[Joseph Stiglitz] presented three ways the world can finance global public goods, which Stiglitz defined as goods that can be used worldwide without diminishing their value to all parties.

Just as a candle retains its flame even after lighting another candle, ownership of global public goods does not exclude others from their benefits, Stiglitz said.

Examples of such goods include knowledge, the global environment, global economic stabilities, health concerns, peace and war.

These goods "have to be financed and provided collectively," Stiglitz said. "The market will not produce an adequate amount of global public goods."

Three ways to globally finance these goods, Stiglitz said, are to auction off global natural resources, tax cross-border trade and issue a new form of global money he called "global greenbacks."

For example, auctioning off fisheries, rights to carbon emissions and satellite spots in space would all produce revenue to fund global public goods and to protect the environment.

Similarly, taxing harmful cross-border trade products could provide revenue to counter their negative impact.

"If we have large taxes on arms sales cross-border, with the revenues going to finance the UN peace keeping operations," the global community could "match a negative with a positive," Stiglitz said.

Finally, Stiglitz argued that money is being forced into the ground by reserves that developing countries hold to protect themselves against economic crises.

He proposed an annual issuance of global greenbacks to "offset the money that is being put into reserves" and finance global public goods, especially development.

But Stiglitz sees a difficult future for the reformation of the global reserve system.

"If we had a reasonable administration one might be able to persuade them that switching to this alternative framework might be an advantage to the United States," he said.

Despite the poor chance his initiatives will be implemented in the near future, Stiglitz emphasized the importance of change.

"What I hope I have done is persuade you there is a really serious need for global collective action," Stiglitz said. "We can pursue the needs that we have as a world, and at the same time we can enhance global economic efficiency

Daily Princetonian
"Nobel-winner Stiglitz Opens UN Colloquium"
Kate Carroll
February 15, 2005

Available at:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2006/02/15/news/14469.shtml

The World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department (OED), the independent auditor within the Bank, said in report released late last month -- but which received little media attention -- that the institution needs to improve its project selection process and oversight of the global portfolio...

The report urges the Bank to develop a financing plan for high-priority programmes with donors and U.N. agencies and the governments of developing countries. The plan should provide "genuine global public goods" like new policies, technologies, and practices of benefit to the poor.

"Focusing on the Bank's role and effectiveness in global programme partnerships will allow the Bank to work with its partners to implement a global strategy and financing plan focused on sustainable poverty-reducing growth and on genuine global public goods of benefit to the poor," said Gregory K. Ingram, director general of Operations Evaluation for the World Bank.

Inter Press Service
"Internal Audit Faults World Bank's Biggest Projects"
Emad Mekay
February 3, 2005

Available at:
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=27312

Eliminating global poverty, disease and hunger are "utterly affordable" but need concerted action from rich nations, including a massive increase in funding for scientific research addressing the needs of the world's poor.

These are among the findings of a comprehensive report by the UN Millennium Project that was presented to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan yesterday (17 January). The report calls on international donors specifically to support scientific research on health, agriculture, natural resource, energy and climate change...

Reflecting this, the report recommends that developing countries boost scientific education and link universities to the private sector to help convert knowledge into goods and services. It says developing country governments need scientific advisors to guide policies relating to science and technology.

Highlighting the potential for science to increase crop yields and lead to vaccines and medicines against disease such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, the report states that: "The international science community - led by national research laboratories, universities, and national academies of science - must play a critical role in developing the global public goods to overcome these constraints. It must bring to bear its tremendous research capabilities to help solve the tough problems facing developing countries - particularly in the tropics."

SciDev.Net
"Ending Poverty 'Needs Massive Science Funding Boost'"
Mike Shanahan
January 18, 2005

Available at:
http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=1857&language=1

Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, has written a remarkable but flawed defence of the global market economy: Why Globalisation Works: The Case for the Global Market Economy (Yale University Press). Wolf conceives globalisation in essentially economic terms. The book says little about the political, social, cultural and environmental aspects of globalisation, although he does argue that nation states remain the locus of political debate and legitimacy and that the best way to combine economic globalisation with political stability is via liberal democracy. But it is economic globalisation - meaning greater openness of trade, free movement of capital, expansion of foreign direct investment - which is the focus because it is, in Wolf's view, the key to boosting prosperity and the life opportunities of all...

There are many ways of conceiving and categorising the global challenges that we face. Jean-François Rischard, vice-president for Europe of the World Bank, usefully thinks of them as forming a triumvirate of problems, concerned with sharing our planet (global warming, water deficits, biodiversity and ecosystem losses), our humanity (poverty, global infectious diseases, conflict prevention), and our rulebook (intellectual property rights, unsustainable debt, trade, finance and tax rules). Wolf seems to think that global challenges such as these can be addressed by the current interstate order, even if it does require reform (notably in relation to the IMF and the WTO). But how urgent global problems might be resolved is far from clear, for the problem-solving capacity of the international system is not effective, accountable or fast enough...

Underlying these institutional difficulties is a lack of symmetry or congruence between decision-makers and decision-takers. The point has been well articulated recently by Inge Kaul and her associates at the UNDP in their work on global public goods and what they term the "forgotten principle of equivalence." At its simplest, the principle suggests that those who are significantly affected by a global development, good or bad, should have a say in its provision or regulation. Yet all too often there is a breakdown of "equivalence" between decision-makers and decision-takers. For example, a decision to permit the "harvesting" of rainforests may contribute to ecological damage far beyond the borders which formally limit the responsibility of a given set of decision-makers. A decision to build a nuclear plant near the frontiers of a neighbouring country is likely to be taken without consulting that country, despite the risks for it.

Systematising the provision of global public goods requires extending and reshaping multilateral institutions. Pressing issues include the need to develop criteria for fair international negotiations; strengthen the negotiating capacity of developing countries; create advisory scientific panels for major global issues (following the example of the intergovernmental panel on climate change); create negotiating arenas for new priority issues (such as access to water), together with appropriate grievance panels (such as a world water court); and expand the remit of the UN security council to examine and, where necessary, intervene in the full gambit of human crises - physical, social, biological, environmental.

Prospect
"Global Left Turn"
David Held
January 2005, Issue 106

Available at:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=6584&AuthKey=
a136431f334426762d972a761bd10a0f&issue=499

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