CFR Senior Fellow Isobel Coleman speaks with Boris Weber, director of ICT4Gov at the World Bank Institute, on how technology is being leveraged to promote good governance and increased transparency in fragile states and emerging markets.
Though investment in entrepreneurs is not a silver bullet for development, economic growth and job creation stimulated by small and medium-sized enterprises can foster stability and help curb conflict in fragile states. Comprehensive programs that help SMEs increase their access to finance, markets, networks, and skills should be offered as part of a package of services to best leverage the efforts now under way to promote entrepreneurship.
The April 2012 update of the U.S. Department of Defense's "Report on Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan" covers the period from October 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012.
Hernando de Soto, President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, which advises heads of state and governments worldwide; Author, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World and The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Presider
Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow and Director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations
In his new book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, Daron Acemoglu looks at why some nations prosper and why some fail. He concludes that it depends on whether institutions are pluralistic and inclusive or extractive and autocratic.
Isobel Coleman, Ed Husain, and Michael Willis discuss the relationship between Islam and politics following the Arab uprisings, including how Islam affects women's and minority rights, democracy, and secularism.
This session was part of a CFR symposium, Implications of the Arab Uprisings, which was made possible by the generous support of Rita E. Hauser, and organized in cooperation with University of Oxford's St. Antony's College.
When faced with a rising tide of violence, largely caused by their own policy mistakes, the U.S. occupation embarked on the reconstitution of an Iraqi military. The resultant Iraqi security forces, under the control of Nuri al-Maliki, are today on their way to occupying the same role as the armed forces of the Ba'athist regime, writes Toby Dodge.
Steven A. Cook describes the stakes of the debates raging within Egypt to define what the nation stands for and how it will be run after the Mubarak regime.
Terra Lawson-Remer argues that three factors will determine whether the renewed national dialogue ignited by the Wall Street occupations will result in substantive changes that have a meaningful impact on peoples' lives.
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) issued this quarterly report in October 2011; it covers the period of July-September 2011.
The declaration of the Istanbul Process on Regional Security and Cooperation for a Secure and Stable Afghanistan was adopted on November 2, 2011 at the Istanbul Conference on Afghanistan. The declaration was agreed to by Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and the United Arab Emirates.
The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.
The author analyzes the potentially serious consequences, both at home and abroad, of a lightly overseen drone program and makes recommendations for improving its governance.
