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ECONOMIC REPORT ON AFRICA 2009: DEVELOPING AFRICAN AGRICULTURE THROUGH REGIONAL VALUE CHAINS. Economic Commission for Africa, 2009. The Economic Report on Africa (ERA) is an annual publication that provides a comprehensive analysis of developments in African economies over the preceding year, and makes predictions about the following year. Jointly published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Union Commission (AUC), the Economic Report on Africa 2009 calls for African countries to pay special attention to the agriculture sector as a basis for long-term growth and development. The first part of the report looks at recent developments in the global economy and its impacts on Africa. It says GDP growth in Africa is expected to decline from 5.1 percent in 2008 to 2 percent in 2009. Inflation in Africa, excluding Zimbabwe, was 10.7 percent in 2008, up from 6.4 percent in 2007, mainly due to high fuel and food prices. The second part of the report examines the viability of using regional value chains to improve African agriculture. For a copy of the report, please visit: http://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/Publications/books/era2009/.
FOREIGN INVESTMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: LESSONS FROM THE AMERICAS. Working Group on Development and Environment in the Americas, 2009. The Working Group’s second policy report provides a comprehensive review of the impacts of foreign investment liberalisation in Latin America. The report is the product of a series of studies conducted by development and environmental economists. Drawing on case studies from across the region-Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela-the Working Group examined how foreign investment during the reform period has affected economic growth, environmental policy and performance, and the countries’ political economy. The report shows that foreign investment has fallen far short of stimulating broad-based economic growth and environmental protection in the region. The report recommends that national and regional policies aimed at improving national firms’ capabilities should be implemented and that the “policy space” for such policies should be accommodated in bi-lateral, regional and global trade and investment treaties. The report, as well as the full papers on which the report is based, are available as Working Group Discussion Papers at http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/WorkingGroup_FDI.htm.
DEVELOPMENT AID AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A POSITIVE LONG-RUN RELATION. International Monetary Fund, May 2009. This working paper analyses the growth impact of official development assistance to developing countries. The authors provide new cross-country evidence on the positive effect of aid on growth. Drawing on existing appraisals of donor effectiveness, they distinguish between developmental and non-developmental aid as having distinct effects on per capita GDP growth. The authors also consider specifications that allow for the effect of aid on economic growth to occur over long periods. The results of this working paper indicate that developmental aid promotes long-run growth. Through statistical measures, the authors determine that the effect is significant, large and robust using different specifications and estimation techniques. For a copy of this report, please visit: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2009/wp09118.pdf.
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