- Fairfax news reported last week that the Coalition is considering another 10% cut to the Australian aid budget. The Government has alrady cut the aid budget by close to 33% since 2014. Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop has since dismissed the reports.
- This news comes a week after the OECD released a peer review of Australian aid which recommends that Australia restores its aid budget to at least the OECD average.
- The Center for Global Development has assessed the gender pay gap in most US development NGOs, and it turns out they could be doing a lot more to practice what they preach.
- The World Bank published a report examining the relationship between gender and water. Gaia Hatzfeldt, social inclusion specialist at the Bank, summarises the key findings of the report.
- As a result of the 2015 initiative by the governments of Guatemala and Honduras to establish a Customs Union, the time it takes for traders to cross the border between these two nations has fallen from 10 hours to only 15 minutes.
- Antoinette Monsio Sayeh, former director of the African Department at the International Monetary Fund, delivered a keynote address at the “Africa Development Conference” focused mainly on the signing of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) agreement by 44 sub-Saharan African countries. Key points of the speech can be found here.
- The second instalment in the World Bank series on “having an impact in development outside a research university” is now available, including interviews with Alan de Brauw, Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Bailey Klinger, founder of the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab.
- An interesting piece by Jo Griffin examines a successful new system of self-rule among prison inmates in Brazil.
- Emma Nicholson, Chair of AMAR International Foundation, argues that the Department for International Development (DfID) could spend its money more wisely, especially when it comes to locally built and managed, sustainable organisations.
Aid and development links: cut or not, gender and water, trade in Central America, and more
Links and stories from the aid and development sector.
Photo: World Bank Photo Collection/Flickr
Published 3 Apr 2018
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