IPD’s Africa Task Force focuses on the special challenges facing economic development and poverty in Africa after the continent’s disappointing economic performance over the past quarter century. Many policies that have been implemented in Africa have patently failed.

Despite a lack of evidence, capital market liberalization was pushed forward by the IMF during the 1980s and 1990s as a means of stimulating economic growth in developing countries. The Asian economic crisis and the recent global financial crisis of 2008-2009 illustrated the importance of understanding the deeper role of capital market liberalization in the globalization debate.

China is entering a critical phase in its move to a market economy, in which it will establish the basic institutional foundations of a market economy, including legal frameworks that will govern property rights, competition, corporate governance, intellectual property, bankruptcy, and contracts. Ongoing debates and discussions will have a major effect in determining the kind of market economy into which China will evolve.

IPD’s Climate Change Task Force is dedicated to advancing the discourse on what would constitute the least unfair bargaining equilibrium on a climate change agreement, especially from the perspective of developing countries. In the past, self-interest and vested interest politics have often dominated the discussions of climate change, with little opportunity for a reasoned discourse based on or derived from commonly acceptable ethical principles and notions of economic efficiency. This Task Force brings experts from both developed and developing countries to the table to push the dialogue on a climate change agreement forward.

The economies of China and Latin America have become pillars of growth in today’s global economy. China’s lending to Latin America has reached $100 billion between 2005 and 2013. Now a key player in Latin America both in terms of trade and loan provision, China faces increasing challenges that are specific to the region’s political and economic situation.

IPD’s Poverty Task Force seeks to analyze the effects of economic policies on poverty, and examine alternative policies to promote poverty reduction. Poverty concerns are intertwined with virtually every aspect of development, however this project focuses on the impact of trade liberalization on the poor, the effect of commodity price volatility on the rural poor who produce export crops, the sequencing of reforms and the areas in which sequencing errors are likely to have a serious poverty impact, and the effect of different institutional frameworks on poverty.