This paper examines the impacts that luxurious perks for delegates, such as paid daily allowances, have on peace talks. Drawing on the Burundian peace processes held in Arusha in Tanzania and the Seventh Round of the Inter-Sudanese Peace Talks held in Abuja in Nigeria, shows that perks can unintentionally prolong peace talks.

The port structure of the Caribbean has been heavily influenced by global change over the last 200 years. The historical context — colonialism, piracy and slavery — meant that ports were originally designed to serve colonial interests. The advent of containerization and globalization have dramatically changed cargo shipping, while at the same time, cruise tourism has increased significantly — the Caribbean accounts for 50 percent of the global market — which means that cargo and cruise ships now compete for limited berth space.

A lack of strategic direction and political agreement in security sector reform (SSR) in Afghanistan is an ongoing struggle. This issue paper focuses on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, in addition to police and army reform.

International organizations and major aid donors have increasingly become more involved in the efforts to reform the security and justice institutions in developing countries over the past 20 years. This SSR Issue Paper focuses on the size of external support for SSR activities, showing that agencies often discuss the effectiveness of SSR programming without the benefit of a comprehensive system for tracking SSR assistance. It examines the information that is often used to demonstrate how international support for SSR has increased — and discusses why such data is both incomplete and faulty given the context of how it is collected.

The independence of the European Central Bank (ECB), seemingly guaranteed by its statutes, is presently under attack. The ECB has been led to acquire large amounts of government debt of the weaker euro zone members, both to help contain their interest costs and to help protect the solvency of banks throughout the zone that hold their debt. This paper presents a model of a dependent central bank that internalizes the government’s budget constraint. Using a Barro-Gordon framework, the model embodies both the desire to stimulate output and to provide monetary financing to governments. The model implies that not only shock asymmetries, but also fiscal asymmetries, are important in the membership calculus of desirable monetary unions. On the basis of this framework, calibrated to euro zone data, the current membership is shown not to be optimal: other members would benefit from the expulsion of several countries, notably Greece, Italy and France.

Growth in the Caribbean region has been on a downward trajectory for two decades. The region is showing dangerous signs of sinking under the weight of excessive introspection — the real debate concerns how to enable change. The Caribbean is not globally competitive, but dependent. The cost of living is high, ratcheted up by inefficient ports, monopolistic transport markets, high fees and taxes. The appearance of “openness” in trade and finance hides protectionism. The economic framework in the Caribbean is shaped by the political structure, making it difficult for governments to alter the economic structure — where state employment tends to be high, few political parties will risk the wrath of public sector workers. Real change has not been undertaken because the current situation in the Caribbean suits the people with influence.

The background paper for the CIGI conference “An Unfinished House: Filling the Gaps in International Governance” provides a useful collection of facts and observations about the universe of global governance arrangements. It offers a preliminary description of the critical gaps and inadequacies — to assist in thinking about the principal dilemmas and research priorities.

The international mission to reconstruct Afghanistan may be the most ambitious state-building exercise ever undertaken. Among the least developed on Earth, the country has been the focus of tremendous international political will, copious development assistance and, at least since 2009, overwhelming military power. This paper proposes the establishment of a triple compact, involving the international community and the government of Afghanistan, the government and the people of Afghanistan, and the international community and the Afghan people.