While much of the United States and the international community in recentmonths focused on the dramatic race between Barack Obama and John McCain, oneof the leading US think tanks was concentrating its energies on trying to setthe development agenda for the new administration.
Experts at the Center for Global Development (CGD) inWashington, D.C., put their heads together to consider what they regard as themost pressing problems in the developing world that the new president shouldurgently address.
Their insights are collected in arecent book, The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda forthe Next U.S. President, which includes chapters on fragile or failingstates, climate change, trade and infrastructure, and what the new Americanadministration can do to help developing countries.
?(Thepublication) shows how modest changes in US policies could greatly improve thelives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability,security and prosperity globally and at home,? says a CGD statement.
Itcontinues, ?Soundglobal development policy ? on trade, migration, investment, and climate changeas well as foreign aid ? is no longer just the right thing to do; it is crucialto the safety and prosperity of the American people.?
Oneof the main authors of the publication is CGD president Nancy Birdsall, who?sknown internationally for her work in the fields of the economy andglobalization, among others, and for her great experience in developingnations. She?s also the author of several books on the challenges facing poorcountries.
Birdsall?s convinced thatdeveloping countries ? and development ? will bear fundamentally on the nextpresident?s responsibility to protect Americans and promote their prosperity inthe near future. She says the current global financial crisis, with its rootsin the US, has shown that ?we live in a hyper-connected world.?
?Much more today than in thepast, Americans rely on markets and opportunities in the developing world fortheir own economic prosperity, and they face risks in the developing world thataffect their security,? Birdsall states.
Terrorism, she acknowledges,is the most ?high-profile? danger to the US as a result of lack of security inthe developing world, but she emphasizes that the risks extend beyond that, to,for example, diseases such as avian flu and instability in oil-rich economies like Nigeria andVenezuela. The US relies on these countries in part for fuel supplies, and sotheir instability directly affects America?s economic stability. Birdsall addsthat deforestation ? seen by many experts as one of the reasons for climatechange ? in the developing world, also affects quality of life in the US.
In an interviewwith VOA, Birdsall said the ?key risk? to the US in the future and one thatwill ?immediately? confront the new president ?comes in the form of whathave come to be called ?fragile states? or ?failed states? ? sometimes ?flailingstates? is the expression used.?
These terms are applied to under-resourced countries withlittle or no good governance, poor economies and extreme poverty, in which avoid therefore exists to be exploited by terrorist groups and other militants.
Birdsall says instability in Africa ? especially in countries like Sudanand Somalia, where Islamic militants are a powerful regional force ? has thepotential in what is today a ?much smaller world? to ?spill over? intoneighboring countries and eventually into the United States itself, in the formof terrorist attacks against American targets.
She advises the new administration to take a number ofsteps as soon as possible to prevent ?negative fallout? from fragile states.
?Thekey issue is to provide support ? and I?m not just talking about money andforeign aid ? to these countries, to make them safer and more secure? throughexpanded training to their security forces, for example.
Birdsallsays drug trafficking in the developing world poses an ?obvious risk? to theUnited States, as does the ?corruption that often follows in countries that arevictims of the drug trafficking problem.?
Shesays the new administration must support governments that are ?seriouslystruggling? to eliminate corruption and to build their capacity to have?sensible governance arrangements.?
TheUS, according to Birdsall, should do its best to support the ?growth of amiddle class? in developing economies, ?because we know in our own system thatthe middle class is the bulwark of good government, in many ways. It?s themiddle class that wants the rules of the game to be played, that wants a levelplaying field?.?
Theeconomist argues that the new president must ?put development at the core ofhis foreign policy.?