11 March 2002

Defying the courts The high court decision to allow an extra day of voting seemed a ray of hope in Zimbabwe. But listen to Chris McGreal's report (Real Audio stream) and the heart sinks again. Despite the order, polling stations haven't been opened. And the evidence of government stuffing of the ballot boxes looks clear. Still, the sight of people queuing for hours (McGreal reports some people queued for 30 hours to vote) is an extraordinary affirmation of the thirst for democracy. It should make people in countries like the US and the UK, where the percentage of the electorate that bother to vote is steadily dropping, feel shame. Except, of course, the people who don't vote on the whole don't read news from "obscure" places like Zimbabwe. 2:13:37 PM

What works There may be no more important debate today than the one about the effectiveness of development aid. As he said during the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting, US Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill believes more proof of effectiveness is needed before more money is made available. As I and many others have pointed out, this looks like dissembling to avoid confronting the US's woeful record on aid (the lowest as a share of national income in the industrialised world) and the administration's general suspicion of development. Today's Financial Times has an excellent summary of the debate It accurately reports the consensus of most economists: "Aid can help, but it should be concentrated on countries with good macroeconomic policy and governments genuinely committed to improving public services and infrastructure, and stamping out corruption." This thinking is slowly infusing its way into the actions of donor countries and, to a limited extent, the World Bank and the IMF. But, as the article points out, focusing on what is termed capacity building doesn't produce swift gains -- which is what O'Neill claims he wants to see. It's no surprise that there are people in the development community now talking about "multilateralism minus one". In other words, perhaps the entire world can go in one direction, without the US. It's a sad prospect, and difficult to construct both practically and politically, but how long can the desperately impoverished people of the world wait. 11:49:47 AM

© Copyright 2002 Lance Knobel.