Yesterday I wrote about the just-released UN High-Level Panel (HLP) report on post-2015 development goals. The focus of the report on global partnerships for inclusive development—extending beyond aid, to tackle the basic rules of the global economy—got me thinking about a relatively arcane but increasingly important set of rules called Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs). BITs are treaties between governments that guarantee foreign investors a number of rights, including protection against expropriation and limitations on capital controls and performance requirements, with the goal of promoting foreign investment by protecting investors from unfair and arbitrary treatment by capital-importing governments. These treaties also give private foreign investors the unique ability to bring suits against sovereign governments in binding international arbitration, called an “investor right of action.” So, are these kinds of global economic rules good or bad for inclusive development?

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Last week the UN High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda released its long anticipated report: A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies Through Sustainable Development. I’ve finally had time to give the long report a good read. It is an aspirational manifesto, reflecting a “new mainstream” in development thinking that departs substantially from the development thinking of the 80s, 90s, or even the 2000s.

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In the aftermath of war securing economic stability and reviving institutions are among the first priorities. As a CFR Working Paper I wrote last year noted, “negative economic shocks of just 5 percent can increase the risk of a civil war by as much as 50 percent in fragile environments. Additionally, donor assistance, which can account for 20 percent to as much as 97 percent of a country’s GDP, is unsustainable in the long term. Building local business capacity and supporting homegrown entrepreneurs can help curb this risk.” The private sector plays a pivotal role as a “stabilizing force.”

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In a recent interview, Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill, whose pen gave birth to the concept of the BRICs—the constellation of emerging economic powers Brazil, Russia, India, and China (and now including South Africa)—said the countries’ combined growth had “exceeded all expectations.”  Noted O’Neill, “in slightly over a decade the group’s GDP has grown from approximately $3 billion to $13 billion. The BRIC countries have the potential to avert a global recession and to grow faster than the rest of the world and to pull all of us along with them as a (growth) engine.”

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In the March/April 2013 issue of Foreign Affairs, development scholar John McArthur, a former manager of the UN Millennium Project, reviews the history of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and takes stock of their progress. As he writes: Read more »

As discussed in previous blog posts in this series, good governance and human rights are central aspects of global development. Fundamental to human freedom, these objectives are both an end in themselves and a means to an end, and should be included in the post-2015 global development agenda. In this regard, guaranteeing Civil Rights, Political Rights, and Personal Security is a critical development goal.

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As discussed in previous blog posts in this series, good governance and human rights are central aspects of global development.  Fundamental to human freedom, these objectives are both an end in themselves and a means to an end, and should be included in the post-2015 global development agenda. In this regard, guaranteeing Civil Rights, Political Rights, and Personal Security is a critical development goal.

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This post is written by my colleague Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow for Global Health at CFR. He reviews the major takeaways of a recent workshop he hosted on the post-2015 agenda, an event I also mentioned in my Development Channel post last week. 

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Over the past few weeks I have attended a number of meetings on the post-2015 development framework, organized and sponsored by groups including the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Development Programme, and CFR, where two of my colleagues, Stewart Patrick and Yanzhong Huang, have hosted recent events on the topic. Some of the main themes emerging from these meetings include: Read more »