whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1.
(Comments)

Speaking in terms of individual freedom and a globalized economy, migration for work is actually helpful, since it matches talent and needs. But brain drain is a major cause of lack of progress in dev

2.
(Comments)

Unfortunately Skype is effectively a global monopoly. The only way to avoid the perpetuation of monopolies at a global scale is to insist on open technologies, and open standards.

3. Searching for objective measures of value
(Analysis/Analysis)

...1980:  $ 824.30 / ounce.  Hence the interest. According to the World Gold Council:  "Global demand for gold jewellery showed the strongest surge, reaching a record $14.5 billion,...

4. This festive season: the accumulating effects of individual activity
(Analysis/Analysis)

...e Project declares: "The accumulating environmental effects of mass production are a major cause of global warming and the poisoning of our air, water and soil." This being the third-tier o...

5. Science gone wrong: when self-delusion leads to death
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ments would be stolen; they'd be pulling out, not pushing in. And those self-same protestors at anti-globalisation gatherings have their pensions and lifesavings invested in those same companies ...

6. Everything is coming up Capitalism
(Analysis/Analysis)

...t is, not the ideology. That has re-emerged. Now it is known as "new economics" or "anti-globalisation" or "people's economies". The prevention of Newspeak A new...

7. Zimbabwe: recovering the irrecoverable
(Analysis/Analysis)

...e. Their crime? Raising prices. For the past decade Robert Mugabe has accepted every tenet of the anti-globalist anti-free-market lobby. He nationalised large commercial farms and gave them to the...

8. People, Planet and Profits: the complexities of corporate governance
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ard. Meetings that used to take four hours now take two days," says Judge Mervyn King, Chair of the Global Reporting Initiative and the King Commission on Corporate Governance. "The studen...

9. After Enron: the Corporate Governance of Corporate Social Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

...mstrong, board-member of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) and head of the World Bank Global Corporate Governance Forum, feels that this should change. Responding to questions duri...

10. The Trouble with Paradise, or why Pakistan Sucks
(Analysis/Analysis)

Many years of grizzled travelling will give you a cavalier attitude to roadside cuisine and a thick skin to the casual xenophobia which occasionally greets the weary traveller. Most tourists have tro

11. The tragedy of innovation: how brilliant ideas are criminalised
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ehind this savage and deliberate policy of poisoning life on earth and destroying the environment. It is global organisations like the World Bank, and large corporations like Monsanto, McDonalds and ...

12. Dave Bullard and Graham Knox: "We can't walk on water so why not try wine?"
(Analysis/Analysis)

...inimum subsidy. EU subsidies are already so vast that they have contributed significantly to the current global wine glut. As any economist would tell you: subsidies attract more producers into a ma...

13. Two Frontiers: wars of liberation and of determination
(Analysis/Analysis)

...se of the poor been greater. The youngsters lighting fires in Germany at the G8 Summit to protest about globalisation and capitalism have little in common with the striking protestors in South Afric...

14. What comes after Capitalism?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...allow those who don't know each other to trust and interact. The violence and vociferousness of anti-globalisation and anti-capitalist protestors gathered in the German city of Rostock, in the ru...

15. The Golden Pen, Yahoo, and the worst country in the world to be a journalist
(Analysis/Analysis)

...non-democratic countries, we believe that new media companies that provide more and more of the means for global communications have a special responsibility" he said. "They have an obligati...

16. The efficiency of markets and how protectionism leaves the poor behind
(Analysis/Analysis)

There is something magnificent about the way that modern, market-driven businesses get ever more efficient. How they are able to derive ever more from ever less. Agriculture used to be a matter of p

17. The future of Newspapers, journalistic integrity and the battle for Google's soul
(Analysis/Analysis)

...and magazines - the print media - continue to flourish with a combined 42.3% share of the US$ 425 billion global advertising market." The newspaper industry appears financially secure; it was R...

18. Jobs are from Mars, Business is from Venus
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ya Kikwete went even further into the mire: "The problem of youth unemployment is exacerbated by the global demographic trend which has seen the size of youth increasing at a faster rate than our...

19. The Jimmy Wales interview: Wikipedia and Lessons in Globalisation
(Analysis/Analysis)

...o want to vandalise Wikipedia are idiots." Aside from the hype, though, Wikipedia is a sophisticated globalised organisation.  Imagine the company which can handle 251 languages and four mil...

20. The US$ 5 trillion market at the bottom of the pyramid
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ate a multi-billion Dollar industry? C K Prahalad, speaking in Johannesburg at a conference organised by Global Leaders, declares that, “the essence of entrepreneurship is that aspirations over...

21. Racial arguments muddy human rights and the ending of poverty
(Analysis/Analysis)

...nst similar behaviour by their royal house.  Even France’s continuing terror of capitalism and globalisation are simply a way of pretending that they can control their future without making...

22. Climate Change: measurement, responsibility and risk
(Analysis/Analysis)

...bsp; At core is conflict over whether or not anthropomorphic (human) carbon emissions are responsible for global warming. This clash is comparable to Whythawk’s experiences in rating developmen...

23. The Cold War, Global Warming and the War on Ideas
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ologies vie for influence over the nature and direction of human development.  No, not the Cold War; Global Warming. During the Cold War the United States and the USSR fought a conflict of attri...

24. We're from Mars and we want to help: four lessons in development
(Analysis/Analysis)

...nbsp; Amongst the demands by ActionAid, in a report entitled "Power Hungry: six reasons to regulate global food corporations" are these:  i) that massive aid go into supporting small-s...

25. How do we prepare nonprofit organisations for the long term?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ing and long term capacity – perhaps a consequence of magnitude and the seemingly insatiable demand global inequality suggests. But we, as a global society, involve ourselves because we believe ...

26. Does the new Apple iPhone cause poverty?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...or its manufacture are sourced from hopelessly impoverished nations. At best the iPhone will result in a globally improving standard of living.  Consider the phone in isolation.  To come in...

27. AIDS-related illnesses cost South African businesses up to R 2.2 billion per year
(Analysis/Analysis)

“It is essential for SA companies to follow global trends in corporate wellness to proactively ensure the health and improved productivity of its workforce while providing an effective tool to m

28. Millennium Development Goals and the Measurement of Change
(Analysis/Analysis)

...alving the number of people without access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation Goal 8: develop a global partnership for development through a global non-discriminatory trading and financial s...

29. The end of wild seafood and the myth of "free"
(Analysis/Analysis)

There are very few things in life that are free: air, water, seafood … not free in the sense that you don’t pay for them (water out the tap, fresh fish in the markets) but the product its

30. The poor have never had it so good ... now what?
(Analysis/Analysis)

... World Bank, financier of last resort to bankrupt governments, has a great deal of competition.  The Global Fund has $ 6.8 billion.  The Gates Foundation has $ 31.9 billion.  Google ...

31. What do Richard Branson and Che Guevara have in common?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ranson has claimed the very principles of subversion promoted by arch-Communist Guevara in the pursuit of globalisation and capitalism.  It was Guevara who said, “We must bear in mind that ...

32. Responsibility Reputation Risk - a conference on corporate social investment
(Events/Events)

...ke and Starbucks (amongst many others) has highlighted the difficulties that corporations experience in a globalised world where every aspect of their supply-chain is scrutinised and judged. It is no ...

33. The Responsibility Gap
(Analysis/Analysis)

Globalisation and the global flow of capital are frequently blamed for inequality and poverty. "Surely," the argument goes, "you must be getting rich at the expense of all these poor, s

34. Whythawk Podcast Downloads
(Category List)

... are also risks. Whythawk presents here a series of informal seminars and discussions on risk, economics, globalisation and the excitement of doing business in emerging markets. The series is unedited...