Development

Current levels of investment in agricultural value chains are insufficient to achieve key development goals including ending poverty and hunger, boosting shared prosperity through more and better jobs, and better stewarding the world’s natural resources by 2030. Crowding-in private investment to help achieve these goals and optimizing the use of scarce public resources will be needed, as will the continued promotion of good governance and environmental and social sustainability. Increasing private sector investment and associated financing will require identifying and understanding market failures currently leading to the sub-optimal private provision of goods and services needed to achieve key development goals. Where the private sector is already investing in agricultural value chains, promoting responsible investment can help increase development impacts. Crowding-in more private investment requires increasing the space for private sector activity, improving the policy and regulatory environment, and considering options for using public financing to improve private incentives and to reduce transaction costs and risks, including blended finance solutions. While these actions can help induce more private investment, there is still a critical need for public resources to finance essential public goods and services such as human capital, agricultural research, and complementary public infrastructure

Global growth is expected to slow to 2.9 percent in 2019. International trade and investment are moderating, trade tensions remain elevated, and financing conditions are tightening. Amid recent episodes of financial stress, growth in emerging market and developing economies has lost momentum and is projected to stall at 4.2 percent this year, with a weaker-than-expected rebound in commodity exporters accompanied by deceleration in commodity importers. Downside risks have become more acute. Financial market pressures and trade tensions could escalate, denting global activity.

This report sheds light on one of the fastest growing economies in the world - India. By 2030, India will see a tremendous jump in consumer spending driven by increased incomes, a billion diverse internet users and a very young population. The new Indian consumer will be more affluent, and more willing to spend but will have more evolved preferences and aspirations than consumers of the past. The ‘Urban vs. Rural’ paradigm of the past may not hold as firm in future. Moreover, specific key societal challenges will have to be overcome to ensure a positive future of consumption for all. The report builds on in-depth consumer surveys conducted across 5,100 households in 30 cities and town in India and draws from over 40 in-depth interviews with private and public-sector leaders. It lays out seven critical predictions on a vision for consumption in India in 2030 and lays out a call-to-action for multi-stakeholder collaborations to build an inclusive future for India.

The 8th MNC Trend Report provides an overview of the company information contained in the SA MNC Database. The database includes company finances, operations, remuneration and geographical spread of 91 South African MNCs that operate across Africa. The MNC Database has been populated with this information since 2008, which provides a unique dataset from which to analyse financial trends. This report is focused on two main areas of study. Firstly, the financial trends of the 91 sampled companies are analysed within 14 economic sectors, including revenue growth as well as revenue compared to competitors. In addition to this, each company’s profit before tax (PBT) is analysed compared to its sector and competitors. Within this context, the remuneration strategies of the top level of directors is analysed. Finally, we take a quick look at the total remuneration packages of directors compared to the lowest employees in the company.
The last section of this report, titled ‘the Future of Work’, takes a closer look at the developments around the automation of jobs. This section aims to put this within the broader context of the developing world, as opposed to the developed world. It is questioned whether the reality in the developed world is a reality in Africa, and also makes some suggestions as to how unions and workers can use technology to further their own agendas.

African migration – its drivers, dynamics, and consequences –increasingly features in global policy debates. Concerns vary widely, including everything from economic and human development, human rights, and human and state security. For OECD countries, particularly members of the European Union, there
are additional concerns. These include securing labour required to support an aging European population and expensive social welfare system; upholding commitments to human dignity; maintaining a positive reputation and influence throughout the ‘global south’; and politically derived imperative to starkly limit
spontaneous movements of Africans across Europe’s external boundaries. As illustration, despite a growing need for labour, the number of newly issued long-term work permits (12+ months) for African labour migrants has been reduced from 80.000 in 2008 to 20.000 in 2016.

Growing anxiety about China’s dominance of emerging markets spurred a rare bipartisan effort to pass the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act of 2018. The BUILD Act delivers a needed overhaul of US development finance capabilities and commercial diplomacy by subsuming the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and other development finance agencies into a single, streamlined entity: The United States International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC). The USDFC will provide policymakers with new tools for supporting US commercial diplomacy and promoting US corporate success in fast-growing foreign markets, including equity and grant making capabilities.

The rapid uptake of disruptive technologies in Africa, such as mobile and financial technologies, is prompting speculation among tech investors about whether artificial intelligence (AI) applications will also take root on the continent.
A new issue brief by Africa Center Senior Fellow Aleksandra Gadzala, “Coming to Life: Artificial Intelligence in Africa,” mostly throws cold water on the idea. She acknowledges that many African nations still lack the statistical capacity, infrastructure, and good governance necessary to see AI take off. However, in a select handful of countries, AI solutions are already being successfully deployed at scale. Gadzala surveys the state of AI in Africa and discovers what these successful investments have in common, and what African governments need to do to strengthen the ecosystem necessary to see these technologies flourish, focusing on ways to foster a culture of research and innovation, improve investment environments, and strengthen policy frameworks so African nations can reap the full benefits of AI.

The size and scope of the global forced migration crisis are unprecedented. Almost 66 million people worldwide have been forced from home by conflict. If recent trends continue, this figure could increase to between 180 and 320 million people by 2030. This global crisis already poses serious challenges to economic growth and risks to stability and national security, as well as an enormous human toll affecting tens of millions of people. These issues are on track to get worse; without significant course correction soon, the forced migration issues confronted today will seem simple decades from now. Yet, efforts to confront the crisis continue to be reactive in addressing these and other core issues. The United States should broaden the scope of its efforts beyond the tactical and reactive to see the world through a more strategic lens colored by the challenges posed—and opportunities created—by the forced migration crisis at home and abroad. CSIS convened a diverse task force in 2017 to study the global forced migration crisis. This report is a result of those findings.

This book examines development issues for members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and concludes that they have the potential to reach by 2030 the average quality of life enjoyed today in advanced economies. This book investigates long-term development issues for members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It finds that with a proper policy mix including domestic structural reforms and bold initiatives for regional integration, by 2030 ASEAN has the potential to reach the average quality of life enjoyed today in advanced economies and fulfill its aspirations to become a resilient, inclusive, competitive, and harmonious (RICH) region.Key challenges moving forward are to enhance macroeconomic and financial stability, support equitable growth, promote competitiveness and innovation, and protect the environment. Overcoming these challenges to build a truly borderless economic region implies eliminating remaining barriers to the flow of goods, services, and production factors, and strengthening competitiveness and the institutional framework, while updating some governing principles. But ASEAN should not copy the European Union. It must maintain its flexibility and pragmatism, without creating a fat regional bureaucracy.

The United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development defines Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (MSPs) as an essential tool for realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted along-side the Agenda. However, prior experience of such partnerships between state and non-state actors (from the private sector and/or civil society) has shown mixed results: significant successes have been marred by too many failures. To what extent do policymakers and other relevant actors integrate these insights into multi-stakeholder partnerships – especially as regards the relevant conditions for success – when calling for and fostering new partnerships for the SDGs? This study presents inter alia the results of a series of interviews with selected international actors – from (1) the United Nations, (2) donors and funders, (3) gov-ernments and (4) private initiatives.