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South Sudan, Illicit Financial Flows, and (the Maddening Task of) Asset Recovery
June 7th, 2012
In December of 2011, nearly a year after South Sudan voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from its northern neighbor, I asked a very important question. Will South Sudan defy the resource curse? The “resource curse” is the tragic phenomenon that countries well-endowed with natural resources tend to have slower economic growth and poorer development than those without. According to an analysis of developing countries by Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner, the more an economy relies on mineral wealth, the lower its growth rate. Countries with significant natural resource endowments also tend to have an increased likelihood of experiencing war...
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Black Gold, Texas Tea: Uganda's Crash Course with the Resource Curse
February 22nd, 2012
Compared to some of the countries in the neighborhood, Uganda is doing pretty well. Directly to the West lies the Democratic Republic of the Congo, ranked by Foreign Policy as the world’s fourth most failed state. With a per capita GDP of $189, it is one of the poorest nations in the world. In the last ten years, it has fallen into near chaos, with many areas lacking law, order, electricity, and medicine. Directly to the North of Uganda lies South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, which despite outward promises remains in a fearsome political deadlock with its northern...
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Will South Sudan Defy the Resource Curse?
December 29th, 2011
The resource curse is a tragic phenomenon that countries well-endowed with natural resources tend to have slower economic growth and poorer development than those without. This theory has been demonstrated very strongly in quantitative terms. According to an analysis of developing countries by Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner, the more an economy relies on mineral wealth, the lower its growth rate. Countries with significant natural resource endowments also tend to have an increased likelihood of experiencing war and violence and a decreased likelihood of having a democratic system of governance. In January of 2011 the people of Southern Sudan—this also...
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EU Transparency Rules: Needed in All Sectors
November 9th, 2011
The European Commission released a proposal for country-by-country reporting on 25 October, this will help to address corruption surrounding extractive industries and logging. However this will not address the larger problem of tax dodging which is prevalent in these industries and widespread in all other sectors. European parliamentarians and member states could improve the proposal so that tax issues in all sectors are covered.
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