February 2009 from weitzenegger.de

This monthly Newsletter brings you news for international cooperation professionals on economic and social development. Edited by Karsten Weitzenegger, http://www.weitzenegger.de. Free subscription by sending an eMail to subscribe @ weitzenegger.de. Web version: http://www.weitzenegger.de/new/today.html. Get mail whenever a new version appears: Detect Changes. Use a bot to translate it.

CONTENT

1. Unions to Davos: Jobs the Missing Link
2. OECD countries reaffirm commitments to open trade and aid
3. The Global Financial Crisis: What does it mean for microfinance?
4. World Social Forum: 'Globalization is destroying itself'
5. Financial Crisis Presents Opportunity for Asia, Jeffrey Sachs
6. ADB Approves Measures to Enhance Operations Evaluation Function
7. SEED Awards 2009 for Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Development
8. Training and Events
9. Publications
10. Websites of the Month

Take a Deep Thought | http://weitzenegger.de/thought/

And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it. Barack Obama

1. Unions to Davos: Jobs the Missing Link

Employment and incomes key to pulling world economy out of tailspin, as ILO predicts up to 50 million jobs to go and 200 million more into absolute poverty, as new IMF figures herald global recession. The global financial crisis now threatens to become a social time bomb if the world's governments don't act together to save and create jobs, according to global trade union leaders attending the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.

The ITUC, with its national affiliates and Global Unions partners, is pushing a comprehensive recovery and reform package, with top priority on sustainable employment, in discussions with the global institutions and national governments. Ensuring workers' rights to union representation and collective bargaining, coupled with investment in labour market programmes, have to be the core of recovery efforts to enable consumer spending to steer economies onto the path to growth. In their statement to the Davos meeting, the unions call for a series of measures to arrest collapsing global demand.

The union statement also calls on business to negotiate with unions to save jobs, upgrade skills, cut carbon emissions and re-tool industry to set the basis for recovery. This needs to be done through national social dialogue and collective bargaining and internationally through agreements between multinationals and Global Union Federations in the different sectors. The ITUC represents 168 million workers in 316 affiliated national organisations from 157 countries. http://www.ituc-csi.org

2. OECD countries reaffirmed commitments to open trade and aid

OECD countries have pledged to abstain from trade protectionism as part of a concerted drive to shore up the world economy and combat recession. They also have reaffirmed their commitments on aid to developing countries. Already in November 2008, at a meeting of the OECD’s Executive Committee in Special Session, OECD countries agreed to sustain recent commitments regarding open trade in support of developing nations, promising, ''Within the next twelve months… [to] refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organization (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports.” They also committed to making efforts to close the Doha trade negotiations, reaching agreements that would lead to ''an ambitious and balanced outcome.''
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/32/41/41836868.htm#H51

3. The Global Financial Crisis: What does it mean for microfinance?

In most past financial crises – like those of the 1990s in Asia, Mexico, and Russia – financial services for poor people have been remarka bly resilient. In fact, the quality of the loan portfolios of microfinance institutions (MFIs) during the Asian crisis and in Latin America during various banking crises barely quivered, while corporate portfolios collapsed. ''Our present crisis is like no other,” says CGAP CEO Elizabeth Littlefield. ''Microfinance is far more connected now. While it still has deeply shock-resistant roots, and many places seem unaffected today, there is little doubt that there will be impact.” Integrating microfinance into the mainstream has many benefits but it also has some costs. MFIs that depend on foreign capital investments are suffering, and the medium and longer term effects of a global recession are likely to be hard on microfinance clients in some countries. http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/template.rc/1.26.4511

4. World Social Forum: 'Globalization is destroying itself'

The world economic crisis spells the death of globalization and action is needed to protect the poor, said organizers of the World Social Forum as it wrapped up in Belem, Brazil on Sunday. ''We have come out against neoliberal globalization, and now that this globalization is destroying itself we have to define the world we want,'' the founder of the event, Candido Grzybowski, told AFP. Another member of the forum's organizing committee, Fatima Mello, said: ''The crisis has forced us to improve our proposals. We have built up a big network against the crisis and we will launch various days of world action and campaigns this year to make sure the poor don't pay its high price.'' The forum's leaders hailed the strong participation at this year's gathering, which brought together 133,000 people from unions, religious associations, family organizations, ecologists and other leftwing groups. http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br

5. Financial Crisis Presents Opportunity for Asia, Jeffrey Sachs tells ADB audience

The global economic crisis should be viewed by Asia’s policymakers as an opportunity to expand investment in ''desperately” needed public goods, economist Jeffrey Sachs told an ADB audience.

In a lecture titled ''Achieving Global Cooperation on Economic Recovery and Long-Term Sustainable Development'', Prof. Sachs said that with the drop in external demand for Asian exports, the region will ''have to rely on public spending,” such as infrastructure, health, education and energy reforms.

''Asia needs all of that desperately,” Prof. Sachs said. ''This is still the region of the world with the fastest urbanization, with the most dramatic need for pollution control, for cleaning up the energy sector, for cleaning up the rivers, for sustainable urban development, for accommodating the migration of hundreds of millions of people from rural areas to urban areas. I like to view this crisis as an opportunity for Asia given the chronic underinvestment in public goods. Public spending has a very high social return and also has a very high macroeconomic purpose right now.'' http://www.adb.org/article.asp?id=12767

6. ADB Approves Measures to Enhance Operations Evaluation Function

The Asian Development Bank's Board of Directors today approved a series of measures to further enhance the independence and overall effectiveness of ADB's operations evaluation function.

''These initiatives will further enhance the independence and effectiveness of ADB’s evaluation function and will place it at the forefront of international evaluation practice,” said Executive Director, Mr Phil Bowen, chair of the Working Group which also comprised fellow Executive Directors, Mr Howard Brown and Mr. Wencai Zhang, and ADB Managing Director General, Mr Rajat M. Nag.

The measures include extending the term of the Director General of the Operations Evaluation Department (OED) to five years from three years on a non-renewable basis; and the position to be appointed by ADB’s Board, upon the recommendation of the Development Effectiveness Committee of the Board, in consultation with the ADB President.

The Director General’s performance will be subject to annual review by the Chair of the Development Effectiveness Committee, and the budget of the OED will be approved by ADB’s Board separately from the Bank’s administrative budget. OED would be renamed the Independent Evaluation Department to reflect its enhanced independent status.

Although ADB has a clearly articulated model of independent evaluation that emphasizes organizational and behavioral independence, protection from influence, and the avoidance of conflicts of interest, OED’s credibility as an independent evaluation unit could be further enhanced by the measures, the report said. http://www.adb.org/article.asp?id=12756

7. SEED Awards 2009 for Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Development

The SEED Initiative (Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development) has recently launched its call for proposals for the 4th edition of the ''2009 SEED Awards for entrepreneurship in sustainable development”. This award welcomes innovative ideas from any group in a developing country or country in transition worldwide, which is working in partnership with others to generate environmental and social benefits in an entrepreneurial way. The award consists of support services, worth up to $40,000, to help Award Winners to scale-up. The Award Ceremony will take place in New York, U.S.A. in May 2009. The deadline for submission is 16th March 2009. http://www.seedinit.org/mainpages2/awards/what/index.php

8. Training and Events

Ex-ante Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA) in Senegal
http://www.gtz.de/de/aktuell/2106.htm
Eschborn, Germany, 5 February 2009, 16h, GTZ Auditorium 2, Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1-5
Presentation and discussion with Ibrahima Dia (Senegal) about ''PIA Diamniadio in Senegal, Lessons Learned”.

Enterprise Development through Value Chains and Business Service Markets:
A Market Development approach to Pro-Poor Growth.
http://marketdev.itcilo.org
Online, 2 Mar - 30 Nov 2009, ILO
This course ramps-up your enterprise development program using the experience from effective enterprise development programs that have reached tens or hundreds of thousands of small enterprises, helping them to grow and improve the lives of owners and employees. A well experienced team of international experts will support you along the learning process. Practical tools and strategies for developing value chains and business service markets are delivered to you at a distance and in person. Source: GTZ-NEDAnews

Master of Science in Public Policy and Human Development (MPP)
http://eadi.org/database/?dataset=training&table=data&id=386
Maastricht, the Netherlands, February 2009 - February 2010; September 2009 - September 2010
Training Institution: Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Migration and Displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa, The Security – Migration Nexus II
http://www.bicc.de
Bonn, Germany, 13-14 February 2009, Deutsche Welle Haus
The Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) will organize its second international conference on migration and security. The conference, entitled 'Migration and Displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Security – Migration Nexus II', will focus on causes and repercussions of involuntary migration within Africa. The conference is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation: Managing and learning for impact
http://tinyurl.com/8t353o
Wageningen, Netherlands, 2-20 March 2009, Wageningen International
This course focuses on how to design and institutionalize participatory planning and M&E systems in projects, programmes and organisations or networks for continuous learning and enhancing performance. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between management information needs and responsibilities and the planning and M&E functions.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Environmental projects in developing countries
http://tinyurl.com/chvyjk
Brussels, Belgium, 13 March 2009
EuropeAid is announcing an environmental ''Auction Floor'' conference which aims to build effective and inclusive partnerships for environmental projects in developing countries by bringing together development actors and a wide range of potential donors including private sector foundations. Almost 100 environmental project proposals worldwide that are looking for funding are presented in a booklet. Match-making between donors and projects will be facilitated at the conference, with networking by sub-themes and regions. Donors will find easily find good quality projects to fund! Private sector participants will also get a chance to share what they are doing in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Jobs for a Globalizing World: World Bank Labor Market Policy Core Course
http://tinyurl.com/a4xzcs
Washington DC, USA, 30 Mar - 10 Apr 2009, The World Bank
A two week course offering a unique learning experience on how employment is being transformed in today's rapidly changing, globalizing environment. The course identifies key labor market challenges within the context of overall poverty reduction and other economic and social development goals, and explores what policy makers and others can do about them. It builds on the latest research findings by the World Bank and other academic and research institutions, as well as on practical lessons learned from country experiences.

UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development
http://www.esd-world-conference-2009.org
Bonn, Germany, 31 Mar - 02 Apr 2009
Conference participants will exchange best practices on ESD from all world regions. They will develop mechanisms for enhanced cooperation in the implementation of the UN Decade, especially focusing on the exchange between developing countries, those in transition and industrialized countries.

Programme: Political Economy of the Great Lakes Region
http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=.IOB&n=58025
Antwerpen, Belgium, 20 April - 22 May 2009
Training Institution: Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB). Application deadline: 1 February 2009.

Global Change in Africa - Projections, Mitigation and Adaptation
http://www.impetus.uni-koeln.de/en/conference.html
Cologne, 2-5 June 2009, University
IMPETUS Africa Conference

Summer Programme on International Affairs and Multilateral Governance
http://eadi.org/database/?dataset=training&table=data&id=358
Geneva, Switzerland, 8 - 26 June 2009
Training Institution: The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies / Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement

3rd ValueLinks Introductory Training Seminar
http://www.idc-aachen.de/english/2_4_3.html
Oestrich-Winkel, Germany, 22-26 June, 2009
The objective is to enhance the skills of participants in designing, implementing and monitoring value chain upgrading projects. The know-how covers both technical subjects and facilitation skills working with groups of entrepreneurs, business associations and public institutions.

Conference Report: Global Governance for Sustain able Development:
The Need for Policy Coherence and New Partnerships,
http://www.eadi.org
11th EADI General Conference. The conference report summarises the main outcomes of the conference sessions and is available for download .

CIPE Electronic Classroom
http://www.developmentinstitute.org/Classroom/classroom.html
The Development Institute curriculum comprises 12 topics that correspond to the number of lecture weeks in a typical academic semester. Each topic consists of several multimedia presentations and accompanying materials that can be used as the basis for classroom teaching.

9. Publications

A better future for Africa: recommendations from the private sector
http://tinyurl.com/ckg9oj
Produced by: Africa Commission (2008), Confederation of Danish Industy
In May 2009, the Africa Commission chaired by the Danish prime minister will present its final recommendations for future development cooperation with Africa. Correspondingly, this report includes a revision of the most imminent challenges facing business in Africa today, beside a number of recommendations for action.

Announcement of New Briefing Series: ''Financing for Development''
http://tinyurl.com/d7m7qp
German Development Institute (GDI) has announced a new briefing series.

Building a new aid relationship: The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness:
http://tinyurl.com/bg6ga9
This publication is an overview of the goals of the Paris Declaration and the progress achieved by countries and development partners on aid effectiveness in the last years. It was distributed during the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra. The study published by the Canadian International Development Agency, OECD and the World Bank provides a general and practical perspective of the aid effectiveness agenda by describing concrete experiences on ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results ad mutual accountability in different countries such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mexico and Zambia. It is also a useful guide for development practitioners, government officials, civil society activists and public audience interest in understanding the aid effectiveness based on the Paris Declaration and illustrates the different achievements and challenges to move forward the agenda to 2011.

'Crisis? What Crisis?' Anatomy of the Regulatory Failure in Finance
http://www.dhf.uu.se/critical_currents_no5.html
Danish Institute for Inter national Studies (DIIS); Working Paper No. 2008/25, Author: Jakob Vestergaard.

DFID have launched their private sector strategy
http://businessfightspoverty.ning.com/group/thebookclub/forum/topics/new-private-sector-development
The Strategy ''Prosperity for All: Making Markets Work'' was launched as part of a series of events on Harnessing the Power of Business for Development Impact. Join teh discussion at Business Fights Poverty (on NING).

EU: Report on the Implementation of the Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Enterprise
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/ind_coop_programmes/med/charter.htm
Since its adoption in 2004, the Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Enterprise has been guiding MED governments’ policy towards enhancing private enterprise sector development. Following an eight-month pilot project assessing the status of implementation of the Charter in Med Countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Tunisia), the European Commission, in collaboration with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – OECD, the European Training Foundation – ETF and the European Investment Bank – EIB, has recently published a report providing a comprehensive overview of enterprise policies underlining the importance of a further close cooperation in the Med region.

How the Rich are Destroying the Earth
http://tinyurl.com/c5mm34
Herve Kempf, the long-time environmental editor at Le Monde, draws attention to the issues the economists have fundamentally ignored in his book How the Rich are Destroying the Earth. Among these issues is the idea that a sustainable future is predicated upon social transformation, which must precede any return to ecological balance on this earth. Solving the social and environmental crises can only happen by disrupting the power of the global oligarchs, the hyper-rich along with their political lackeys.

Gender and the MDGs: a gender lens is vital for pro-poor results
http://tinyurl.com/aonfhb
Produced by: Overseas Development Institute (2008)
Greater gender equality can help to reduce the root causes of poverty and vulnerability and contribute to sustainable pro-poor growth. This short Briefing Paper discusses how gender relations underpin four clusters of Goals: those on poverty and sustainable development, service access, care and care-giving and voice and agency. The authors look at ways to promote an interlinked gender-sensitive approach to the MDG achievement.

Interdisciplinary Research for Development: A Workbook on Content and Process Challenges
http://www.gdnet.org/pdf2/multidiscplinary/GDN_IRD.pdf
Global Development Network (GDN), Editors: Malcolm MacLachlan, Stuart Carr, Ishbel McWha.

Malawi's Green Gold: Challenges and Opportunities for Small and Medium Forest Enterprises in Reducing Poverty
http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=13545IIED&n=1& ;l=329&c=forestry
International Institute for Environment and Development Authors (IIED); Book: Authors: Patrick Kambewa and Henry Utila.

Measuring Results achieved in Private Sector Development
http://www.enterprise-development.org/page/measuring-and-reporting-results
Little has been published on the results achieved in Private Sector Development (PSD) - even though those results are often very impressive. The DCED is therefore looking at ways to encourage more measurement of results - by piloting a new approach.n The DCED Standard for Measuring and Reporting Results has been revised, in light of the lessons learnt during 2008. Further roll-out is now planned for 2009, and an invitation has been issued to programmes wishing to participate. This study concluded that the insistence on rigour was preventing most programmes from publishing numbers that were approximately correct; the DCED is therefore looking at whether programmes could agree on a basic, minimum standard for measuring (approximate) results, which could ultimately be adopted on a multi-agency basis.

Method: Business Centre Establishment
http://www.methodfinder.net/index.php?page=methods&methodID=80
The purpose of the Business Centre Establishment programme is to develop and strengthen business centres and other business advisory mechanisms so that they may help small-scale enterprises develop entrepreneurial, managerial and technical skills for further growth and development.

OECD: SME financing in the global financial crisis
http://tinyurl.com/b38cyy
In a world troubled by a global financial and economic crisis, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are particularly vulnerable to the credit crunch due to their heavy dependence on bank credit and limited recourse to financial markets. In this scenario, the OECD report on ''SME financing in the global financial crisis” suggests a number of measures to be adopted to deal with the immediate adverse impacts of the global crisis.

Political economy of development and poverty in Africa: an overview.
A new approach to development in Africa .
http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=41675&type=Document
This INSouth paper by A.C. Prabhakar argues for a historical materialist approach, which exposes the condition of widespread routine poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and inequality to be a modern world-historical product, the outcome of five centuries of global capitalist expansion under relations of imperialism. The author attempts to reach an alternative approach to the development of the African society. Despite being richly endowed in mineral resources, most Africans derive little benefit from this wealth. Additional problems regarding the legacy of colonialism have exacerbated existing issues of territoriality, ethnicity, trading difficulties, aid and debt and poor governance.

Shaping globalisation. Scaling up Voluntary Social and Ecological Standards
http://tinyurl.com/b6g4cj
Voluntary social and ecological standards are hallmarked by their closeness to the market. Experience increasingly teaches us that the obstacles to development and freedom are best countered with instruments and arguments that are embedded in a market environment. The results of the evaluation presented in the following pages show that living conditions clearly change for the better when voluntary standards are adopted.

The Global Financial Crisis and Developing Countries
http://tinyurl.com/agcqy3
Overseas Development Institute (ODI); Background Note, Author: Dirk Willem te Velde
What does the turmoil mean for developing countries? Many developing country economies are still growing strongly, but forecasts have been downgraded substantially in the space of a few months. And for how much longer can growth persist? What are the channels through which the crisis could spread to developing countries and how are the effects being felt in developing countries?

Towards Human Rights-consistent
Trade Policies
http://www.3dthree.org/pdf_3D/HR&tradepolicies.pdf
The purpose of the publication is to encourage advocates for fairer trade and development policies to use the human rights framework. As Towards Human Rights Consistent Trade Policies shows, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has often raised trade-related issues with the 160 States which are parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Unemployment Duration, Job Search and Labour Market Segmentation
http://www.uea.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.100881%21devwp11.pdf
Evidence from Urban Ethiopia. Overseas Development Group (ODG); Working Paper No 11, Author: Pieter Serneels.

Using Knowledge to Improve Development Effectiveness
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTECOSECWOR/Resources/esw_full_eval.pdf
An Evaluation of World Bank Economic and Sector Work and Technical Assistance, 2000–2006. In 1996 the World Bank committed itself to becoming a ''global knowledge bank,” using knowledge to improve the development effectiveness of its work. In fiscal 2008, the Bank reiterated its focus on knowledge and learning, naming it as one of its six strategic directions. This evaluation focuses on two of the analytical and advisory activities through which the Bank provides knowledge to its client countries: economic and sector work (ESW) and nonlending technical assistance (TA).

Private Sector Development in (Post-) Conflict Situations: Guidebook
http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/en-PSD-conflict-guidebook-2008.pdf
This GTZ-publication provides an overview of the state of knowledge regarding PSD in (post-) conflict situations. It addresses practitioners who plan or implement PSD projects, in particular in the context of German Development Cooperation. The publication is a comprehensive summary of practical field experiences and various source documents published by the sector projects ‘Innovative Approaches for Private Sector Development’ and ‘Crisis Prevention and Conflict Transformation in Development Cooperation’ of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Source: GTZ-NEDAnews

Economic Development in conflict-affected countries: Practitioners‘ Note
http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/en-PSD-conflict-guidebook-2008.pdf
BMZ/GTZ and FIAS decided to integrate their practical experiences in this Practitioners’ Note on ''Economic Development in Conflict-Affected Countries”. The Practitioners’ Note takes stock of lessons learned and offers recommendations for conflict-sensitive PSD interventions. This Note is a complement to a handbook on investment climate reform in conflict-affected countries (FIAS) and a Guidebook on PSD in (Post-) Conflict Situations (GTZ). Source: GTZ-NEDAnews

GTZ-Toolkit ''Get Youth on Board!'' on Youth Employment
http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/doc/Employment.pdf
The high percentage of youth unemployment has been recognised as one of the most serious barriers to economic and social development in many developing and developed countries. To promote young people’s access to the labour market and to productive employment cross-sectoral youth employment strategies must be developed and implemented. These strategies must create synergies between policies and institutions at work in the economic, labour, education and social sectors. Source: GTZ-NEDAnews

Lessons Learned and Recommendations for Donors Supporting Microinsurance
http://tinyurl.com/cof88y
This CGAP Note provides an overview of current donor approaches for supporting microinsurance, synthesizes key lessons, and offers guidance to donors that are considering launching or already implementing microinsurance programs. It offers a framework that is general enough to be applied in various contexts, recognizing the diversity in approaches that different donors take. Source: GTZ-NEDAnews

Migrant Remittances: A Development Challenge, African Development Bank 2008
http://tinyurl.com/cjndp8
The purpose of the study conducted by the African Development Bank is to take stock of the overall financial flows from the Diaspora. It seeks to identify the mechanisms governing the remittances market, the supply and demand determinants, the volume of the flows, as well as the formal and informal channels that exist, their distribution and utilization. Source: GTZ-NEDAnews

10. Websites of the Month

AWN Advice Pages – no need to be afraid to ask!
http://www.aidworkers.net/?q=advice
There are so many diverse issues that Aid Workers grapple with: practical issues about logistics and project management, issues regarding the wider implications of aid and development work, and personal issues about handling stress, what to expect from our employers and our own career goals. The AWN Advice Pages provide lots of advice on various issues faced by aid workers. Have a look. The pages are written by aid workers themselves and, if you would like to contribute to any topic, there is more information on the advice pages on how to do so.

AidBlogs: the good news or the bad?
http://www.aidworkers.net/?q=blogs
AWN’s AidBlogs make depressing reading for peace in 2009. Aidworkers are blogging about the worsening situation in Gaza and about the displacement of over 11 million people in Central and East Africa as a result of violence, wars, political turmoil and natural disasters.

3D -> Trade - Human Rights - Equitable Economy
http://www.3dthree.org/en/index.php
3D promotes collaboration amongst trade, development and human rights professionals, to ensure that trade rules are developed and applied in ways that promote an equitable economy. 3D believes that the human rights framework provides strong tools for ensuring a more equitable economy.

Business Planet: new data map on Entrepreneurship
http://rru.worldbank.org/businessplanet/default.aspx?pid=8
Business Planet, an interactive Google map, now includes data on new business creation around the world. Measures of entrepreneurial activity are based on the number of total and newly registered corporations. Click on color markers to learn more about each country.

Crisis Talk
http://crisistalk.worldbank.org
The World Bank has established a new blog on emerging markets and the financial crisis. Crisis Talk features opinions on what solutions may be possible, what shape the financial sector may take in the future, and how the crisis affects the real economy.

Crocodyl - Collaborative Research on Corporations
http://www.crocodyl.org
Crocodyl is an evolving compendium of critical research, posted to the public domain as an aid to anyone working to hold corporations increasingly accountable. The aim is to stimulate collaborative research among NGOs, journalists, activists, whistleblowers and academics from both the global South and North in order to develop publicly-available profiles of the world's most powerful corporations.

EURADA European Association of Development Agencies
http://www.eurada.org
The European Association of Development Agencies (EURADA) has a membership of about 150 regional development agencies from across the European Union. Agencies from almost all the Member States of the EU are EURADA members.

GEMDEV Newsletter
http://www.gemdev.org/actualite.php
Featuring news, events, call for papers of research institutes in the Ile-de-Franceis region. Issued in French by the Groupement d'intérêt scientifique pour l'étude de la mondialisation et du développement.

GenderStats has Gender Data by The World Bank and others
http://go.worldbank.org/YMPEGXASH0
A one stop source of information on gender at the country level. A compilation of data on key gender topics from national statistics agencies, United Nations databases, and World Bank-conducted or funded surveys.

GTZ-Community: Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation
http://www2.gtz.de/monitoring/
This website provides you with recent news and best practices from GTZ as well as from other development agencies and research institutions. Its core is a comprehensive database with more than 200 online documents covering various aspects on Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation.

Local/Regional Economic Development (LRED)
http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/lred/news1.asp
Are you living in a place where economic development is not as dynamic as it should be? Where many persons are desperate for more income, but there seems to be no opportunity to earn it? So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wait for the promised effects of globalization and liberalization to trickle down? Or will you wait for central government to solve your problems? Or are you going to take things into your own hands, or to persuade other local actors to go along? If you are opting for the latter, you might find some interesting ideas in this LRED-Reference Guide. Source: GTZ-NEDAnews

Comercio y Pobreza en Latino América (COPLA)
http://www.cop-la.net/
COPLA is a 2-year project funded by the UK Department for International Development. It explores the linkages between trade, poverty and social exclusion. Although there is an active debate in the region on the relationship between trade liberalisation on poverty, little attention has been paid to the different impacts on marginalised groups, whether they be women, youth, indigenous minorities or the rural poor.

UNIDO Private Sector Development Toolbox
http://www.unido.org/psd-toolbox/
This online tool for practitioners, project managers and government officials in different areas of Private Sector Development has a overview on UNIDO PSD methodologies and policies, please select one of the following intervention areas: SME Clusters & Networking Development, Export Consortia, Responsible Entrepreneurship & CSR

INNOVERSIA Portal
http://innovacion.universia.net/inicio-0.html
Innoversia is the new portal of Universia, the most important network of universities in Latin America, and Neos, the first private technology transfer office in Chile, conceived to increase and promote in Latin America the technological development and innovation. This portal aims to bring together SMEs, researchers and industrialists working in the field of innovation in order to provide solutions to technological and innovation problems.

International Institute for Environment and Development
http://www.iied.org
The new IIED website has been designed to allow easier access to both research, and free access learning resources.

Mesopartner - Local Economic Delivery
http://www.mesopartner.com
mesopartner is a knowledge firm that specialises in territorial development, competitiveness and innovation. Our strategic intent is to be globally acknowledged as an innovator in territorial development, partnering with strategic customers and associates through capacity building and coaching, as well as programme design, method and tool development and capture, knowledge management, and problem solving.

PRO INNO Europe
http://www.proinno-europe.eu
PRO INNO Europe® is an initiative of Directorate General Enterprise and Industry which aims to become the focal point for innovation policy analysis, learning and development in Europe, with the view to learning from the best and contributing to the development of new and better innovation policies in Europe.

RED-X South Africa
http://www.red-x.co.za
RED-X offers innovative facilitation services that increase the success rates in local or regional economic development. The consequence (of greater success rates in LRED) is increased economic growth, employment and income levels.

Remittance Prices Worldwide: new Website in English and Spanish
http://remittanceprices-espanol.worldbank.org
Remittance Prices Worldwide Website provides data on the cost of sending and receiving small amounts of money from one country to another. These international transfers are often initiated by migrant workers. The site covers 120 ''country corridors'' worldwide. The corridors studied flow from 14 major remittance sending countries to 67 receiving countries, representing around 60% of total remittances to developing countries. Access the site in English or Spanish.

The Child Development Index
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/7129.htm
What does the Child Development Index tell us about how children are faring around the world? Are some countries making good progress in improving child well-being? Is it getting worse in other countries? Save the Children's new Child Development Index is the world's first and only tool to answer these questions. It combines each country's performance in three areas specific to children, to produce a score on a scale of 0 to 100. Aimed at holding governments to account for children's wellbeing

Thomas Global
http://www.thomasglobal.com
TG has a database of hundreds of thousands of industrial suppliers and products around the world. Each company listing has an address and phone number, plus a link to the company's Web site. If you register for a free account you can also save your searches, and create contact lists from the searches you run. Source: FITA.

Trade Observatory
http://www.tradeobservatory.org
Since 1999, Trade Observatory (formerly WTO Watch) has been documenting the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Free Trade Area of the Americas and other international trade agreements and institutions. Additionally, Trade Observatory posts the work of IATP and other organizations working toward fairer trade systems and alternative approaches to globalization. This is a project of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minneapolis-based nongovernmental organization.

Who's Talkin? Now you can find out
http://whostalkin.com
A search engine for social networks that can help you find out what people are saying about topics that are of interest to you. All you do is type in a keyword, and you'll get a list of links to any recent comments involving that keyword in blogs, networks, forums, news media, etc. This is useful not only as a Public Relations strategy, but also as a way of researching new ideas, products, and markets.

WTO launches new Database on Regional Trade Agreements
http://rtais.wto.org/?lang=1
The WTO has launched a new database on regional trade agreements (RTAs). This contains all the relevant documentation received by the WTO following notification by a WTO member that an RTA has been established. The database can be searched by country, region, legal provision, date of notification or entry into force of the RTA. Summary tables of all RTAs currently in force, containing various types of information, can be easily exported by users of the database.

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