Earlier this month, Obama began taking the first small yet significant steps to implementing a different relationship with the island by signing new measures into law. These new measures will allow Cuban-Americans to send more money to family members and travel more freely between the U.S. and Cuba.

Since 2004, travel to Cuba under the Bush administration was limited to once every three years for Cuban-Americans, with visits limited to only nuclear family and no longer than 14 days. Remittances were also only allowed to be sent to nuclear family and limited to $300 every three months.

In contrast, the new measures under Obama remove all restrictions on the amount and frequency of remittances and travel to the island. The changes also make it easier for telecommunications companies to do business in Cuba, which would allow quicker and easier access to the Internet for Cubans.

Cuba has been receptive to these changes. Raúl Castro has unexpectedly and publicly declared that Cuba is ready to "discuss everything" with the U.S. There are still no official plans for future talks between the two countries. Until then, the question remains of whether or not these measures will help to significantly alleviate poverty in Cuba and improve people's standard of living.

In Cuba, the mood among citizens ranges from cautiously optimistic to skeptical. An article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch profiles Cuban citizens like Ivan, a computer programmer, who expresses hope that Obama will bring about a much needed change. "Obama, to Cuban people, is our, how do you say, our hope," Ivan says. "We believe he wants to lift restrictions on Cuba. To Cubans, he is a very good presidente."

For the most part, the Cuban-American community has reacted with enthusiasm to the new measures. The Cuban American National Foundation, the leading organization for Cuban exiles in Miami, has expressed its support for a new course in U.S.-Cuba policy, calling for "a break from the past" that would "chart a new direction."

In Little Havana, a strongly Cuban neighborhood in Miami, residents seemed to welcome change in U.S.-Cuba relations. "It is stupid to have no relationship with Cuba," said a middle-aged man, identifying himself only as Alex. "It didn't work for 50 years... The way the system will change is by having a relationship."

In a country where the average salary is $20 a month, the ability to receive money from relatives abroad is likely to become an economic lifeline for thousands of people. However, with U.S. economic sanctions still in place, BBC correspondent Michael Voss thinks the remittances will have little effect:

It will give more spending power, it will allow people to buy mobile phones, possibly, you know, have a slightly better standard of living. But in terms of kick-starting the economy, I don’t think we’re going to see that at all.

Nevertheless, with Cuba's poverty level as one of the lowest in the developing world, even small improvements could make a noticeable difference. With the Obama administration now planning informal meetings with Cuban diplomats, hopefully any future change in U.S.-Cuban policy will make the Cuban people its central focus.

It's been six years since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In recent months, stability has improved, but the gains will unravel unless progress is made toward strengthening the economy.

The financial crisis and lower-than-expected oil prices have changed things considerably for the Iraqi government. Last month, parliament made big cuts, revising the budget from $79 million to just $58.9 billion.

A major portion of this budget was supposed to be allocated toward rebuilding the infrastructure that has been devastated during the past six years. The New York Times reports that infrastructure projects are being put off, including the cancellation of a $600 million General Electric contract to lay electric cables and upgrade switches to allow the grid to increase electricity output.

Unemployment is also a big issue. A UN report released in February shows that unemployment is estimated to be around 18 percent. An additional 10 percent are underemployed, working part-time.

Adding to the frustration of locals, the government hasn't been able to meet basic needs like providing safe drinking water, electricity and education. The Iraqi Environment Ministry estimates that 36 percent of Baghdad's drinking water is unsafe as raw sewage, which still runs down Baghdad streets, mixes with drinking water. Furthermore, the demand for electricity still exceeds supply.

People expected things to go differently. Just last year, the Iraqi government was flush with cash. Record high oil prices prompted the government to offer big raises to employees. Now the shortfall has left the Iraqi government struggling to pay salaries for government employees and hundreds of thousands of new security troops.

But a shaky Iraq could force the Obama administration to adjust their plans. The Times points out that unless the economy strengthens and security gains continue, President Obama's timetable to withdraw troops could be delayed.

A stable Iraqi economy and an adequately prepared Iraqi military are crucial if American combat troops are to withdraw by August 2010, as aides to President Obama suggested this week. And illustrating just how closely the two countries are still intertwined, a faltering Iraq could also complicate Mr. Obama’s plan to lower the American deficit with billions in savings that would come from such a withdrawal.

Although the progress on the security front has given in a sense of normalcy, but the financial crisis has made it even more urgent for the government to develop a long-term strategy for stabilizing the economy, creating jobs, attracting foreign investment, which will ultimately mean prosperity for the Iraqi people.

According to Hazim al-Nuaimi, a political analyst in Baghdad, “The only thing that has changed is that now there's a light at the end of the tunnel. But it seems six years is not enough to be able to reach that light.”

A call center in India. New U.S. policies against outsourcing jobs overseas will hurt India's IT sector the most. Photo: David Robinson (flickr)

In spite of the global recession's painful effects on most of the world's economies, India has managed to stay stable. The country even expects its economy to grow by 5 percent this year. However, this prediction came before President Obama announced that his administration would be cutting tax breaks and refusing bailout money for companies outsourcing jobs overseas.

Rising unemployment in the U.S. has renewed the political and economic debate over shipping jobs abroad. More than 1,000 U.S. firms that have outsourced jobs abroad are being criticized for taking jobs away from Americans. Countries like India — which gets more than 60 percent of its outsourcing work from U.S. businesses — will likely be hit the hardest by the Obama administration’s protectionist approach to reviving the U.S. economy.

President Obama also announced a hiring ban on foreign workers for companies receiving federal bailout money. Of the 65,000 H1-B work visas that the U.S. issues annually, 21,667 have been for Indian citizens who mostly join the information technology industry. These non-immigrant visas are granted to educated and skilled foreign workers.

But the U.S. is not alone in adopting policies against outsourcing jobs and limiting foreign workers. In Persian Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates, millions of Indians who are employed in the construction and banking industries have been laid off and forced to return home. In the United Kingdom — where Indians are one of the most prevalent immigrant groups — the government has announced plans to potentially limit foreign workers to sectors of the economy that have documented labor shortages.

New policies against hiring foreign workers in the U.S. may have a long-term impact that policymakers are not anticipating, according to a study by Duke and Harvard researchers. With increased job opportunities in places like India and China, more than 100,000 foreign workers could leave the U.S. for jobs in their home countries. The study found that many Indian professionals in Silicon Valley have already left, and predicts many more will leave to start businesses in India.

This is bad news for the long-term economic recovery of the U.S. because nearly half of Silicon Valley start-ups, including Google, were started by immigrants, the lead Harvard researcher tells BusinessWeek. This long-term “brain drain” will mean that “when we start recovering ... the people we need are going to be in India and China,” according to the researcher, Vivek Wadhwa.

The U.S. has historically welcomed immigrants and their innovative ideas. A reversal of policy could prove to be very harmful — hurting economic growth and limiting the expansion of key industries.

Photo: BBC World Service (flickr)

Recently, decades of climate change warnings seem to have gained traction in political circles. Long-overdue conversation about the environment is finally underway; but is political will enough to enact environmental legislation in the face of a full-fledged economic crisis?

California is seen as one of the U.S.’s environmental leaders, having been one of the first states to pass a cap-and-trade model requiring businesses to cut carbon dioxide emissions to a certain level or pay fees if they generate more than the limit. But resistance to these efforts has increased as the economy declines, with some of California’s businesses and manufacturers saying that they are unable to afford the costs of the new legislation. According to state budget analysts, the up-front costs of this legislation are more than $30 billion, which outpace any initial savings generated from the law. These same state officials claim that, by 2020, a yearly savings of $40 billion will more than make up for this initial cost. Other analysts have openly derided these figures, however, calling them “unrealistic,” and maintaining that costs will be far higher than the forecasted estimates.

The U.S. isn’t the only country that is wrestling with this problem. Low-income countries are also wondering if their environmental efforts will be cut short due to global economic woes. In Bangladesh, a country vulnerable to global warming-induced natural disasters, the government is developing an ambitious plan to protect the country from rising sea levels, cyclones, and droughts. Estimated costs for this plan are $5 billion for the first five years, with a good chunk of the funding coming from international donors. Now, faced with economic uncertainty in their own countries, it’s not clear that donors will come through with funds to support these efforts.

Stopping or undoing environmental damage is an expensive prospect, with large upfront costs and no definitive reassurance that initial investments will pay off quickly. With daily reminders of the global economic slowdown, nearly every country is exercising more caution in choosing their investments. As a result, it’s uncertain whether local, national and international communities will be able to keep in mind that the long-term benefits of prompt environmental action surely outweigh the short-term costs. With scientists issuing dire warnings about global warming-related “floods, drought, disease and extreme weather,” ignoring these predictions is too risky a gamble to make.

"Buy American." Photo: Wedingo (flickr)

The controversial "buy American" provision in the economic stimulus packages has added fuel to the firey protectionism debate and has the power to hurt Americans and the world alike.

The "buy American" provision requires all public works projects funded under the recently passed stimulus to use only American steel, iron, and manufactured goods. The clause also changes how the government awards contracts for these projects. Normally, contracts are given any company that can do the best job for the lowest price. But under the new clause, an American company will be awarded the contract if their bid is less than 25 percent higher than foreign companies.

What does all this mean? It means goods from countries like China, India, and 100 other developing countries cannot be used in infrastructure projects funded by the stimulus. Burton G. Malkiel, a professor of economics at the Princeton University, explains to China View why in the past "buy American" has resulted in a reduction in trade for the U.S. and the rest of the world:

In 1930, just as the world economy was sinking, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which essentially shut off imports into the U.S., he recalled. "Our trading partners retaliated, and world trade plummeted," said Malkiel. "Most economic historians now conclude that the tariff contributed importantly to the severity of the world-wide Great Depression...Later, as one of his last acts, President Herbert Hoover made the situation even worse by signing a 'Buy America Act' requiring all federal government projects to use American materials."

British Prime Minister Gordan Brown joined the chorus, urging against the "buy American," arguing that:

The thing we know about protectionism is in the end it protects nobody, least of all the poor.... It would be short-sighted at this time to renege on promises we've made to the poor.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and numerous heads of state have come out in protest against the clause. Brazil is even planning to challenge the clause at the World Trade Organization.

Protectionism during recessions has been known as "beggar thy neighbor" policy, because in trying to protect ourselves we hurt others. In other words, if one country puts up trade barriers, their policies hurt their neighbors, which can prompt these neighboring countries to adopt the same harmful barriers. We are all a part of the global economic crisis, we can't get out of it alone. The New York Times Op-ed columnist Douglas Irwin explains why "buy American" could harm the U.S. economy in the future:

American manufacturers have ample capacity to fill the new orders that will come as a result of the fiscal stimulus [...other countries are] right to be concerned. Once we get through the current economic mess, China, India and other countries are likely to continue their large investments in building projects. If such countries also adopt our preferences for domestic producers, then America will be at a competitive disadvantage in bidding for those contracts.

President Obama made an important anti-protectionist statement yesterday while in Canada — assuring America's largest trading partner that despite his critiques of Nafta while on the campaign trail, the Obama administration plans to "enhance" trade, rather than create barriers between the the two countries.

Now is a time where we've got to be very careful about any signals of protectionism, because as the economy of the world contracts, I think there's going to be a strong impulse, on the part of constituencies in all countries, to see if they can engage in beggar-thy-neighbor policies.

Obama took the opportunity to reiterate his pledge to revamp Nafta side agreements to include environmental and labor protections, stating:

My hope is that as our advisers and staffs and economic teams work this through, that there's a way of doing this that is not disruptive to the extraordinarily important trade relationships that exist between the United States and Canada.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu sees hope for Africa with Obama's Presidency. Photo: Joshua Wanyama (flickr)

Since the beginning of the presidential election, President Obama has always had tremendous support from African nations because of his Kenyan roots. An interview done by the Atlantic Online with Nobel Peace Prize laureate and humanitarian Archbishop Desmond Tutu may help understand why Africans have rallied support for a candidate who may have similar heritage, but has never lived in their continent.

During your speech just now, you spoke elatedly about the upcoming Obama era. What special significance does his presidency have for Africans?

"We have a new spring in our walk. In Africa, we keep having to find things that say, “Yes, we can!” And his victory has said, “Yes, we can!”, even in Africa. We believe that he can make more accountable the leaders, especially in Africa. Because he can be rough with them in a way that Bush, or any other Caucasian, could not have been. They won’t be able to say, “Oh, no, this is neocolonialism,” when they’re referring to someone who is part Kenyan. So I hope he uses that particular clout.

The other side of it is that one hopes so very much that he will be able to make Africa be taken a little more seriously. And perhaps he will even increase aid to Africa, remembering his African roots. But it is so important that he couples that with saying, “We have zero tolerance for unaccountable government.”

Tutu also says that in Obama's dignity, patience and inclusiveness, he sees "the African in him." Read the full interview here.

As the world's euphoria following Barack Obama's election fades (watch VOA's Africa coverage above), what can Africa expect from America's first African-American president — especially when it comes to issues of global poverty?

Many Africans are hopeful that Obama will work to vigorously tackle poverty and disease throughout Africa. Former South African President Nelson Mandela echoed those sentiments in a note of congratulations to President-Elect Obama: "We trust that you will also make it the mission of your presidency to combat the scourge of poverty and disease everywhere."

Are those hopes well-founded? Perhaps. President-elect Obama was a key sponsor of The Global Poverty Act which seeks to cut global poverty in half by 2015. After its passage in February of this year, Obama stated:

With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world, global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international community faces. It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking water. As we strive to rebuild America's standing in the world, this important bill will demonstrate our promise and commitment to those in the developing world.

Some humanitarian agencies, like World Vision, are already strongly urging President-Elect Obama presidency to increase foreign assistance, food aid in order to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals.

But will the current global economic crisis limit these commitments to poverty alleviation? During the Vice Presidential debate, Vice President-elect Joe Biden admitted that given the current state of the economy an Obama administration may need to "slow down" their previous commitment to doubling foreign assistance.

Obama isn't talking about poverty alleviation nowadays. He (and everyone else) is focused on the U.S. economy. So despite the world's hopeful outlook, it's still unclear how Africa — and its poor — will benefit from America's first African-American president.

The world is buzzing about the U.S. election results, and Afghanistan — where I'm collecting stories on Mercy Corps projects — is no exception. When we arrived at Mercy Corps' Kunduz office on Election Day, everyone there was quizzing us on the Electoral Vote count, and what states Obama was winning or close to it. In the days since, I've broached the subject with everyone from a group of young hotel employees to a trio of farmers in the hills east of Kunduz. Everyone had something to say about it.

"We hope that he will increase assistance to Afghanistan," said Syeed, a wheat farmer in Burka Province. He and his companions were happy about Obama's pledge of financial support to their country. "We will support anyone who says they will bring that kind of help to our country."

Many Afghans were elated about Obama's Muslim heritage, even if Obama himself is a Christian. "Simply having those roots in his family is big for us," said Enyatullah, one of our waiters at a Kunduz hotel. "Our religion has been seen as so terrible in the United States."

I was sure I'd hear at least some concern about Obama's pledge to send more U.S. troops to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Surprisingly, though, that's one of the reasons people said they were thrilled with Obama's election. Amanullah Amin, a civil engineer I spoke to, was convinced that Obama "will attack the roots of terror in the country. There is a saying here: If you want a clean river, don't go to the middle, don't go to the end — go to the source."

We were driving through the desert Wednesday morning while Obama spoke in Chicago's Grant Park, but Miguel and I watched the replay on CNN that night in our Kunduz hotel room. Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

The October 18 issue of the Economist. Photo: The Economist

The credit and financial crisis that has engulfed the world has created a firestorm of comment about capitalism and free markets.

The cover of the October 18th issue of the Economist proclaims, "Capitalism at Bay." The lead editorial quotes French President Nicolas Sarkozy declaring: "Laissez-faire is finished."

If he is correct, what does that mean to Global Envision? We are founded on the belief that markets provide an important way for the poor to work their way out of poverty. Mercy Corps, our parent organization, is similarly oriented, boasting "community-led and market-driven" programs. The fate of capitalism impacts the world — especially its poorest residents.

Sarkozy tends to make conflicting statements — in the same speech that he declared laissez-faire was finished he also said “capitalism is the system that has enabled the extraordinary development of western civilization” — so I suggest we not take the current European Union president too literally.

Markets, in fact, have impacted the entire world, not just in the West. As the Economist points out, "In fact, far from failing, the overall lowering of 'barriers to intercourse' over the past 25 years has delivered wealth and freedom on a dramatic scale. Hundreds of millions of people have been dragged out of absolute poverty. "

If the result of the credit crisis is a retreat from the market economy, it will be a very sad result. “This is a difficult time to defend free markets," opines the Financial Times. "Nevertheless they must be defended, not only on their matchless record when it comes to raising living standards, but on the maxim that it is wise to let adults exercise their own judgment.”

On this last point: Some of the judgment exercised in the credit crisis has been so poor that even those of us who favor free markets are ready to consider some degree of credit-market oversight going forward.

To what extent the U.S. is willing to fight for freer markets will depend largely on the policies of President-elect Barack Obama.

His campaign position on trade, at least, is a worry. His emphasis has varied over the last 20 months, but a protectionist position — as some of his supporters will undoubtedly push for — it would be sad not only for America but for the world's poor. My guess — and my hope — is that he'll focus on making trade more friendly to the environment and to workers, but not create barriers to trade. He's also likely to create programs to retrain those whose jobs are shipped overseas. This is important. People do lose jobs because of trade agreements (although more new jobs are created by them than are lost).

Companies like General Electric and Caterpillar are already lobbying the yet-to-be formed Obama administration to resist calls for greater protectionism.

"When people are afraid, they want to create barriers to trade,'' GE Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt said in an Oct. 27 speech at Columbia University in New York. "It would be a real crime, I think, if we allowed the current economic volatility to make us move backward in globalization.''

Mary O'Grady and OpinionJournal.com discuss the historical impact of trade barriers on Latin America and if the expansion of free trade will continue in Latin America under Barack Obama or John McCain.

Watch the video from The Wall Street Journal.