Add in tort reform to make sure the gains from fraud are preserved against any penalties to ensure fraud's survivability.
Yes, big pharma spends $1B a year/ blockbuster drug to grease US beaurocrats and third world thug pols. Why would big pharma want to be reckless and spend any money whatsoever on third world research (which probably would not pass regulations anyways) when the same drugs can be cheaply studied in a broad sample in Europe and virtually every other developed region... and with less legal repercussions?
You need to check in where the walk is being done. The issue is leadership and tech xfer. The documentation you are looking for is in the form of BP's and filed successful completed responses to RFP's from private 501 (c) 3's but think of the international equivalent. Two examples are MR from 1968 on and EWB more recently.
Below you find an interview with the UN guy behind the Millennium Goals, you might find it interesting because it relates to development aid and helping the third world (a leftist view, but some good points made). Noreena is in there too, being pretty useless. The UN guy is interesting though. Click the link below and select "Deel II" in the right column (not " Deel I" ) then select the stream. It's in English, Dutch subtitles. http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/24214614/
I will pick up the Noreena book this evening. I have this crazy idea that the people in charge of the UNDP and other such programs should not be overly concerned with consensus building or exotic cultures in these developing third world countries. The exception would be in areas with a strong tradition of religious fundamentalism and military rule. Reasons: we are moving towards a universal culture and we are all going to be brown 150 years from now. So basically it would be pragmatic to embrace McDonalds/Walmart/MTV etc. as soon as possible. Huntington's Clash of Cultures is supposed to be a good book on this topic, but I have not read it yet. It is kind of crazy to think how undiverse the world could be in 200 years.
Companies don't manufacture in Africa for a variety of reasons. A lot of people not familiar with outsourcing/offshoring look at it from a 100% shipping/labor costs. Low socio-economic status Asians tends to have a particular mentality (IMHO) and worth ethic that is EXCELLENT for labor-output. Mexican factories have geographic advantage, time zone advantage, shipping costs advantage, amongst other, BUT are still loosing out to Chinese/Vietnamese factories due to worker output efficiency. From what I understand about Africa, worker efficiency is quite low, along with violence towards management - i.e not worth it, YET. In my line of work we currently have setup shop in China, and I like to think of ourselves as being on the cutting edge of outsourcing, and China is now old-hat. RMB revalue plus WTO intervention has pushed a lot of people into Vietnam looking for cheaper costs. Look for them to be up-and coming as a manufactuering center for certain products requiring extra WTO tax as China becomes more developed. I am quite interested in sustainable development myself. It is not a book, but a African based company called approtec, they just changes it to a new name though: http://kickstart.org/home Their micro-irrigation (basically a foot-powered water pump) is a PHENOMENAL idea, and aims to help bring farmers from subsistence living to small level commercial farms, employing more people, bring in profit, etc etc. Quite simple, but quite revolutionary in my opinion. They are attempting to end the cycle of handouts and help Africa prop itself up by fostering technologies to help them grow their own economy.
To the original post on free markets, poverty, I liked the book The Mystery of Capital - maybe because it deals with property rights and what "capital" really is. There is an excellent and irreverent economic history in The Creature From Jekyll Island. A great book on the 20s is Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen. Funny how a lot of what we fight over here in ET - socialism, corporate misconduct, regulation, free markets, role of public policy has been argued for generations. Europeans and probably everyone else fights about it too: http://www.cer.org.uk/articles/43_barysch.html (I read, but do not comprehend, her stuff above because the author is gorgeous.) Globalism is the subject of this huge site which looks small at first glance: http://www.theglobalist.com/ The more I read or listen to about all these problems, the more elusive or complicated the answers seem. Some of what appealed to me about the movie, set in Africa, I mentioned above was the repeated use of phrases like "nothing will change it" or "they will die anyway" to which the heroes responded, in so many words, "I can change this one case." How the hell else can one person begin if you don't start somewhere and let some kind of ethical or moral compass steer you? I'd like to see America admired a little more for real solutions and doing the right thing instead of being the whipping boy for the cause of all the troubles. That Jekyll Island book was real good on poor nations, debt, and the big lending banks. It's obviously what Bono and Paul O'Neill were looking at on the debt relief issue. Geo.