Blog
From the Editor’s Desk (June 2014)

25 June 2014

Tony Addison

June finds UNU-WIDER in Hanoi for our conference in collaboration with the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM). The theme is ‘Institutional Reforms for Transformation, Inclusion, and Sustainability’. As well as researchers and policy makers from Asia, we have a large contingent joining us from Africa and Latin America. How to achieve more inclusive growth, how to effectively diversify economies, and how to do all this without damaging the environment, are the foci of the conference. We always like conferences where we share ideas and experiences across regions and countries, and this is in our DNA as an Institute. Good ideas need to travel.

Angle too brings you good ideas—and the link to our research (and that of others) that provides evidence for better policy. This is a double issue for June and July, as July is the holiday month in Finland (though it did snow, I believe, while I was away recently in Accra, for our UNU-WIDER session at the Global Development Network conference). 

‘Joelle’ Malokele Nanivazo, kicks off this Angle with a look at multidimensional poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC is a country so full of promise, but with deep poverty and conflict. 

Carl-Gustav Linden interviews our new Senior Research Fellow, Channing Arndt, on his motivations for joining UNU-WIDER and plans for future research within the Institutes new work programme. 

In RESEARCHAngle, we feature three briefs this month. The first one is based on the WIDER Working Paper by P.B. Anand assessing aid to water and sanitation. The second brief is based on a Working Paper looking at the effects of the National Solidarity Programme in Afghanistan, and the final brief describes the findings from Greg Larsson’s paper on South Sudan and the Paris Declaration. 

Our VIDEOAngle is an interview with Margaret McMillan, by Roger Williamson, focusing on the question of structural transformation in countries of the African continent. 

Our working papers at mid-year stand at close to 100 for 2014. They include Hippolyte Fofack on ideas from Africa for development; Naoko Otobe on promoting women’s economic empowerment; Channing Arndt, Sam Jones, and Finn Tarp on the aggregate return from aid; Ismail Ouraich and Wallace E. Tyner on the impact of climate change in Morocco; Robin Biddulph on Cambodia’s land management; and Samuel Wangwe, Donald Mmari, Jehovanes Aikaeli, Neema Rutatina, Thadeus Mboghoina, and Abel Kinyondo on Tanzanian manufacturing. 

So, UNU-WIDER continues to be busy. At least all this activity takes my mind off England and the World Cup. Angle will be back in August, with reports from Hanoi.

Tony Addison is Chief Economist-Deputy Director, UNU-WIDER.

WIDERAngle newsletter
June-July 2014
ISSN 1238-9544

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