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With the start of a new year, the time has come to reflect on what has passed and look towards what is to come in 2017. A shortlist of 5 unmissable articles published by The Broker in 2016 provides a great start.

Three-quarters of global poverty could be eliminated by addressing inequality and redistributing existing resources within developing countries.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers a framework to address today’s complex challenges surrounding human mobility.

When the Dutch private sector is involved in development in Africa, a dilemma may arise. The Dutch government claims that businesses could have a positive impact on local economic development on the continent in the longer term. But do their activ…

During the EADI conference, The Broker had an exclusive interview with Branko Milanovic, Professor at the City University New York and economist for the World Bank specialized in inequality.

Social protection is an important element of responsible development, but establishing adequate programmes is complex, as discussions at the EADI conference in Bonn, Germany, once more highlighted.

Impact sourcing is a promising means to enhance employment and training opportunities for the poor and underprivileged.

Despite the aspirations, the development of a set of Sustainable Development Goals remains a challenging trial.

Inequality indicators play an important role in the process of choosing the post-2015 goals. Related to this issue is the question of what level of inequality is acceptable – a certain amount of inequality can stimulate economic growth, but too mu…

Inequality rates continue to soar all over the world despite falling poverty rates and global GDP growth. The world’s richest 1% own 40% of global wealth, while the bottom half own only 1%. To improve our understanding of inequality and to identif…

There is more to the alleged contradiction between the de-prioritization of action on climate change and the consensus that it is a threat to society.

In their search to become more financially self-reliant development NGOs are experimenting with social entrepreneurship. Many are doing this to strengthen their financial situation, but social entrepreneurship can do much more and opens up new way…

With only a quarter of the world’s population having access to social protection, the case for expanding it is gaining ground in international discussions. The debate focuses on how best to design social protection, whether it should be universal…

The new World Bank strategy must take risk and uncertainty into account.

Without the involvement of the poor and marginalized in the successor framework to the MDGs, it is unlikely that interventions will respond to their problems.

Although the MDGs are arguably the most politically important pact ever made for international development, they harbor several lessons for their successor framework.

Global goals need global policies. Governments have more to win than lose if they join forces and agree upon a single post-2015 agenda.

The failure of effective direct taxation is the central explanation for much higher final income inequality. Therefore Cobham and Sumner argue in favour of more fairness in tax systems through metrics.

Economic policy should focus on poverty reduction rather than on growth and should start in rural areas. First of two blog posts by David Woodward.

‘Spurring economic transition’ is the follow-up to The Broker’s debate on inequality. What are the most important conclusions of the inequality debate that it needs to address?

Pro-poor strategies that are inclusive should be funded primarily by domestic sources, because foreign savings and investment tend to be volatile and difficult to target. However, this can be a problem for the very poor countries.

How can we create a more inclusive economy and what obstacles lie in the way? This debate seeks answers.

The global development framework for the coming years cannot ignore global inequality if it should constitute a relevant and legitimate set of development goals in a globalised world.

The international post-2015 development agenda is in need of a comprehensive water development framework based on widely shared ethical principles.

Well-designed transformative social policy in developing countries is particularly needed since it increases individual and social capability to take advantage of initial conditions for catching-up and is one of the most effective measures to stre…

The poverty reduction goal already embodies inequality. Even if we agree that it under-values things, it is far from obvious that adding an overall inequality measure is the best corrective. We need to think clearly about what is missing and how b…

To be effective, strategies on providing drinking water in urban India should tap into complex formal and informal governance networks.

Interview with Ted Schrecker: ‘There is widespread recognition that the dynamics of the global economy work in the direction of increased inequality. And there is very little reason to expect that to change over the short term.’

There are two critical issues in this inequality debate: there is no global benchmark for inequality and no global goals in absolute terms; and the instruments for tackling inequality lie outside traditional aid intervention models.

In the on-going discussion on inequality, “new” seems to be the magic word. Unfortunately we still have the old problem, being that 1,3 billion people have to live on less than a dollar a day.

Experts will debate tough questions on how to feed the world’s population. It shed light on how effectively global knowledge and expertise on food security are being used.

How are inequality and conflict connected? This question has occupied the minds of thinkers and practitioners for many years. The common-sense argument sounds convincing: where there are large inequalities between rich and poor, the latter become…

Effective aid work means enabling NGOs to bring about real, lasting change for poor people.

Peacebuilding has to be centre stage at the high-level debate on aid effectiveness in Busan.

The official presentation in the Netherlands of the Rural Poverty Report 2011 of the IFAD last week at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague coincided with the findings of the G20 agricultural ministers meeting to establ…

Brazil’s new-found status as an economic power and conflict mediator has led some to question their motives. President Dilma Rousseff will have to find ways to deflect accusations of self-interest and regional hegemony.

Susan George, (2010), “Whose Crisis, Whose Future? Towards a Greener, Fairer, Richer World”, Polity Press, Cambridge. The book is published as well in French and Spanish, see details below. Here is a book that attempts to explain how high finances…

It is tempting, as the 2015 target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) creeps relentlessly closer, to take stock of our chances of actually meeting them. Most experts paint a mixed picture. The consensus is that while there has been a…

Cities are a breeding place for innovation in an increasingly urbanized world. Networks of local urban organizations specialized in generating and sharing knowledge are playing an important role in addressing urban development and poverty.

I welcome Andy Sumner’s lucid article on the fact that most of the world’s poor now live in middle-income countries and what that means for development.I agree with Sumner that this brings microeconomic issues, inequality in particular, to the for…

Andy Sumner’s research on the new bottom billion has been on the lips of almost every development professional I know for the last few months. The revelation that 75% of poor people might actually live in middle-income, rather than low-income coun…

The new bottom billion has reshaped the demographics of poverty. This calls for a renewed development narrative, one that focuses on inequality and shared responsibility.

960 million or 72% of the world’s poor live in middle income countries

UN summits follow a more or less predetermined route. Heads of state and government and heads of major international organizations all come and make their declarations. In most of them, there is nothing really new or interesting. Now and then, how…

The big issue for the MDG summit, the ‘big push’ to 2015 and even the post-2015 debates (there’s a newly agreed UN summit due in Sept 2013) should really be a focus on equity and on the poorest. Why? Because nearly three-quarters of the world’s po…

On 18 January 2025 the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) presented its report long-awaiting report that promotes substantial changes in the organisation of Dutch aid as well as more structural attention for global public goods.

Reporting from the World Science Forum, Hanns Neubert senses a sea change in attitudes towards the role of science in reducing poverty. Governments are spending more; young people are choosing science careers. Yet poor people will not benefit with…

Global Civil Society 2009: Poverty and Activism, edited by Ashwani Kumar, Jan Aart Scholte, Mary Kaldor, Marlies Glasius, Hakan Seckinelgin and Helmut Anheier, Sage, 376 pp.A review by Donatella della Porta.

One major point to emerge from the day of free-flowing and wide-ranging discussions at Brussels was the need for a new paradigm. As Frans reports, ‘Among the hundred plus attendants there was a general feeling that we need a new paradigm, or a new…

In my last blog I discussed the fact that poverty and even rights-based agendas can be easily co-opted into a ‘Washington Consensus’ policy paradigm. How then can we avoid this propensity? In my background paper I suggested that this should be don…

After reading Andy Sumner’s article and then attending the policy forum I thought I would share some of my reflections on the issues that have been raised. It is important to recall that addressing poverty is not particularly antithetical with the…

Frans Bieckmann is the Editor in Chief of The BrokerLooking back on, and having briefly chewed over a long day of interesting talks and debates at the High Level Policy Forum in Brussels, I will share with you some of the threads and trends t…

Marieke Hounjet is reporting live from the Brussels Forum for The BrokerThe second plenary of the High Level Policy Forum today in Brussels was titled: ‘What are the key meta-processes shaping development over the next 10-15 years and what do they…

Sumner in his challenging paper “Beyond 2015”, encourages us to rethink the development policy and reconsider the need, nature and dimensions of MDG’s from the real expectations of poor people instead of donors’ interest. The author points out the…

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a visionary statement. They have focused the attention and intention of the world towards the challenge of our time. But they are a product of our past and as such are simultaneously unhelpful as they di…

As Andy Sumner has stated in his article of 26th May, 2009 “Rethinking Development Policy 2015”, the MDGs are viewed as a set of indicators for guiding poverty reduction and for holding international agencies and governments accountable to citizen…