ECONOMY: Looking for Development Leverage

Given a few incentives, private companies can be attracted to invest in poor countries that before were not on their radar. Donor countries are betting on this new avenue of public-private-partnerships (PPPs) to channel funds, technology and business knowledge to the 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) - the impact can be huge, but many challenges remain.

DEVELOPMENT: Plotting a World Without LDCs

Malawi's gross domestic product has grown by more than six percent in each year since 2005. The country's most recent Welfare Monitoring Survey finds unemployment stands at just one percent. At a glance, Malawi makes being a landlocked, least developed country almost desirable.

AFRICA: Investment Growth Benefiting Only Some Poor States

While foreign direct investment in least developed countries (LDCs) in Africa has risen sharply over the past decade, most of it went to resource-rich economies and had little impact on employment creation.

Q&A: Translating Southern Successes Into LDC Solutions

"In South-South cooperation we are all partners," Josephine Ojiambo, ambassador of Kenya to the U.N. and president of the U.N. General Assembly High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation, told IPS. "SSC specifically shies away from the donor-client relationship."

CUBA: Month-Long Offensive Against Homophobia

LGBT social networks and experts with Cuba's National Sex Education Centre (CENESEX) announced Tuesday that events surrounding the Day Against Homophobia will last a month this year in this Caribbean island nation.

ECONOMY: Portugal Negotiates Draconian Bailout Plan

The strangling of the Portuguese economy by the international capital markets has led to what was expected: a bailout with tough conditions that will bring the country to its knees.

SPAIN: Madrid Mayor Wants to Sweep Homeless Out of Sight

The mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, has called for a law for compulsory removals of homeless people off the streets, but this has met with resistance from civil society organisations and has split Ruiz-Gallardo's own People's Party (PP).

DEVELOPMENT: Libyan Investments in Caribbean Under Threat

Although located over 9,500 kilometres from the North African country of Libya, the turmoil there has not left the leaders of some small Caribbean nations unscathed.

Developing Nations Protest Move to Slash U.N. Budget

The Group of 77 (G77), the largest single coalition of developing countries, has issued a strong letter of protest against a proposal to cut some 155 million dollars from the U.N.'s 2012-2013 biennium budget beginning next January.

Financiers Lock Horns over Macro Policies While Millions Go Hungry

As weeks of what the International Monetary Fund's managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn called "painful" negotiations over a host of macroeconomic policies drew to a close here Saturday, confusion over coherent strategies for sustainable economic recovery hangs thick in the air.

Emerging Markets Clash with Anachronistic Institutions

The first weeks of April have witnessed a maelstrom of multilateralism – from the chambers of the annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) here to the round tables of the BRICS summit in the resort island of the Hainan province in China – leaving in its wake a tome of unanswered questions regarding the contours and configurations of the new world order.

WORLD: Finding Funding for LDCs Amidst Global Financial Crisis

Representatives of the world’s poorest nations are preparing to assemble a new "programme of action" to reduce grinding poverty. Among proposals that could emerge from the U.N. Least Developed Countries Conference in Istanbul next month is a global tax on financial transactions that would generate billions of dollars a year for development assistance.

Uganda Latest Govt to Face Down Protests

The Ugandan opposition has announced it will continue protests against rising prices for fuel, food and other essential commodities, undeterred by violent police repression of the previous two days of action.

G24 Says Rich Nations’ Policies Hurting Developing World

Finance ministers of the G24 group of developing and emerging countries met on the sidelines the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings here on Thursday, warning against continued risks to their economies, despite largely "strong" growth as the world climbs out of the global financial crisis.

World Bank Chief Calls for Economic Reforms in Mideast

World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Wednesday pressed a Middle East and North Africa in the midst of the "Arab Spring" to promote vibrant civil societies and urged international financial and development institutions to hold its client governments in the region more accountable, if sustainable growth rates and more integrated economies are to take hold.

Broken Promises Loom Large in 2012 Election Run-Up

Just days after United States President Barack Obama announced his reelection campaign for the 2012 run-off via a Youtube video, the White House is poised on the brink of its first shutdown in 15 years, with budget wars, an immigration maelstrom and determined opposition to the administration's seeming tolerance for union-busting barricading the path to a second term for the Democrat incumbent.

U.N. Chief Proposes Budget-Cutting Austerity Drive

Armed with a sharp knife, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is on an austerity drive seeking deep cuts, amounting to about 155 million dollars, in the U.N.'s 2012-2013 budget, which comes into effect next January.

Sky-High Oil Prices Here to Stay

As the Arab world continues to pitch and heave with flashes of popular uprisings here and sparks of brutal crackdowns there, analysts are painting a grim picture of the regional unrest's economic consequences, predicting the persistence of high oil prices in the coming years.

BAHRAIN: Slashing Levies to Help Businesses Cope With Unrest

Bahrain is considering slashing or putting on hold levies on businesses to help them cope with the deteriorating economy, with losses topping an estimated 500 million dollars since the beginning of unrest here in February.

A Creative Boost for South-South Cooperation

In a rare and timely collaboration, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) teamed up with the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to produce a report on the urgent need for developing nations to pour effort and resources into their so-called creative economies.

JAPAN: Disaster Highlights Economic Vulnerability

As authorities struggle to control dangerous radioactive material spilling from the quake ravaged Fukushima nuclear power reactors, a more difficult question has begun to unsettle Japan: is the country’s post-war prosperity as invincible as was believed till now?