Category: Research Reports
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World Bank Enables Foreign Aid Theft
Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Jan 17 2024 (IPS) – World Bank aid encourages governments to enable illicit financial outflows to offshore tax havens by reducing capital controls, thus draining precious foreign exchange and government resources. Aiding elite wealthAid disbursements to highly aid-dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centres known for banking…
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A worldof debt: A growing burden to global prosperity
UN GLOBAL CRISIS RESPONSE GROUP, July 2023 Public debt can be vital for development. Governments use it to finance their expenditures, to protect and invest in their people, and to pave their way to a better future. However, it can also be a heavy burden, when public debt grows too much or too fast. This…
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Inequality Inc.
How corporate power divides our world and the need for a new era of public action Oxfam, 14 January, 2024 Since 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes. During the same period, almost five billion people globally have become poorer. Hardship and hunger are a daily reality for many people…
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AFTINET briefing paper on ISDS
Australian Fair Trade and Investment (AFTINET) updated briefing paper on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), January 2024 AFTINET has produced an updated briefing paper on ISDS. It provides background and the latest evidence on ISDS cases including Clive Palmer’s three cases against the Australian government, which total nearly $410 billion. It documents other case studies and…
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Global Tax Evasion Report 2024
This report produced by the European Tax Observatory (and authored by Annette Alstadsæter, Sarah Godar, Panayiotis Nicolaides, and Gabriel Zucman) reviews the various initiatives launched over the last 10 years to reduce international tax evasion. Yet despite the importance of these developments, little is known about the effects of these new policies. Is global tax evasion…
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The Middle East and North Africa Gap: Prosperity for the rich, austerity for the rest
This Oxfam briefing paper (by Alexandros Kentikelenis, SaharMechmech, Amine Bouzaiene, Rowaida Moshrif, and Nabil Abdo, October 2023) examines growing inequality in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, focusing on Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis. It examines the lack of adequate…
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The Growing Debt Burdens of Global South Countries: Standing in the Way of Climate and Development Goals
Nearly 80 low- and middle-income countries are considered by international institutions as being in or at risk of debt distress. Three-fourths of these countries have also been flagged by environmental experts as particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The combined burden of the climate crisis and increasing debt, perpetuated by an unfair international…
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Markets, power, and potatoes: An analysis of agricultural trade between Egypt and Europe
Despite Egypt’s substantial agricultural sector, it grapples with severe food insecurity, relying heavily on volatile global wheat imports. Climate change exacerbates threats to agriculture, impacting small-scale farming in North Africa. High poverty rates, worsened by the 2016 economic crisis, hinder nutrition improvement, especially for children. Egypt’s neoliberal agricultural policies prioritise profit, favouring large-scale farming and…
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An ocean drowning in capital: Oil, transnational actors and the ocean in Guyana
This issue brief (from the Transnational Institute, 13 Dec 2023) critically analyses Guyana’s ocean economy. Focused on oil and gas, it explores the three circuits of capital, emphasising the severe impacts of the booming oil and gas industry on marine environments and coastal communities. Through interviews, research, and consultation with diverse experts, the publication aims…
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Patrick Bond: Samir Amin’s diagnosis of worst-case racial capitalism
“Nothing has changed, South Africa’s sub-imperialist role has been reinforced”. Published 11 November by Patrick Bond on CADTM. // Samir Amin’s critiques of both apartheid-era and post-apartheid political economy contributed to his scathing view of the crucial ‘semi-peripheral’ layer of the world system, a perspective typically ignored in binary formulations of Global North and Global South. Amin’s 1977…
