Tag Archives: Global

Website (blog) of the Week – The Guardian Poverty Matters Blog

gender (1)
but don't expect any financial assistance from the UN!

The Guardian’s Poverty Matters Blog is my new no.1 RSS feed – which links into the broader website on Development issues at the Guardian

I thoroughly recommend students link up to this feed, for anyone teaching development, I’d say it’s essential. There’s about 2-3 post a day, and they are typically only a few hundred words long, and to the point.

Two of the latest blogs that will be relevant to the A2 development course include –

Madeleine Bunting talks about the lack of genuine commitment to improving gender empowerment ( Millennium Development Goal 3) in the developing world. Bunting points out that while there is near universal agreement on the importance of empowering women in developing countries as part of a broader strategy of social development – there is no money being spent on this.

The United Nations has only just got around to  establising a new agency – UN Women (11 years after the MDG were established) – she says ‘The World Bank has estimated it would cost $83bn to achieve millennium development goal three (promote gender equality and empower women). But very quickly the start up budget was set at around $500m’

In another blog David Smith reflects on the role of China in Africa’s conflicts

Here’s a nice summary that puts the scale of Africa’s conflicts into context –

“Saferworld has some sobering figures: Africa holds only 14% of the world’s population, but from 1990 to 2005 the continent accounted for half of the global number of deaths caused by conflict. It is estimated that during this period, conflict cost African countries almost $300bn – roughly the same amount as these countries received in aid during the same period.”

And both of these are from just one day…. RSS feed this excellent blog