Country Partnership Framework – Sri Lanka Review
Sri Lanka will soon celebrate its 69th Independence Day on 04th February 2017. Although it gained its independence from the British Rule in 1948, many significant events since, have impacted the country’s growth and economic development. Notably the rise of Tamil militancy in the 1970s that only ended with the Sri Lankan military defeating the LTTE in 2009, the new constitution that was introduced as recently as 1977, the continued civic unrest even till the 1990s and not to forget the Tsunami in 2004, etc. have all been harsh and hostile to the economic development of Sri Lanka.
In a Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) conducted by the World Bank Group (WBG), it has been found that the government has been struggling to generate adequate revenue to be able to save or invest in welfare related projects like health, infrastructure, education, etc. Poor foreign policies affecting foreign investments, the low tax to GDP rate, excessive government control in all sectors and ambitious policies have all contributed to the weak and straggling economy.
On the other hand, the World Bank on February 2016 notes that Sri Lanka has steadily reduced its poverty percentage against its overall population to less than 7%. The country’s economy that was predominantly agrarian and dependent on agricultural income has moved to the service and industrial sectors. Income inequality has also dropped in the past, with a gini coefficient of 0.36 in
Poverty levels dropped in South Africa between 2006-2011 reaching a low of 20.2%for extreme poverty and of 45.5% for moderate poverty according to the poverty trends in South Africa report released by statistics SA on Thursday. As a result the poverty rates on South Africa are decreasing rapidly.
The 18% poverty level of 2008 is improved from the 33% level of the 1960’s, this decrease is attributable to an increase in educational attainment and income, resulting in lower levels of poverty.
Poverty has increased tremendously over the last decade in many countries, developed or less developed. Poverty can be caused by many different factors,
Since 1990, Poverty around the world has been reduced by a substantial amount. Cities has been built, lives saved, education flourished,.... But that doesn’t mean the difference between people gets smaller. In fact, poverty gaps have been increasing day by day at a slow but noticeable rate. According to the map above, most countries’ GDP are still less than $5,000, while certain continents like Europe, America, Australia earn a whopping number of more than $40,000. This leads to an enormous poverty gap.
The development gap refers to the financial and social disparity between the poorest and wealthiest in society. Where economic indicators are low, social indicators are often also low, whereas the wealthiest countries also enjoy better healthcare and education. This gap has been widening for decades and is at its widest today. The poor are not necessarily getting poorer; in fact nearly everybody has seen an improvement in quality of life over the last 20 years. The reason the gap is widening is because the richest are getting richer and having their quality of life improve at a far quicker rate.
In past examples, “the accountability of the government to its people . . . gradually [was] replaced by accountability to its major aid donors"(David Sogge 15). The government is being forced to put the aid money towards things that are vastly different than what they truly need. “these countries become poorer because instead of using their funds to invest in profitable projects and channel their income to other investments, they use what they have to pay their debt”(Green Garage 11). So even when a country’s leader truly wants what’s best, they may not be able to accomplish what they wanted to due to the nature of some types of foreign aid. Though not all problems can/should be solved with outside help, these factors just push people away from what they can do to help remedy the real
The general capabilities required by the Joint Force in 2025 will be a global surveillance and strike (GSS) network, increased naval and air investments and ensuring cyber technology outpaces adversaries. Based on the current U.S. strategic direction and global security environment these capabilities are necessary. Satellites and cyber technology will be part of the design of the GSS system. The U.S. military will be able to strike quickly and remain engaged for increased periods while additional forces move to the area of concern using the GSS system. Increased Navy and Air investments in submarines, ships, aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV’s) is critical. The Navy and Air Force allows us to project power to areas of the world far from our base of operations. Air power also enables us to provide support for ground forces while providing deterrence and denial of enemy forces. Cyber investments and security are critical because cyber technology will increasingly be the engine that runs our future military and allows us to attack adversary’s cyber networks and infrastructure. The U.S. Army will see a reduction in tactical armor units while the U.S. Marine Corps remains at the current level of equipment and personnel. After each capability are associated Risk.
Global inequality is one of today’s most prevalent issues with 40% of the world’s population living in poverty. Poverty is qualitatively defined as being extremely poor. It is quantitatively defined as living under $2.00 each day by the United Nations. One-sixth of the world population or 877 million people live in extreme poverty defined as living under $1.00 a day. This definition leaves out a large bracket of the world because living under 5$ or even 10$ a day can be considered extreme poverty. The Gini Index developed by the world bank provides a global picture of inequality by comparing per capita gross income of the world’s economies and classifies countries as high income, upper middle income, lower middle income, or low income. According to the Gini index, the gap between rich and poor countries has grown in recent years and continues to widen. Although the index provides a comparison of country averages it does not take into account inequality within countries. Therefore, we can assume most of the world is actually living in poverty and many definitions or statistics on global poverty should be taken lightly because certain countries do no have means to quantify each household income.
The story does not end here, the real problem is the trade deficit and US debts that are destroying the economy and future plans of the people regarding the investments. The country is facing twin debts at a time; the national debt taken from the natives, and the debt from the other nations that has also to be return eventually. The remaining problem covers the trade deficit that has no chances of recovery in the near future (El-Agraa, 2011).
workforce. Particularly, they noted that those individuals with “special skills” are not working in conventional ways anymore. Full time employment is also not necessary as talent can be sourced and utilised part-time and it can be borrowed from another organisation such as hiring consultants from a consulting firm. Thus, the authors reminded us that strategic sourcing is about choosing the right options and method of searching and acquiring the specific talent needed by the organisation.
It is a general phrase used to describe the different kinds of choices organizations have to make in the whole process of bringing a product or service to market. The 4Ps is one way – probably the best-known way – of defining the marketing mix
A potential problem associated with this type of government interaction is minimal and outcome is almost always socially efficient. However, in the case of developing country, government might not be able to invest in infrastructure because of the scarce capital available. Generally, governments of developing countries are always in search of capital and their decision making process greatly varies from the ones of the rich countries.
The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier discusses why the poorest countries are failing and then offers some insights and solutions to the problem. He says the four major problems in developing nations are: conflict, natural resources, bad neighbors, and bad governments. The conflicts are usually civil wars which have huge costs and the situation just becomes worse the longer the conflicts drag on. Collier states that countries rich in natural resources are often worse off than countries that are not, he attributes this problem to several different factors. One of the factors is that the resources open the possibility for conflict over the resources. Another factor is that if a country strictly focuses it’s on a specific natural resource then the other resources and industries might get forgotten and lose value. Being landlocked with bad neighbors can also be a large problem because it makes it almost impossible to be a part of world trade, so these landlocked countries have to depend on their neighbors for most of the trade and materials. A bad government can also be very destructive to a country’s economy, if they create unreasonable and restrictive policies. The smaller countries are also at a disadvantage because it is hard for them to get any investors, because the investors would much rather invest in well-known countries like India or China. After Collier stated all the problems he also offered up some possible solutions. He believed that aid agencies should concentrate
The variations in living standard among people from place to place and from time to time have always existed. Greed, injustice and inequality are the three sides of the triangle of poverty and wherever we see them, poverty is always there. Humans cannot overcome a serious problem such as poverty without addressing those three main causes. Even this problem is worldwide; it varies from one area to another. It is higher in areas which were colonized for a long time before such as Africa, Asia and Latin America than other areas which were not colonized for a long time such as Europe and America. We cannot imagine the swift change that happens in the last century in poverty. Surprisingly, it is only one percent of the population that controls most of the international financial assets, creating a massive change in the international landscape of poverty. It is interesting, but not surprising, to see today with modern thinking and technological progress, poverty is still growing to threaten our existence and it will not go away anytime soon without addressing the three sides of its triangle which are greed, injustice and inequality.
Economic policies in this analysis look at the role of the state in handling fiscal and monetary aspect of macroeconomic policy as it “determine government decisions to invest in infrastructure, education and many other aspect of development” including sectorial policies. (The World Bank, 2014).