Global Governance for Sustainable Development: Major Challenges and Unresolved Issues2009/07 - Report of the conference report launch seminar on 25 March 2009 at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva
Abstract:
The report of the 12th General Conference was officially launched during a public event on 25 March 2009, hosted by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and kindly funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
Janine Rodgers, development economist and editor of the conference report, presented the main findings of the conference. Louka Katseli, EADI Vice-President and member of the Greek parliament, presented a politician’s perspective on key issues for policy-makers, Jean-Louis Arcand, Professor of International Economics and Development Studies at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, presented a researcher’s perspective on major challenges and unresolved issues, and Branislav Gosovic, former Executive Director of the South Centre, presented a civil society’s perspective. The event was chaired by Jean-Luc Maurer, President of EADI and Professor of Development Studies at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. This report summarises the main outcomes of the discussion. More detailed speeches andanalysis can be downloaded from the EADI website at www.eadi.org.
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Morocco’s Local Elections: With a Little Help From My Friend 2009/06 - Fundación CIDOB, Notes Internacionals CIDOB No. 3, Authors: Eva Wegnerand Miquel Pellicer
Abstract:
1st June 2009. The first day of the two weeks of official campaign time Morocco accords to its political parties before elections. The country’s most powerful politician, King Mohammed VI is abroad. He follows the elections – as a sign of his ostensible neutrality – from Paris. The latest regime party, Authenticity and Modernity (PAM), nicely merged in the symbol of the “tractor”, holds it inaugural campaign meeting in a big hall in Casablanca. The party’s leader, Fouad Ali Al Himma, known in Morocco simply as l’ami du roi does not appear in the scene. Allegedly, he is in Paris to meet the King. The audience of the meeting is said to consist mainly of people shuttled in by three busses from the poor neighbourhoods, many hastily dressed up in campaign t-shirts. After the meeting, they have to walk back. (...)
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Women's Political Participation and Influence in Sierra Leone 2009/06 - Fundacion para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Dialogo Exterior (FRIDE); Working Paper No. 83, Author: Clare Castillejo
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The establishment of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on gender equality and the development of the “good governance” agenda have increased international interest in women’s political participation.
Post conflict state-building processes offer an important opportunity to strengthen women’s political participation, developing governance rules, institutions and processes that are inclusive of women, and supporting women to engage in politics. However, in many contexts these opportunities are missed and women’s exclusion is reinforced within newly (re-) constructed political structures.
Sierra Leone presents an interesting case of both the opportunities and challenges in strengthening women’s political participation in contexts of state building. This Working Paper explores the extent to which women in post-conflict Sierra Leone are able to participate in politics, the barriers that they face in doing this, and the outcomes of increased female political participation. It examines the policy framework and international support for women’s participation and makes recommendations on how Sierra Leone’s donors can more effectively support women’s involvement in politics.
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Ethnicity and Party Systems in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa 2009/05 - German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Working Paper No. 100, Authors: Matthias Basedau, Alexander Stroh
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Despite earlier assumptions that ethnicity is a central feature of African party systems, there is little substantial evidence for this claim. The few studies with an empirical foundation rarely rely on individual data and are biased in favor of Anglophone Africa. This paper looks at four Francophone countries, drawing on four representative survey polls in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Multivariate regression models and bivariate control tools reveal that ethnicity matters as a determinant of party preference, but that its impact is generally rather weak and differs with regard to party systems and individual parties. “Ethnic parties” in the strict sense are almost completely absent, and only the Beninese party system is substantially “ethnicized.” In particular, regional ties between voters and leaders—rather than ethnic affiliation alone—deserve attention in the future study of voting behavior in Africa.
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African Diaspora Engagement and Homeland Development 2009/05 - Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS); DIIS Brief, Author: Nauja Kleist
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Diaspora and migrant associations are often praised as new ‘agents of change’ for their contributions to development in their countries of origin. In this new DIIS Brief Nauja Kleist, project senior researcher in the Migration Unit at DIIS, examines Somali and Ghanaian migrant associations in Denmark and their involvement in development. The Brief presents two main conclusions: First, that while migrant associations do contribute to poverty alleviation and the provision of social services in their areas of origin, their contributions are usually based on particular affiliations and primarily focus on the areas of origin of the association. Second, that successful support to development projects via associations requires knowledge of and networks in both the Danish society and the receiving area. The Brief thus emphasizes the importance of local partners and collaboration for transnational development support. However, it also stresses that while migrant associations do make important contributions, they cannot replace larger development processes and actors.
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Inequality in Human Development: An Empirical Assessment of Thirty-Two Countries2009/04 - Institute of Social Studies (ISS); Working Paper No. 471; Authors: Michael Grimm et al.
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One of the most frequent critiques of the HDI is that is does not take into account inequality within countries in its three dimensions. In this paper, we apply a simply approach to compute the three components and the overall HDI for quintiles of the income distribution. This allows a comparison of the level in human development of the poor with the level of the non-poor within countries, but also across countries. This is an application of the method presented in Grimm et al. (2008) to a sample of 21 low and middle income countries and 11 industrialized countries. In particular the inclusion of the industrialized countries, which were not included in the previous work, implies to deal with a number of additional challenges, which we outline in this paper. Our results show that inequality in human development within countries is high, both in developed and industrialized countries. In fact, the HDI of the lowest quintiles in industrialized countries is often below the HDI of the richest quintile in many middle income countries. We also find, however, a strong overall negative correlation between the level of human development and inequality in human development.
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Food price inflation and children’s schooling2009/05 - Institute of Social Studies (ISS); Working Paper No. 472; Author: Michael Grimm
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These days many low income countries are confronted with rapidly rising food prices. This reduces in particular the purchasing power of the poor, given that they generally spend a large part of their income on food. Behind this background the United Nations’ World Food Programme warns of the catastrophic effects of rising food prices on hunger and poverty.
To assess the consequences of excessive food price inflation on household outcomes in poor countries it might be helpful to look at the past, given that most poor countries, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa, are frequently confronted with periods of rising food prices as a result of variations in agricultural production due to climatic shocks.
In the second half of the nineties, Burkina Faso was confronted with such a substantial increase in food prices. This was caused by, among other things, a severe drought which hit the country in 1997/98. Following the drought and a resulting substantial decline in agricultural output, prices of the three main food crops, sorghum, millet and maize increased by more than 40 percent. These food crops account in normal times for about 30 percent of total expenditure (including imputed expenditures for own production) for rural households in the poorest quintile of the expenditure distribution.
[...]
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Does Inequality Harm Income Mobility and Growth? An Assessment of the Growth Impact of Income and Education Inequality in Paraguay 1992-20022009/04 - Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research (IAI), Discussion Paper No. 188, Author: Thomas Otter
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Latin America is the most unequal region of the world in terms of income or expenditure, as well as regarding other aspects of economic or social exclusion. The region suffered the lost decade of the nineteen eighties, and experienced a modest recovery in the nineteen nineties. In the nineteen nineties, most of the governments implemented stabilization politics, more or less close to the proposals of the Washington Consensus. Paraguay itself, however, neither suffered a debt crisis nor a mayor economic instability during the eighties, so the stabilization policies would not have been necessary or useful for the Paraguayan economy and business cycles in the nineties. Nevertheless, many of the macroeconomic policies applied in Paraguay during the nineties were close to the Washington Consensus. The most striking macroeconomic result of the decade was a per capita income decrease beginning in late 1995, hand in hand with a poverty increase after 1996. Given the persistently high levels of poverty incidence in Paraguay to date, understanding the determinants of growth at the household level in Paraguayan economy remains an important but under-researched field in economics. This appears to be particularly true for the question whether inequality has a positive or negative effect on economic growth, a question that is both fundamental in (development) economics and highly relevant for poverty reduction policies. Although the effect of inequality on growth has important implications for poverty (Bourguignon, 2004; Ravallion, 1997), empirical evidence on this link is virtually inexistent for Paraguay.
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Black Sea Labour Market Review - Ukraine Country Report2009/01 - European Training Foundation (ETF); Report; Author: ETF
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This report is the outcome of a project, “Black Sea Labour Market Reviews”, which was initiated and funded by the European Training Foundation (ETF) to collect information and analysis of selected labour market and related human capital issues in six countries of the Black Sea region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine).
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Trade Negotiations Insights 2009/06 - European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM); TNI Vo. 8 No. 5
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In August 2009, the Pacific Island countries will begin negotiations toward a new free trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand. Coming on the heels of the troubled Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) talks with the European Commission, the deal heralds new opportunities and hazards for the islands.
The existing Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) obliged regional governments to commence discussions toward an agreement with Canberra and Auckland as soon as the Pacific started negotiations with an outside party. EPA talks have now triggered a deal to be known as ‘PACER Plus’.
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Monitoring and Evaluating Poverty Reduction Policies in Mozambique 2009/05 - Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI); CMI Brief vol. 8 no. 1, Author: Inge Tvedten
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The first three in a series of six studies on poverty and well-being in Nampula, the city of Maputo and Sofala, have revealed that there are positive developments in terms of the macro-economic context and in the social sectors of education and health. However, the continued dearth of employment and income in rural as well as urban areas makes it diffifi cult to transform these advances into real poverty reduction. There are also worrying signs of local processes of social marginalisation and exclusion, following from the increasing commodification of social relationships. To achieve the goals of the PARPA, particular efforts will have to be made by the government and donors to reach the very poorest.
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Union Monetaire en Afrique de l’Ouest: Quelles Reponses a l’Heterogeneite des Chocs ? 2009/06 - Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Developpement International (CERDI); Etudes et Documents E 2009.12, Authors: S. Tapsoba
Abstract:
Le projet d’une monnaie commune à l’ouest africain est un objectif politique depuis les indépendances. En Avril 2000, les décideurs politiques de la région ont décidé d’accélérer leur intégration en créant une seconde zone monétaire en plus de l’UEMOA (Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine). Nombreuses sont les recherches académiques qui émettent des doutes sur la viabilité d’une monnaie ouest africaine à cause de l’ampleur des chocs divergents. Ces derniers rendraient une politique monétaire commune inadaptée et inefficace. Cette conclusion est toutefois statique et n’intègre pas les changements structurels qu’implique la mise en place d’une union monétaire. Le partage d’une monnaie commune tend à réduire les inconvénients de l’asymétrie des chocs et à accroître l’optimalité de l’union. Cet article propose une analyse empirique des mécanismes à mettre en œuvre, une fois l’union créée, pour en assurer la viabilité. Les résultats indiquent que les conséquences négatives des chocs asymétriques entre les pays ouest-africains peuvent être atténuées par une intensification du commerce régional et par un développement des marchés régionaux de crédit.
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Economic Issues in Sudan’s North-South Peace Process 2009/05 - Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Wealth Sharing Beyond 2011, Author: Achim Wennmann
Abstract:
This paper shows that the presence of oil can change incentive
structures for continuing armed violence and foster the initiation of
a peace process. Rather than simply a compounding factor to the main
drivers of violence, the prospect of oil revenues influenced the
belligerents to engage in negotiations and agree on a landmark wealth
sharing agreement. Accounting for economic issues in peace processes
can therefore provide important leads for mediators as to when and how
to engage such actors. The paper also notes the benefit of decoupling
discussions on resource management from resource ownership within a
peace process, and highlights the difficulty to ensureing peace
dividends amid existing post-conflict challenges.
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