Failed aid: how development agencies are neglecting and marginalising Rwandan genocide survivors

This Viewpoint argues that international development aid agencies have failed adequately to address the rights and needs of genocide survivors in Rwanda. It illustrates that genocide survivors remain impoverished and marginalised, and that development aid agencies only tangentially, if at all, acknowledge their vulnerability and take steps to empower them to realise their rights. It provides examples of aid programmes that are reaching genocide survivors and urges development aid agencies in Rwanda to design and implement programmes explicitly for genocide survivors.     

Sustaining livelihoods in complex emergencies: experiences of Sri Lanka

This article examines the role of context-specific factors that help to perpetuate the vulnerability of conflict-affected people. The discussion revolves around key concepts of household livelihood security, resilience building, income diversification, market access, and armed non-state actors. It is argued that, while conflict-affected households develop adaptive strategies to sustain their livelihoods amid the commonly observed vulnerabilities, the governance arrangements of the parties to the conflict can place stress on local initiatives, confining them to subsistence level and so reinforcing their vulnerability. Deeper analysis of the sources of vulnerability and implications of policy processes could help to inform intervention strategies.     

Monetized time-space: derivatives – money's 'new imaginary'?

This paper examines some of the ways in which the everyday is becoming connected into the world of finance, a process facilitated through so-called derivatives.The increasing use of derivatives is traced to the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement and the ways in which innovative developments in financial engineering were used to overcome the uncertainties of interest rate, currency and price risks that grew apace from the early 1970s. We argue that these risks are not ‘more of the same’.They are qualitatively different and run deeper through the highly integrated financial markets of today. And, as later parts of the paper argue taking their cue from the works of Paul Virilio and Georg Simmel, notably the latter’s Philosophy of Money , the manner in which these risks interact and the speed of their interaction suggest the emergence of new forms of money, a new monetization of time-space. The paper then moves on to consider how the calculative practices that lie at the heart of derivatives involve a process of socialization of the understanding of the risks that new money forms are made to negotiate successfully. The ‘idea of money’ – of what it is now supposed to be capable of doing with and across time-space – thus stems from a ‘new money imaginary’. The paper concludes by reemphasizing the reasons why, when understood through areading of Virilio and Simmel, derivatives should be viewed as representing new forms of money.     

对新时代中美关系的战略思考

奥巴马成功访华使中美关系得以全面提升，中关关系站上了“新的历史起点”。对中关关系应准确看待、避免三种误区，即过高估计中关关系的全球重要性与影响力；过高估计中国在中关关系格局中影响力的增强；避免将错综复杂与不断发展的中关关系“片面化”、“绝对化”与“静止化”。中美关系仍然存在诸多现实问题与未来挑战，处理中美关系不仅需要双方充分把握时代机遇，更需要彼此慎重应对各种挑战。美国政府只有真正“解放思想”、彻底抛弃“冷战思维”、端正对华心态，中关关系才能不断“与时俱进”，从而持久造福于两国人民与世界。     

中小企业融资难的原因

随着我国多种所有制并存的经济制度的建立和社会主义市场经济的发展,中小企业发展迅速,并且在国民经济中的地位越来越重要。但是,相对于国有企业而言,中小企业所受重视程度低,政策倾向少,优惠待遇薄,扶持力度不够,导致其发展存在较多瓶颈,融资困难。中小企业融资难已不是一朝一夕的问题,从私营经济开始之初就已经存在,而2011年的温州借贷危机更是其矛盾激化的表现。结合具体地区分析中小企业融资难的原因,并希望对解决融资难的问题有所帮助。     

No ‘return to the state’: dependency and developmentalism against neo-liberalism

In the emerging ‘post-Washington Consensus’ era, neo-liberalism is searching for alternatives that once again emphasise the state. Yet neither Latin American dependencia nor East Asian developmentalism – two development models actually practised ‘on the ground’ – shares the basic assumptions of the liberal, rationalist state. First, there persists a significant ontological divide over the purpose of the state. Developmentalists and dependentists advocate deep, dynamic state agency rather than the hands-off, liberal, ‘night-watchman’ state. Second, development theory has unfolded within a modern liberal framework of science, democracy, the interests of US foreign policy, and increasingly a commitment to poverty alleviation. Dependency and developmentalism reject these neo-liberal benchmarks in the interests of state consolidation and autonomy. The persistence of dependentist and developmentalist understandings of the state precludes a uniform, post-neoliberal reversal in development theory back to the state.     

论中国援外不附加政治条件原则的理论基础及现实意义

不附加政治条件原则的雏形是中国援外八项原则中的不附加任何条件原则。伴随中国改革开放和援外体制改革,期间曾表述为不附加任何政治条件。只字之差,反映了中国援外政策的变与不变之道。国家主权平等原则、不干涉原则以及经济发展的内在性要求,是不附加政治条件原则的理论基础。西方国家之所以歪曲和批评这一原则,归根结底还是出于对中国影响力上升的猜忌和遏制。着眼长远,中国援外的国际化道路是一个必然趋势,但是在变与不变之间,不附加政治条件原则仍将具有长久的生命力。     

‘Listening to the rice grow’: the local–expat interface in Lao-based international NGOs

Generally speaking, NGO studies have focused their attention on the organisational unit and its role in shaping development outcomes. With few exceptions, the analysis of development partnerships, in which NGOs play a crucial role, has largely been confined to examination of ‘donors’ and ‘receivers’ and not the dynamics within organisational settings. This article is concerned with the interface between local and international staff operating within Lao-based international NGOs. The research relied on interviews with local and international staff and sought to examine how staff themselves interpreted the process of ‘localisation’ in the context of their own professional experience.     

中国农业发展对非洲的启示

中国和大多非洲国家是基于小农家庭经营为主体的农业国家,但近30年来中非农业发展成就迥异。影响中非农业发展的主要因素有:历史文化背景;农业技术生产模式;农业发展战略、政策和执行能力;农业科技推广组织系统;外部学习机制和外部支持状况。中国农业发展在农业生产模式、农业发展战略和政策、农业科技推广和技术扩散体系等方面,值得非洲国家借鉴。在未来中非农业合作层面,中国应帮助非洲国家加强农业研究与推广支持体系建设;加大对非洲农业发展领域的投资;探索中-西-非三方合作新模式。     

Reconstructing ‘conflict of interest’ in financial markets: Private management, public challenges, future prospects

Following widespread criticism of financial market (self-)regulation, there is a shift in regulatory mood, explored here with reference to evolving conceptions of conflict of interest. The pre-crisis distinction between conflict of interest (normal, manageable) and its exploitation (unacceptable, legally actionable) has become somewhat eroded, as exemplified by the SEC’s 2010 civil fraud action against investment bank Goldman Sachs. However the settlement of that case on the basis of ‘mistake’ left many questions unanswered: about the meaning(s) of conflict of interest, about managerial mistake versus exploitative intent in administrative/civil cases and equally about the potential for action under criminal law. Looking forward, a judgement of the European Court of Justice on insider trading – concerning a rebuttable assumption of intent – could be taken as a template for ‘drawing the line’ on conflict of interest. Acting on the basis of informational asymmetry could be taken as an indicator of intent and serious wrongdoing unless financial market actors can demonstrate otherwise.