Underskog

Key note speech:
Paul Collier: “Falling behind and falling apart” – is there hope for the bottom billion?
Implications for Norwegian development – and foreign policy”

Panel:Erik Solheim (Minister of Development Cooperation), Morten Høglund (Member of Parliament, Fremskrittspartiet), Benedicte Bull (Senior Researcher Fellow, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo), and Ane Schjolden (Adviser, ForUM).
Chair: Eva Bratholm, Norad

Norwegian development minister Erik Solheim has invited Paul Collier, Director for Center for the Study of African Economics at Oxford University, to expose the Norwegian government and the broader public to Collier’s message and his challenges to governments and international organisations. Paul Collier has written a widely acclaimed book on “The Bottom Billion – Why the poor countries are failing and what can be done about it”.

Collier claims that the real crises lies in a group of 58 failing states, the bottom billion, which poses the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century.
Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. Collier argues that standard solutions do not work against these traps; aid is often ineffective and globalisation can actually make things worse.