Photo: Geoff Oliver Bugbee for Mercy Corps

A few months ago, I wrote about a team of journalists reporting on water issues and conflict in Kenya and Ethiopia, where a tremendous drought is spreading across the region. Pastoralists — herders whose livelihoods depend on the animals they breed and tend — are running out of water and pasture land. As a result, they are crossing borders and traditional tribal boundaries in pursuit of water. This search for scarce resources is leading to tensions, as The East African Standard reports from Nairobi:

"There is already a build-up of inter and intra clan tensions over water and pasture," says the DO [District Officer]. In fact, he says, they have had to quell inter clan clashes at Sake, with the assistance of elders. Those far away from the Ethiopian border have been left at the mercy of nature, the Government and development agencies, to provide water.

In Ethiopia, the reporting team created a film that compellingly illustrates the oncoming crisis. “Pastoralists are more vulnerable to drought than they were 40 years ago," the film tells us. "Researchers predict that they will be some of the first people on Earth forced to abandon their way of life due to climate change.”

Previous posts have examined how private enterprise can fight poverty through "creative capitalism" and corporate social responsibility. But one old idea made the rounds this week, albeit with a new spin: helping the poor by taxing global financial transactions.

The plan, proposed by Stephan Schulmeister of Austria's Institute of Economic Research, would tax global financial transactions — such as stock trades — at a rate of around one-hundredth of a percentage point. Even at this miniscule rate, Schulmeister estimates that such a global micro-tax could bring in revenue of up to $230 billion a year. Theoretically, this money would be used to finance development aid and projects aimed at helping the poorest cope with problems like climate change and rising food prices.

But the idea is not without its critics. Research from the World Bank notes that while the basic philosophy behind such taxes is economically sound, determining how to redistribute the revenue is likely to be politically problematic. An essay on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's website also wonders whether micro-taxes are administratively feasible or whether political leaders would actually use the tax revenue for development.