Here’s your (early) Saturday morning reading (scuba in the morning!) featuring wishes for 2014, drugs, inequality and South Sudan:
1) Nancy Birdsall, President of CGD, gives her crowdsourced top ten wishes for development policy in 2014 including tobacco control, tropical forests and antibiotics
2) Related to the above, Duncan Green highlights the new generation of development issues, especially diets and drugs:
“The positive aspect of the story is that governments, scientists and others in the North have lots of experience in these issues, and their advice and assistance would probably be a lot more useful to developing countries than banging on about stuff the rich world is currently not very good at (growth, jobs, smallscale agriculture etc)”
3) Andy Norton from ODI says that while inter-country inequality is decreasing, inter-personal inequality is increasing within countries with implications for social disorder. However, the good news is that Ben Phillips of Oxfam suggests “the struggle against inequality is a transformational campaign we can win”.
4) Two pieces of analysis on the conflict in South Sudan:
First, via Aid Leap: “What are the chances of success for the Addis Ababa talks?
Zero. They are non-existent. This is war. The winner will be he who ousts the other militarily and diplomatically. ”
And from Think Africa Press: “Transitioning from war to peace is not a technical exercise but a highly political process. South Sudan was born amidst ongoing political power plays, deep divisions and conflict at many levels − issues that remain unresolved”