The Great Debate

-The opinions expressed are the author’s own-

Are economists the world over using an outdated tool to measure economic progress?

The question, long debated, is worth pondering again at a time when two economic giants, the United States and China, are sparring over trade, currency exchange rates and their roles in the global economy.

In the run-up to U.S. mid-term elections on November 2, politicians from both parties, for different reasons, blamed trade with China for American job losses. China responded with irritation and hit back by accusing the U.S. of “out of control” printing of dollars tantamount to an attack on China with imported inflation.

Measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the United States tops the list of countries. China overtook Japan in August to become number two. Depending on whose forecasts you believe, China will overtake the United States in 2020, 2035 or 2040 and therefore turn the 21st century into the long-predicted Chinese Century. It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the United States will play a reduced role on the world stage.

Crystal ball gazers might do well to remember that long-range forecasts have often been wrong in the past. At the turn of the 20th century, eminent strategists predicted that Argentina would be a world power within 20 years. In the late 1980s, Japan was seen as the next economic leader, on the strength of supposedly unstoppable progress. Forecasters extrapolated from past GDP growth rates.

- John Duncan is the United Kingdom Ambassador for Multilateral Arms Control and Disarmament. He comments regularly via Twitter and on his own Blog. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan once remarked that in terms of people killed and injured every day, conventional weapons are the worst weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century.

Monday sees the start of a “Week of Action” to generate support for a new International Arms Trade Treaty, organised by NGO alliance "Control Arms" which brings together Amnesty International, Oxfam and IANSA.

Earlier this month, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argued that Africa needs Western countries to cut long term aid that has brought dependency, distorted economies and fuelled bureaucracy and corruption. The comments on the blog posting suggested that many readers agreed. In a response, Savio Carvalho, Uganda country director for aid agency Oxfam GB, says that aid can help the continent escape poverty - if done in the right way:

In early January, I travelled to war-ravaged northern Uganda to a dusty village in Pobura and Kal parish in Kitgum District. We were there to see the completion of a 16km dirt road constructed by the community with support from Oxfam under an EU-funded programme.

The road is bringing benefits in the form of access to markets, education and health care. Some parents say their daughters feel safer walking to school on the road instead of through the bushes. Many families have used the wages earned from construction work to pay for school fees and medical treatment. This is the impact of aid.