Global Financial and Economic Crisis

I’m at a two day EU conference ‘Development in times of crisis and Achieving the MDGs’ (snappy eh?). It’s in Madrid, but you wouldn’t know it. We’re in an airless, windowless room in an aircraft hangar of a conference centre miles out from the city. I was on a panel on the impact of the crisis on how we think about aid (powerpoint here, fyi).

OK, the blog’s been pretty heavy going of late, so here’s some light relief, c/o the IMF, who have just sent me multiple copies of this pic from a conference back in March on the impact of the global economic crisis in low income countries (see my previous post, or the IMF page on the event with presentations).

World Bank President Robert Zoellick always gives a big set piece speech ahead of the IMF/World Bank spring meeting.

A recent report by Oxfam’s UK Poverty Programme looks at the impact of the global economic crisis on Europe’s women. Based on research in ten EU member states, the report finds (among other things):

 
From deep inside the boilerhouse of the Robin Hood Tax campaign, this helpful update comes from Max Lawson, Oxfam’s man in the green mask…..

Inside Vietnam’s
informal economy
- heroic struggles!
Spent Wednesday talking to a range of people in the ‘informal economy’ of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). I was accompanying our excellent Vietnam team, who together with Action Aid Vietnam, are running a 5-year ‘poverty monitoring programme’ in 9 rural and 3 urban sites, including this one. More on that in another post – this one is just impressions.
We talked to three separate groups: motorbike taxi drivers (all men); lottery ticket sellers (mostly disabled or blind) and street vendors

The Hanoi Hilton,
IMF, Robert Wade and
jet lag. One strange day.
[any feedback on these wonku summaries, introduced in response to the reader survey?]

Robert Chambers

The Institute for Development Studies is a Good Thing. Located on the brutal 60s campus of the
it looks better in sunshine....