No. 21 - December 2011

Global Public Policy Institute Newsletter

Happy holidays from GPPi!

Stiftung Mercator and GPPi are now accepting applications for the Zukunftsbrücke: Chinese-German Young Professional Campus. This new program will provide a platform for exchange between outstanding young professionals in China and Germany. Initiated by Stiftung Mercator in cooperation with the All-China Youth Federation, and organized by GPPi and Peking University, the program will bring together 15 participants (ages 28-38) for a 10-day seminar in Beijing and Chongqing in May 2012. This year's program is titled Toward a Low Carbon Economy: Sustainable Urban Development in China and Germany in the 21st Century. The seminar will be co-led by Ambassador Michael Schaefer and Caio Koch-Weser and include speakers such as Markus Ederer, Wolfgang Ischinger, Christoph Stark and Klaus Töpfer (in addition to prominent Chinese speakers). Apply by 15 January 2012.

GPPi (alongside partners Fudan University, Tsinghua University, the Brookings Institution, the Woodrow Wilson School and the Hertie School of Governance) also welcomes applications for Global Governance 2022, or GG2022, which seeks 24 young leaders with the ambition and imagination to shape the future of global governance. Between August 2012 and May 2013, GG2022 will assemble 24 fellows – eight each from Germany, China and the United States – for three dialogue sessions in Berlin, Beijing and Washington, DC. The program builds on the GG2020 program, and we are happy to have the Robert Bosch Foundation and the Transatlantic Program of the German Government as funders. Apply by 19 February 2012.

In other news, Routledge will release in late December 2011 a new book by GPPi and Cornell University, titled Uniting on Food Assistance: The Case for Transatlantic Policy Convergence. In addition, the 2011 GPPi book The New World of UN Peace Operations: Learning to Build Peace? has seen launch events in Beijing, Berlin, Cambridge (Massachusetts), New York City, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Washington, DC.

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Topic 1: Afghanistan

Bargaining Over US bases: Will They Stay or Will They Go?
By Kate Clark, 12 December 2011, Afghanistan Analysts Network
US intentions in Afghanistan after 2014 are again in the news. On the Afghan side, both Karzai and the Taliban appear to believe the US is desperate to stay in Afghanistan and that having military bases on Afghan soil are a core strategic interest. But is it possible the US might just walk away?

Quid Pro Go
By James Traub, Foreign Policy, 9 December 2011
Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai wants billions of Western dollars in aid for decades to come. That’s fine, argues James Traub, but only if Karzai promises to retire from politics before the 2014 election.

The Elephants in the Room at Bonn
By Scott Worden, Foreign Policy, 3 December 2011
The downplaying of expectations about the Bonn conference was appropriate, given the recent setbacks to the peace process. But this changed set of goals does not diminish the need for both an honest assessment of how the 2001 Bonn Agreement has fared for Afghanistan and a path toward a political settlement that would address its deficiencies.

Topic 2: Busan forum on aid effectiveness

Busan Has Been an Expression of Shifting Geopolitical Realities
By Jonathan Glennie, Poverty Matters Blog, The Guardian, 2 December 2011
The role of the BRIC countries has been critical in forging a "new global partnership" at the aid effectiveness forum in South Korea. We'll have to wait to see what this means for the world's poor.

Aid Alert: China Officially Joins the Donor Club
By Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development blog, 5 December 2011
Aid insiders are likely to remember the Busan conference for one big reason: China actually and formally acknowledged in Busan that it is an official donor.

Commentary: World Forum in Korea Aims to Improve Aid
By Ben Barber, McClatchy Newspapers, 5 December 2011
As in three previous such meetings held since 1998, the forum on aid effectiveness stumbled on deciding who speaks for the poor, will rich donors or poor recipients decide what kind of aid to get, will newly-rich third world donor countries such as China accept the new rules, and will poverty ever be conquered.