Transparency
« Previous EntriesHow about next G-20 Summit on good governance for sound financial markets?
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008The first G-20 summit, focused on the financial crisis, just took place this past weekend. When measured against expectations of such gatherings, there were some accomplishments. Such as in trade: the collective pledge to avoid raising any trade and investment barriers, or the promise to ‘strive’ for a deal on the stalled Doha round. And [...]
Capture and the Financial Crisis: An Elephant forcing a rethink of Corruption?
Monday, November 3rd, 2008Mushrooming analysis of the determinants of the financial crisis are all over the web. They range from simplistic and blanket accusations of the ‘greed’ of the market capitalism to the arcane technical explanation of a misguided regulatory covenant on the other. And the spectrum in between is crowded, including the misstep by Treasury Secretary Paulson in letting [...]
Unfettered Free Market, Financial Crisis and Political Backlash: How about a Market-Friendly Approach Instead?
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008The end of the 1980s brought about the demise of the Soviet Union and its then satellites. With the failure of socialist planning, gloating took place among some Western circles who declared absolute victory for free market capitalism.
Almost twenty years later, as we approach the end of the first decade of the new millennium, we [...]
Aid Effectiveness beyond Accra: good governance & anticorruption 2010
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008Evidently it was Huge, and very ‘High Level’ — the Forum on Aid Effectiveness which just ended in Accra, with 1,700 attendees. I wasn’t one of them. But I read and talk to people. The sense is that at the end of the day some promising steps may have taken place. Mark Nelson was there, [...]
Eyes Wide Open? Olympics, Netizens and Web Governance
Friday, August 15th, 2008A week has elapsed since the opening of the Olympics. China (along a few other countries), is showing that they are also a world athletic power to reckon with. But I was also making the point in my previous blog entries that the Olympics (or the August lull…) should not give license to governance going [...]
Beijing Olympics and Governance: Eyes partially open?
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008The Russian invasion of Georgia, the leadership and human rights crises in Zimbabwe and Darfur, the coup in Mauritania, and even corruption in sports were some of the disparate problems touched in my last blog entry – challenges which did not get any better over the past few days while medals continue to accumulate in [...]
Empowering people through Web 3.0 + Gen Y + m-governance
Thursday, July 31st, 2008As the Fortune Brainstorm Tech near Silicon Valley was getting going last week, I contributed a blog entry on ‘Governance-on-the-Go’, or ‘GonGo’, emphasizing the need to move away from static ‘e-government’ towards the highly mobile citizen becoming center stage in the next phase of IT interface with governance. The blog entry and the contributions I made during the BrainstormTech drew some [...]
‘Governance-on-the-Go’, or GonGo: the citizen at the center of an IT-enabled governance breakthrough?
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008I am now at the Fortune BrainstormTech, which aims to relate innovations in technology to larger world problems it can solve. The event just started, featuring fascinating evening panels with tech leaders (here). One of the sessions I will co-lead tomorrow, with Ross Mayfield of Socialtext, is on governance. In this forthcoming interactive lab we will try to advance the [...]
Democracy and Development: Rejecting the Extremes
Friday, July 18th, 2008We recently released the new Governance Matters study, with its accompanying set of Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), covering 212 countries since 1996. It is no secret that this research project that I started with Aart Kraay over a decade ago is not uncontroversial, having generated debate among academics, some government officials, and within the World Bank. The data [...]
‘Governance Matters’: A new blog on governance at the World Bank
Monday, May 26th, 2008With the just launched ‘Governance Matters’ blog, the World Bank has now fully joined the governance blogosphere. The idea was afoot for many months. There was initial pushback by a few higher ups. But support from many quarters and persistence prevailed, helped by the growing recognition of the importance of blogging in today’s world. And this personal blog I have hosted for a [...]
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