Reuters: G8 Off Track on Increased Aid to Africa – Report
Here’s a sneak peek at coverage from this morning’s DATA Report launch. Reuter’s Lesley Wroughten reports.

Financial Times: Italy and France Draw Fire Over Aid
Report coverage from the Financial Times: “A leading development lobby group has condemned Italy and France for failing to meet targets to increase aid to sub-Saharan Africa and called on the G7 and other international organisations to take sanctions against such breaches in future.”

Washington Post: Funding the Fund
The Washington Post Editorial board writes that the global financial crisis has given the IMF a new relevance and it needs the money that President Obama has proposed. As Republicans denounce his proposal as a global bailout, “the fact that support for the IMF helps purchase a public good — global financial stability — gets less frequent mention.” The Post urges that Congress keep the U.S. promise to the IMF.

Wall Street Journal: The Trouble with African Elections
Paul Collier writes that despite the recent increase of presidential elections in Africa, in the absence of supporting institutions elections have proved to be more decorative than functional. He argues that America, and other Western countries that encouraged democracies were right to think that what Africa needed was accountability of government to citizen, but wrong to think that this could be achieved simply by elections.

AP: Report Says Climate Change is Adding to Migration
Global warming is uprooting people from their homes and, left unchecked, could lead to the greatest human migration in history, said a report released at the UN negotiations for a new climate treaty. The potential for huge groups of people fleeing disaster zones or gradually being driven out by increasingly harsh conditions is likely to be part of a global warming agreement under negotiation among 192 countries. A draft text calls on nations to prepare plans to adapt to climate change by accounting for possible migrations. At U.S. insistence, however, the term “climate refugees” will be stricken from the draft text.

Huffington Post Op-Ed: Where Poverty and Culture Intersect
Ivonne A-Baki writes in an op-ed, “we must do a better job of understanding — and respectfully implementing — the role of culture in sustainable economic growth. If the world’s poor are to pull themselves out of extreme poverty and onto the path of development, culture is both a means and ends for doing so.”

-Grace Lamb-Atkinson