Statistical offices of international agencies

Based on discussions at the Conference on Statistical Policy in Less Developed Countries, 12th-16th May, 1975, at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex

A Reporter's Guide to U.S. Global Health Policy

Provides basic information and data on the main diseases and conditions prevalent in low- and middle-income countries, U.S. government funding for global health, major policy issues, and initiatives among U.S. and international agencies and multilaterals

International Agencies and the Capital Formation Process

The theme of my address will be (a) the principal means by which the international public lending institutions (principally the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development--the World Bank), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)) join with others in the channeling of funds from private, governmental and other international sources for development projects, and (b) some of the main legal problems which arise. An operation of this kind is usually called a joint financing operation. However, it should be noted that in a sense every loan by an international organization for a project involves joint financing, since the organization finances only a portion of the cost of the project and the balance will come from the borrower\u27s own resources or elsewhere. I will deal primarily with cases where the balance for financing the project is obtained through foreign borrowing or the provision of equity from foreign sources. I should also point out that I shall not discuss the raising of capital by the sale of debt obligations of the international organization itself. I thus omit a very important aspect of the capital formation process. The World Bank alone has sold some $7.5 billion of its debt obligations and the IADB has sold about$500 million, but that is a subject for another address. There are several basic reasons why the international organizations take an active role in trying to help raise other funds for channeling into projects which they finance, as follows: (a) Under their charters they are not permitted, in effect, to finance a project for which other funds, particularly from private sources, are available on reasonable terms. One way to comply with this injunction is to see to it that they join with funds of others in a particular financing. (b) Many projects involving substantial sums of money could not, as a practical matter, be financed unless other sources (in addition to those of the sponsor) were tapped. (c) Where a project is privately owned, the owners may themselves want the participation of an international organization because of their feeling that this will give them some protection against arbitrary or unreasonable interference by the host government. And, conversely, the host government may welcome, and indeed actively seek, the participation of the international organization of which it is a member, because the international organization will often be able to give it technical assistance in the working out of arrangements for the project and help investigate whether the arrangements are fair to the government. There are so many different kinds of joint financing arrangements that it would be impossible for me now to describe them all, even in general terms. However, I have tried to break down the bulk of them into a number of broad categories, drawing particularly on the experience of the World Bank which has been most active in this field

Taxation and Development

For more than half a century, scholars and international agencies have been making recommendations about taxation in developing countries. The advice economists have offered to developing countries has changed over time, particularly regarding income and consumption taxes. Why? What do we know now about taxes and developing countries that we did not know 50 years ago? What do we still not know that we really should know? What should scholars and international agencies do if they wish to make tax policy recommendations that are economically sensible and likely to prove feasible, acceptable, and helpful in practice? This brief note offers some tentative answers to these complex questions.taxation, development, developing countries, tax policy, policy recommendations, budget, government spending, income, GDP

Acute Diarrhoea: Mothers’ Knowledge of ORT and Its Usage in Ibadan Metropolis, Nigeria

This paper explores indigenous Nigerian perceptions of childhood diarrhoea and its treatment pattern among health care givers in Ibadan metropolis. Furthermore, the paper also addresses the cultural interpretations of dehydration and the perceptions of oral rehydration therapy (ORT). It is suggested that in promoting the use of ORT by the Nigerian government and other collaborative international agencies, the socio-cultural context of the people should be taken into consideration in designing appropriate intervention strategies

The Hunger Games

Governments and their international agencies (FAO, World Bank) conceive of the eradication of hunger and poverty as a worthy wish that will eventually be realized through economic growth. They also make great cosmetic efforts to present as good-looking trend pictures as they can. Citizens ought to insist that the eradication of severe deprivations is a human rights correlative duty that permits no avoidable delay. Academics ought to collaborate toward providing a systematic alternative monitoring of what progress has really been made against undernourishment and other povertyrelated deprivations

Getting up to Speed on the Financial Crisis: A One-Weekend-Reader's Guide

All economists should be conversant with “what happened?” during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. We select and summarize 16 documents, including academic papers and reports from regulatory and international agencies. This reading list covers the key facts and mechanisms in the build-up of risk, the panics in short-term-debt markets, the policy reactions, and the real effects of the financial crisis.

The State, International Agencies, and Property Transformation in Postcomimmist Hungary

This is the published version. Copyright 2002 University of Chicago Press.This article challenges evolutionary accounts of property transformation in postcommunist Hungary, which hold that novel property forms based on interenterprise ownership have emerged in that country. It shows that private property has emerged as the predominant category of ownership in Hungary and explains the rapid diffusion of private ownership by focusing on the actions of the state and international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. Following the collapse of communism, state actors in Hungary promoted the domestic accumulation of capital by subsidizing the sale of state enterprises to private parties, particularly enterprise insiders. Pressures from international agencies ultimately forced government officials to abandon this policy, however, and to conform to a neoliberal model of the state that allowed direct foreign investment. The conclusion considers the capacity of states to intervene in economic processes in an environment increasingly dominated by suprastate agencies