Fewer than 30 days into the new year, the foreign policy agenda for Europe and North America has already become crowded.  North Korea, Iran, Syria, potential breakthroughs in Burma, and the still roiling revolutionary fervor in the Middle East are but a few of the issues facing transatlantic policymakers.  Iraq, facing renewed violence in the [...]

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With traditional donors locked in economic stagnation, scant progress being recorded on the targets set for donors in the Paris Declaration, and the main providers of South-South co-operation set on maintaining freedom of action, one could be forgiven for having low expectations of the latest in the series of High Level Forums on Aid Effectiveness. [...]

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NEW YORK – They came, they met, and they bargained in Brussels, and after yet another European Summit, member states agreed to be more like Germany—more conservative and disciplined about spending, deficits, and debt. Yet the euro endgame remains far from clear.  Agreeing to fiscal discipline is one thing but implementing such provisions will be [...]

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WASHINGTON—The past three years have been very good for China. No country has emerged from the ashes of the 2008 U.S.-led financial crisis stronger and more influential than China. Beijing’s international reserves are now more than seven times larger than the deployable funds held by the International Monetary Fund. With such a huge cash stockpile, [...]

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By Mark Allegrini and Kate Ritterspach This summer, the issue of food security in sub-Saharan Africa has been thrown into cruelly sharp focus. The United Nations reports that over 3 million Somalis (almost half the country’s population) are in need of food aid, and the U.S. Agency for International Development claims that over 12 million [...]

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On July 9, a new nation will join the international community. Six months after a full 98 percent of voters approved the split, South Sudan will become an independent country. The German ambassador to the United Nations, Peter Witting, said that the UN is poised to admit South Sudan, possibly as soon as July 14. [...]

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WASHINGTON — The Easter deadline to have the Doha Round endgame in sight has come and gone with no sign that the nearly decade-long stalemate has been broken. The commitment by the leaders of the G20 nations to complete the Round in 2011 now seems out of reach. World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Pascal [...]

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By Jonathan White and Kathryn Ritterspach The Marshall Plan helped facilitate Western Europe’s economic integration and revival through market-oriented policies, leaving behind the protectionism of the 1930s. The European Coal and Steel Community – the precursor to the European Union – further encouraged European integration, pooling these much-needed resources among Western European countries.  The EU [...]

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WASHINGTON – With all the focus on democracy and despots, the rising price of food is being overlooked as a trigger in the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Food prices are at an all-time high, and while the impacts are hardly felt in the United States and Europe, where basic commodities are [...]

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On both sides of the Atlantic budgets are under severe pressure. Governments are seeking to improve the effectiveness of development resources. Last week, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development unveiled the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which seeks to bring a more unified, focused and results-based approach to U.S. civilian power. [...]

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