Poverty
Starbucks, Ethiopia and Oxfam
IPN Opinion article
Oxfam is wrong to criticise Starbuck's in a coffee trademark dispute involving the Ethiopian government. Coffee growers need the rule of law, not the rule of Oxfam, explains Alec van Gelder.
Overpopulation: Nothing to do with numbers
IPN Opinion article
Every generation has doomsayers who claim that the world is overpopulated -- usually with images of mass famine and starvation, generalized warfare and the decline and fall of civilizations. Long before the Reverend Malthus declared in the late 18th Century that the human population would inevitably increase faster than we could produce food to feed it -- resulting in wars, famine and pestilence -- the Greek philosopher Aristotle urged legislators to calculate and enforce a 'convenient number of citizens.'
Africa can feed itself, if allowed
IPN Opinion article
FAMINES are created by policies, not by pests or droughts. Hunger plagues hundreds of millions of Africans, even though they are capable of feeding themselves. The solution is the right sort of policies. Agricultural production has surpassed population growth and reduced hunger everywhere except in sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty and malnutrition are widespread. Environmental hardships such as soil erosion are omnipresent and are only worsening with primitive techniques of subsistence farming.
20/20 vision for policy makers
IPN Opinion article
"Economic performance is in a country's direct control, not dependent on variables such as natural resources, climate, size, race, culture or arable land, nor on external factors such as colonial history, foreign aid or tariff barriers. Poor countries do not face any special barrier to growth: the poor get poorer only when they have poor policies..."
Biotechnology: How to set African women free
IPN Opinion article
A trade dispute between rich nations could unlock or tighten the chains on the world's poorest farmers - meaning most African women. The World Trade Organisation's forthcoming ruling on GM foods could keep them scratching at the soil for subsistence or help them conquer famine.
Fashion and foreign aid; a realistic look at the "digital divide"
IPN Opinion article
The most recent edition of the Institute for Public Affairs quarterly journal includes an contribution from Alec van Gelder on the misguided effort to close the so-called "digital divide" by foreign aid transfers. Governments should concentrate less on specific innovations and technology and more on the fundamentals of economic growth that encourage their development and distribution in the first place. (Download PDF)
