hemorrhaging around $3 billion in the fiscal year 2010. The amount is two-thirds of annual defense budget and double the promised annual Kerry-Lugar-Berman assistance to Pakistan. SOEs are the major drain on Pakistan’s budget and devour public resources without any remorse and compunction. The corporate behemoths in the form of SOEs have been maintained by successive governments to fulfill their own political agendas. Governments have bald-facedly resorted to granting excessive and out-of-merit employment at all levels, causing acute inefficiencies, terrible public service, and deep-rooted corruption.
Read the rest of this entry »

Millions of young people around the world enter the workforce with high hopes for a successful career yet they cannot find jobs. Although for sure a lack of needed skills contributes to this problem, something else is responsible for persistently high unemployment in many countries. What is preventing all the economic potential of the “generation in waiting” from being tapped? Nobel Laureate Douglass North provides the answer: countries with sustainable economic growth trajectories are able to establish institutional structures that allow them to move from personal interactions to impersonal exchanges, or in other words to provide an enabling environment for conducting business.

In this Feature Service article CIPE’s Director for Policy Reform Aleksandr Shkolnikov explains the importance of building entrepreneurial economies. He says, “The link between entrepreneurship and institutions is not immediately obvious. When we think of successful entrepreneurs we think of innovators, risk-takers, or people with great ideas exhibiting determination, hard work, and dedication. But in entrepreneurial economies, individual skills are not the only thing in play – the rules within which interactions occur matter just as much, if not more.”

Article at a Glance

• Traditional approaches to promoting entrepreneurship focus too much on individual skills-building at the expense of institutional reforms needed to remove barriers to doing business.

• Through institutional reform it is possible to empower entrepreneurs to transition from micro-enterprises to small and medium-sized business that can create jobs, innovate, take advantage of economies of scale, and increase productivity.

• Private sector organizations can play a vital role in removing barriers to entrepreneurship through public policy advocacy and community engagement.

Read the full article.

New figures suggest that 22 percent of the Middle East’s assets under management (AUM)—or $700 billion—were held by women in 2010. And that figure is growing. In a region whose news coverage more often highlights the plight of women than their triumphs and progress, this statistic is heartening. The details are even more encouraging.

Women in the Middle East are not only controlling more wealth, but tend to invest in more sustainable ventures, says consultancy Carousel Solutions. It’s not that women are wooed by simply “doing good” and “giving back.” Rather, they recognize these projects as solid, lower-risk investments that have the added benefit of being socially responsible. Financial empowerment is in strong hands with these women, who, the consulting firm suggests, are more confident about their wealth today. Read the rest of this entry »

Julija Belej Bakovic is director of Asia programs for the International Republican Institute.

Sandwiched between Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and China, the landlocked nation of Laos generally attracts little attention in the West. Though listed as one of the United Nation’s least developed countries, Laos is quietly experiencing impressive economic growth. Annual gross domestic product has grown by an average of 6.8 percent between 2002 and 2006 due largely to regional trade expansion, windfalls from the extractive industries and an increase in energy exports. Laos has normalized trade relations with the U.S., and is on track to accede to the World Trade Organization. The newest edition of the UN’s annual Human Development Report, released in early October, praised Laos for improvements in human development indicators. A burgeoning civil society is expanding its role in giving all Laotians a chance to be a part of such development. Read the rest of this entry »

Ali Salman is an economics consultant and managing partner of Development Pool, and has worked on several projects with CIPE-DC and CIPE Pakistan. He can be contacted at ali.salman@developmentpool.org

Trusting small enterprises and adapting laws to reflect social contracts for business transactions holds the answer to formalizing the informal sector; levying more taxes will only harm that cause.

One of the key policy objectives associated with the levy of a reformed general sales tax in Pakistan is to expand the tax net, or in other words to reduce the informal economy. The bulk of Pakistan’s economy is underground, or ‘extralegal’. The accounts are multiple, but most would identify the size of the extralegal economy within 30 to 50 percent of Pakistan’s economy or roughly 51 billion dollars in total economic activity. Read the rest of this entry »

(Photo: Flickr user Watchsmart)

If you’ve ever been to Casablanca, you may have noticed there’s a dearth of green spaces. Art deco buildings blend harmoniously with the roar of mopeds and red petit taxies, yet parks seem almost nonexistent. It’s rumored that Morocco’s longtime Interior Minister, Driss Basri, sold land designated for parks at discounted rates to his close friends. Basri, known as the vice-king, was also famous for diverting large sums from the state’s budget for the development of his hometown just south of Casablanca, Settat. Was Basri corrupt? He sure was. Is using one’s position of authority to reward those closest to you also corruption? That depends on who you ask. Read the rest of this entry »

Philadelphia Eagles starting quarterback Michael Vick (#7) running the ball in a victory against the Washington Redskins earlier this NFL season. (Photo: Nick Wass/AP via bleedinggreennation.com)

The Michael Vick story is not just about football. From sporting a jumpsuit as inmate number 33765-183 in Leavenworth Penitentiary, to being hailed as a contender for Most Valuable Player (MVP) in his first season back as an NFL starting quarterback, the rebirth of Michael Vick in 2010 is one of the most compelling stories that has captured the attention of fans and detractors alike.

But what makes the Michael Vick story so fascinating is not a triumph of greed over principle, or mercy over horror; it’s embodied in President Obama’s call to the Philadelphia Eagles praising owner Jeffrey Lurie for hiring Vick and giving him a second chance.  Obama’s message to Lurie didn’t just remind us that those who have made mistakes can rehabilitate themselves through hard work, discipline and other virtues—it had greater global implications for what a market economy stands for: second chances. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past few decades, women’s empowerment has grown dramatically as a focus for economic and democratic development.  The importance of women’s participation in the social, political, and economic atmospheres has gained increasing recognition as an integral unit that helps drive development.

Even though women constitute half of the world’s consumers, business opportunities and economic development for men and women were not created equal.  Sometimes, laws or customs restrict women’s access to property rights and the skill-building resources necessary to actively participate in politics or business.  CIPE’s work in women’s participation and entrepreneurship provides women with the tools and training programs that will help them take part in successful economic development. On the CIPE Development Blog, women are active participants and frequent subjects of success and development (at least one women’s chamber of commerce has been both), demonstrating that innovation and gender equality will continue to drive global economic and democratic development: Read the rest of this entry »

Entrepreneurship has had a great 2010 to maintain the rise of interest in the topic over the past two years. Google Trends, for example, shows a sharp increase in searches that include all or part of the word ‘entrepreneur‘ beginning in January 2009.

Entrepreneurs, and the businesses they create and grow, are important to democracy because by distributing economic power they also help distribute political power. When societies are not economically dependent on governments or large enterprises cozy with  government officials, they are more likely to vote for leaders that uphold democracy and the rule of law rather than leaders who buy votes or make all sorts of false promises. New jobs and businesses are also sources for tax revenues that can wean governments off of foreign aid. For these and other reasons, entrepreneurship is one of the most written-about topics on the CIPE Development Blog. Here are some enterpreneurship highlights from 2010′s posts: Read the rest of this entry »

2010 was undoubtedly a landmark year for Africa, as 17 countries in the sub-Saharan region celebrated 50 years of independence. It has been an eventful 50 years, indeed; in terms of governance and leadership, these 17 countries have seen the pendulum’s full swing, from coups and authoritarianism to elections and democratic victories; from socialism to market-based economies. However, democratic consolidation has yet to fully occur in any of these golden-year independent nations, and in some cases, democratic backsliding is a real threat. Read the rest of this entry »

Corruption isn’t a new issue for business communities around the world. What’s new is increasing discussion about how it might be stopped.

As one of many signs of growing debate, in September 2010 the Wall Street Journal launched its Corruption Currents blog, providing news, analysis, and commentary from the ever-changing world of corporate corruption. On the CIPE Development Blog, corruption and its discontents have also been turning up the volume. Here are a few highlights from the past year’s posts on corruption: Read the rest of this entry »

A man casts his vote on October 31, 2010, at a polling station in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. After recent elections disputes, ECOWAS presented an ultimatum to encourage incumbent president Gbabgo to relinquish power or face military removal. (Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images)

A delegation of West African leaders confronted incumbent Côte d’Ivoire president Laurent Gbabgo yesterday, threatening military removal if he does not step down from power. A month after election disputes, Gbabgo refuses to transfer presidential power to Alassane Ouattara, the candidate recognized by much of the international community as the election’s victor. The election commission declared Ouattara as winner of the popular vote, but because of election disputes, the Constitutional Council granted presidential victory to Gbabgo. Read the rest of this entry »