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October 2009 issue

Options for Architectural Reform in European Union Development Cooperation

2009/08 - Overseas Development Institute (ODI), ODI Background Note, Authors: Mikaela Gavas and Simon Maxwell

Abstract:

This Background Note provides the context for a series of decisions that will be taken in the second half of 2009 about the architecture and staffing of the structures of the European Union’s Development Cooperation and explores possible options. It has been prepared as part of the European Development Cooperation Support Programme (EDCSP).

The Background Note sets out possible models for future EU development cooperation, as well as a set of principles for the design of a new European Commission.

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Cultivating success: the need to climate-proof Tanzanian agriculture

International Institute for Environment and Development

Abstract:

All farming is a gamble with nature. The impacts of climate change, however, can pit farmers against impossible odds - particularly in poor, geographically vulnerable nations with largely agrarian economies. Tanzania is one such country. Some 80 per cent of its workforce is in agriculture and, with climate change set to lower yields in key crops, the implications for its economy are serious. Where, how and when climate impacts will hit is key – as is an action plan for averting the highest costs. Policy needs to focus immediately on helping farmers adapt to climate impacts by addressing both food production and marketing efficiencies. This is crucial: Tanzania is a test case for economic impacts predicted throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Replicating this policy approach in other low-income countries is essential if low-carbon growth and other development priorities are to become realities.

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Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) An overview of risks and opportunities for the poor

2009/08 - Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS); Report 2009:21; Author: Mikkel Funder

Abstract:

Deforestation and land use change is estimated to account for 18% of total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Current debates over forestry and climate change mitigation center on the development of a global scheme for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Under such a scheme, countries would be financially compensated for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation through an international forest carbon market and/or fund. This Report provides an overview of the risks and opportunities associated with REDD for the rural poor in developing countries, with a particular emphasis on practical forestry options under REDD in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

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Arid Waste? Reassessing the Value of Dryland Pastoralism

2009/06 - International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), IIED Briefing Paper, Authors: Ced Hesse and James MacGregor

Abstract:

East Africa harbours a huge hidden asset: its millions-strong herds of dryland livestock managed by pastoralists. Governments in the region see pastoralism as archaic and economically inefficient. This briefing reveals a very different picture. Capturing pastoralism's total economic value shows its immense potential to reduce poverty, manage the environment, promote sustainable development and build climate resilience.

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Social Protection to Tackle Child Poverty in Equatorial Guinea

2009/09 - Overseas Development Institute (ODI), ODI Project Briefings 24, Authors: Rebecca Holmes and Eliana Villar

Abstract:

Equatorial Guinea has experienced unprecedented economic transformation in a very short period of time. The country’s rapid economic growth is unparalleled almost anywhere in the world: from one of the world’s poorest countries in the 1970s and 1980s, Equatorial Guinea became the first ever high-income country in sub-Saharan Africa in the 2000s (UNDP, 2007). However, while the country has flourished economically as a result of oil revenues over the past few years, it is dangerously over-dependent on this single non-renewable commodity and has very poor social indicators.

This paper, based on a recent research report on social protection and children in Equatorial Guinea, discusses how the country could develop a social protection system that would help reduce childhood poverty and vulnerability and translate the high rate of economic growth into broader human development.

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Dealing with Uncertainty in Contemporary African Lives

2009/09 - Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), Book, Authors: Liv Haram and C. Bawa Yamba

Abstract:

The articles in ‘Dealing with Uncertainty in Contemporary African Lives’ are based largely on work in Tanzania which has been spared much of the turmoil that elsewhere has uprooted populations and destroyed communities. Nevertheless they illuminate phenomena common throughout sub-Saharan Africa as modernity in its many guises undercuts old certainties, outmodes established knowledge of how to order life and deal with crises, introduces new hazards, and frustrates ambition and expectations. But as the editors, Haram and Yamba, point out, uncertainty and insecurity have a positive side, providing the basis for ‘curiosity and exploration’. The case studies demonstrate both the increasing uncertainty and insecurity of life in contemporary Africa and the ways that people respond, including warding off and reaching out. Scapegoats are sought. Witch beliefs become elaborated as explanations of failures and malaise while witchfinding becomes a lucrative profession. Pentecostal or other fundamentalist churches burgeon as they assure people that life has meaning and better times are before them if only they believe. Suicide and insanity are other possible responses. All in all, a thought-provoking volume. Elizabeth Colson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

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Society for International Development Forum » Editorial 52.3: What Economics Needs to Become

2009/09- Society for International Development (SID); Development Journal: Editorial 52.3; Author: Wendy Harcourt

Abstract:

In a volume on culture and identity it might seem at first somewhat puzzling to have the third issue devoted to ‘Beyond Economics’. Following on from issues on ’sexuality and development’, ‘power, movements, change’ and anticipating ‘xenophobia, culture and identity’ the topic might appear incongruent. When the editorial board was finalizing the themes for Volume 52 in October 2008 the financial crisis in the run up to the United States elections was just hitting the news. What had actually been slated as the third issue was the culture of markets as a way of life that pervaded much of the mainstream development policy.[...]

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The Potential and Limitations of Markets and Payments for Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscape Restoration

2009/08 - Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB), Author: Gert Van Hecken, Johan Bastiaensen

Abstract:

During the last two decades the concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) has gained ever-increasing attention among a wide public of scholars as well as conservation and development practitioners. The main premises of this innovative conservation approach are appealing: private landowners, which in normal circumstances -i.e. in absence of any direct incentives- are poorly or not motivated to protect nature on their land, will do so if they receive direct payments from environmental service (ES) buyers, which at least cover part of the landowners’ opportunity costs of developing the land. In this paper, however, we warn for an overenthusiastic adoption of the PES approach. Based on an extensive literature review and a field study of the Nicaraguan component of the ‘Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Approaches to Ecosystem Management Project’ (RISEMP), one of the main GEF-World Bank funded pioneering pilot projects of PES in Latin America, we argue that the concept still has to deal with several theoretical and practical lacunae. We argue that the concept of PES rests on loose foundations, mainly because of (i) a simplistic view on ES as discrete, quantifiable and marketable entities; (ii) an abstraction of the required landscape approach to conservation and the corresponding collective action precondition; (iii) a simplistic and arbitrary one-sided approach to the externality problem with important implications on the desirability of different policy instruments; (iv) a simplistic perception of socio-institutional reality and negligence of institutional effects on human behaviour and environmental morale; (v) the problematic character of transaction costs and a misleading justification of the approach based on the efficiency criterion; and (vi) a potential continuation of regressive financing of global commons with important fairness and sustainability implications. As such, we argue that the concept of PES could distract the attention for environmental problems away from the more complex underlying causes, which generally require broader locally embedded political action for their solution and not merely market creation. We think more debate about the desirability and conceptual clarity of the PES conservation tool is necessary.

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