The global economic crisis of 2008-2009 exposed systemic failings at the core of economic policymaking worldwide. The crisis came on top of several other crises, including skyrocketing and highly volatile world food and energy prices and climate change. This book argues that new policy approaches are needed to address such devastating global development challenges and to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences to livelihoods worldwide that are likely to result from present approaches. The contributors to the book are independent development experts brought together to identify a development strategy capable of promoting a broad-based economic recovery and at the same time guaranteeing social equity and environmental sustainability both within countries and internationally. This new development approach seeks to promote the reforms needed to improve global governance, providing a more equitable distribution of global public goods.

This book assesses feasible financing strategies for policymakers to follow in pursuance of human development, taking as reference the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and their achievement by 2015. These strategies are analyzed in the context of broader concerns of economic development with special reference to nine countries from Africa, Asia and the Middle East; that is, how to make macroeconomic policies support more effectively sustained growth while reducing widespread poverty and inequalities and other human development gaps in low- and middle-income countries, especially in times of global economic crises or external shocks. In this sense, this book adds new evidence regarding the social deficits in these countries and suggests policy options to overcome them.