Governments from across the world met at Busan, Korea in late November to discuss how to better coordinate their aid and ensure its effectiveness. Three GEG researchers were engaged in discussions at this conference. Dr. Isaline Bergamaschi, Dr. Paolo de Renzio and Jiajun Xu kept a live update  over the week with their views on developments at Busan.  To see a full list of their comments click here.

GEG is pleased to announce the release of Making Global Trade Governance Work for Development: Perspectives and Priorities from Developing Countries, published by Cambridge University Press. The compilation was edited by GEG Senior Researcher and Director of the Global Trade Governance project, Dr. Carolyn Deere Birkbeck.

Too often discussion of the governance of global trade and the multilateral trading system is dominated by developed-country scholars and opinion-makers, with inadequate attention to developing country perspectives.

To address this shortcoming, Making Global Trade Governance Work for Development gathers a diversity of developing country views on how to improve the governance of global trade and the WTO to better advance sustainable development and respond to developing country needs. With contributions by senior scholars, commentators and practitioners, the essays combine new, empirically-grounded research and practical insights about the trade policy-making process. They consider the specific governance issues of interest to developing countries and acknowledge the changing dynamics in the global economy and in trade decision-making.

To download an introduction to the book click here

Global financial regulation was deemed essential after the 2008 crash. But some would say little has been achieved. Have we been lulled into a false sense of security?

On 29-30 June 2011, GEG hosted a meeting to examine the minimum global coordination required for national financial regulation to be effective, bringing together high-level officials, including from the Financial Stability Board, the FSA, the Prime Minister’s office (UK), the European Commission, and H.M. Treasury, and senior academics (see the report for a full list). The report of that meeting can be downloaded here.

Emily Jones (Project Associate on Trade) represented GEG at the Fourth United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Istanbul in May 2011. The Conference brought together 10,000 delegates including heads of state, diplomats, business executives and civil society to forge a ten-year ‘Programme of Action’ to support Least Developed Countries. Jones presented a paper on the panel ‘From Istanbul to 2020: A Vision for LDCs’.

LDCs were promised much by the international community in the last ten-year Brussels Programme of Action, signed in 2001. However, Emily Jones argued that the Programme had only had a minimal impact the economic development of LDCs. Although the commitments made were laudable, many were only partially implemented and the benefits of others were eroded by the ‘small print’. Recent record levels of growth in LDCs present a welcome opportunity for development but so far they have failed to generate employment or improve productivity, and have only led to modest improvements in poverty and human development. Moreover, LDCs are now more vulnerable to international economic shocks. A priority for the new Programme of Action is to raise the profile and voice of LDCs on the world stage including through strengthening their capacity for collective action, greater advocacy around their development needs, improved representation in major decision-making fora, and greater control over implementation.

(Picture: Emily Jones, center)

On 9th and 10th March, the Global Migration Governance Project held a double book launch in New York City for two new books published by Oxford University Press. The first of these – for Refugees in International Relations - was held at The School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University, and featured panellists Michael Barnett (GWU) and Jack Snyder (Columbia), being chaired by Dirk Salomons (Columbia).

The second launch – for Global Migration Governance – was held at the New School and featured Michele Klein Solomon (IOM), Joe Chamie (the Center for Migration Studies), and was chaired and hosted by Alexandra Delano (the New School)