High-level Panel presents report on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

On 30 May 2013, the Secretary-General received a landmark report from the High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, a 27-member group of eminent persons established a year earlier to provide recommendations on advancing the development framework beyond the target date for the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

Accepting the report, the Secretary-General praised the Panel for its inclusive approach and extensive consultations over the past year. He welcomed the Panel’s recognition that the post-2015 development agenda should be universal, applying to North and South alike, and be infused with a spirit of partnership based on equity, cooperation and mutual accountability. The Secretary-General stated that the Report is an important milestone and provides a substantial contribution to the post-2015 debate as Member States continue their deliberations on a new development agenda.

Ban Ki-moon commended the transformative shifts identified by the Report, specifically the call to put sustainability at the centre of the post-2015 development agenda. He emphasized that sustainability is not just an environmental matter, but an approach that would integrate the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development, as agreed at the Rio + 20 Conference. The Secretary-General welcomed the attention to youth, as well as to inclusive growth and employment creation. The Secretary-General also welcomed the Report’s recognition that peace, human rights, rule of law and good governance are core foundations for development

A NEW GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP: ERADICATE POVERTY AND TRANSFORM ECONOMIES THROUGH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Download from
http://www.un.org/sg/management/pdf/HLP_P2015_Report.pdf

Filed under: Development, News, Publications, post-2015, un

Top Concerns in Asia’s Unfinished Development Agenda for the Post-MDG Era

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Asia and the Pacific face a daunting unfinished development agenda when the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) expire in 2015. The focus in this fast growing region should be on the glaring gaps in its MDG achievements: eradicating extreme poverty and making better progress on human development, especially reducing infant deaths and improving maternal health.

Confronting the environmental degradation caused by the region’s rapid economic growth presents another critical challenge for the post-MDG era.

A global debate is already under way on the best way to tackle the challenges of a post-2015 development agenda. To contribute to this discussion, Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has just released a study ADB’s Support for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The report assesses the region’s progress and ADB’s contribution. The study also seeks to answer a question that will be crucial for a new agenda: does setting goals make a difference to development results?

Adoption of the MDGs, which the United Nations announced in 2001, by governments in Asia and the Pacific offered great promise for focusing attention on the poor and accelerating socioeconomic development. Among the eight MDGs are targets to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty, attain universal primary education, and promote environmental sustainability.

Asia and the Pacific performed very well on reducing income poverty, which fell from 55% in the early 1990s to 24% by the late 2000s, a historically unprecedented global achievement. Even so, the region continues to account for two-thirds of the world’s poor, vast numbers of them concentrated in South Asia. Rising inequality across the region is hampering progress in reducing poverty.

“Despite the past record of high economic growth, a sharp reduction in poverty remains a top development priority beyond 2015,” says Independent Evaluation’s Director General Vinod Thomas. “The findings of this study, coupled with other evaluative evidence, indicate that continuing the same pattern of growth will not be enough to stem rising inequality nor reverse environmental degradation in time—problems that in turn threaten sustained economic growth.”

Wealth gaps between rich and poor have widened in about half the region’s economies, home to some 80 percent of its population. Furthermore, Asia’s inequality, like the rest of the world’s, is not limited to income poverty, as much of the region also suffers from large disparities in the provision of basic services. The quality of economic growth is essential.

“The human cost of neglecting the quality of growth in this successfully expanding region is large, as shown by the high incidence of malnutrition and stunting among children in India, the health consequences of chronic air pollution in the People’s Republic of China, and the grim death toll in the recent collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh,” says Thomas.

Considerable gaps remain in the state of human development in the region, indicating that a positive link between economic growth and human development is not automatic. For example, the number of underweight children aged below 5 only declined modestly over two decades, from 35% in the early 1990s to 25% by the late 2000s.

The link between rapid economic growth and the environment is complex, with slow progress and even regression on some environmental targets in many countries. Linda Arthur, the study’s principal author, says: “Several environmental indicators are unlikely to meet their 2015 cut-off values, notably for CO2 emissions, forest cover protection, and improved sanitation.”

Did setting goals make a difference to development results beyond historically expected trends? Country case studies for India, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia, and Papua New Guinea show that some of these countries adjusted policies and budgets because of the MDGs, leading to better performance on several indicators. Importantly, many development institutions redirected their financial support to MDGs.

But goal setting ran into problems because of the limited resources and capacity in many countries to implement the MDGs. Poor data collection and data quality meant that many countries were unable to adequately track their MDG progress. This renders planning for further support to reach the MDGs by 2015 difficult and planning for the post-2015 agenda even more so.

“The data issue must be addressed when considering new targets for the post-2015 period,” says Arthur, “but the evidence on balance supports the positive effects of goal setting.”

Some $32 billion of ADB’s total sovereign financing between 2002 and 2011, the period covered by the study, was for direct MDG support. Projects and programs aimed at reducing income poverty and promoting environmental sustainability comprised the major share of that portfolio, while MDG support for human development was less prominent. The study found that interventions directly supporting the MDGs were notably more successful than ADB’s overall historical average.

Looking at ADB’s potential contribution to a post-2015 development agenda, the study suggests that a focus on countries and goals whose development progress falls furthest below a minimum standard is warranted. The best way forward for Asia and the Pacific will be a balanced pursuit of poverty reduction, human development, and environmental sustainability.

To download the evaluation study, visit:
http://www.adb.org/documents/thematic-evaluation-study-adb-s-support-achieving-millennium-development-goals?ref=site/evaluation/resources
and click on the PDF. Table 6: Millennium Development Goals Progress Tracking on page 33 of the study shows the progress of all countries in Asia and the Pacific in achieving their MDGs.
Source: Asian Development Bank’s Independent Evaluation.

Filed under: Asia, Development, Economy, MDGs, Poverty, Publications

DOs and DON’Ts for individual consultants?

Dear Colleagues,

I’m writing an advice article for future individual consultants in the TRANSFER Magazine. I want to come up with some positive and negative points. Some recruiters contributed already.

Please add to my following Wiki pages if anything comes to your mind.

What should you DO to be successful as an individual consultant?

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What should you avoid as an individual consultant?

http://titanpad.com/ViLdexvGg1

Thank you very much for your time and kindness. The article will appear on my Web site as well. I look forward to our continued contact.

Sincerely,
Karsten

Filed under: Development, Publications

Increased Policy Space under Globalization – networkideas.org

A severe blow to active Keynesian policy intervention occurred as a result of the New Classical resurgence in macroeconomics. With a vertical aggregate supply curve in the short and the long runs (New Classicals) or at least in the long run (New Keynesians), it has been argued that the economy settles down at a unique non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) without any government intervention. Implicit in the NAIRU theory is that the prices can decrease just as they can increase. However, if the prices cannot decrease, the aggregate supply curve would be an inverse-L shaped curve, both in the short and the long runs. Furthermore, with globalization, the expectations-augmented Phillips curve becomes horizontal because of an absolute decline in the bargaining power of the working class in the advanced countries. This means that not only would the economy settle at less than ‘full employment’, but the only way it could be brought closer to that is through active policy intervention. In the present case, manoeuvrability of fiscal policy increases since the threat of accelerating inflation practically disappears.

via networkideas.org – Increased Policy Space under Globalization, by Rohit Azad and Anupam Das
September 19, 2012..

Filed under: Development, Economy, Governance, Publications, Research

German Aid Allocation and Partner Country Selection. Development-orientation, Self-interests and Path Dependency

The GDI paper examines official country selection and resource allocation of German aid after the end of the Cold War and embeds the analysis into the broader debate about German foreign policy. Overall, the authors find that neediness and democracy levels of recipients have been guiding principles in both country selection and resource allocation.

Nevertheless, geostrategic considerations and the avoidance of conflict-affected countries have also impacted on country selection but less on resource allocation. Moreover, non-linear estimation techniques identify a relatively high threshold of income levels, below which the poverty orientation disappears – a finding that refines previous studies identifying a middle income-country bias of German aid allocation. Finally, official selection decisions to concentrate aid on a reduced number of countries did not have the intended concentration effect.

2012/07 – German Development Institute/ Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE); Authors: Jörg Faust and Sebastian Ziaja

Filed under: Development, Germany, Poverty, Publications, Research, aid allocation, bmz, country selection, gdi

THE CLUB OF ROME – A New Path for World Development

THE CLUB OF ROME – A New Path for World Development.

It is clear that the present path of world development is not sustainable in the longer term, even if we recognise the enormous potentials of the market and of technological innovation. New ideas and strategies will be needed to ensure that improved living conditions and opportunities for a growing population across the world can be reconciled with the conservation of a viable climate and of the fragile ecosystems on which all life depends. A new vision and path for world development must be conceived and adopted if humanity is to surmount the challenges ahead.

In response to this intellectual and practical challenge, the Club of Rome will undertake a three year programme on “A New Path for World Development” so as to achieve a better understanding of the complex challenges which confront the modern world and to lay solid foundations for the action which must be taken to improve the prospects for peace and progress.

Filed under: Crisis, Development, Economy, Governance, Publications

New reports assess EU policy coherence for development

The European Commission published a progress report of the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) approach launched in 2005 as part of the European Consensus on Development. The PCD review published in late September says that its framework ”allows for a systematic exploration of the effects that EU policies other than aid might have on development and on the achievement of the MDGs. The European Commission claims that these are ”powerful mechanisms to promote PCD”. Source: CTA.
http://www.eurodad.org/whatsnew/articles.aspx?id=3883

Filed under: ACP, Development, European Union, Publications

Helping developing countries during the financial crisis

Developing countries are severely hit by the global economic crisis. The leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies, recognising that the global financial crisis has ‘a disproportionate impact’ on vulnerable people in poor countries, have promised to make hundreds of billions of United States dollars available to these countries as part of a $1.1 trillion plan to rescue the world economy. In a communiqué released by the Group of 20’s London Summit, the leaders announced what they called ‘a global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale’. They said the rescue package would include resources totalling $850 billion, to be channelled through global financial institutions, ‘to support growth in emerging market and developing countries by helping to finance counter-cyclical spending, bank recapitalisation, infrastructure, trade finance, balance of payments support, debt rollover, and social support.’
http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/comments/2296/

The EU Commission helps with a support package. The EU has recognized that the current recession is affecting the global system at all levels – overturning the old notion that globalisation could only be good. The hardest hit are those who were already the world’s poorest – particularly those who had begun to climb out of poverty. To give EU action a coherent framework, the Commission has issued a policy paper – Supporting developing countries in coping with the crisis. The paper reaffirms the two guiding principles for EU relations with developing countries – partnership and solidarity.
http://ec.europa.eu/development/icenter/repository/COM_2009_0160_4_EN.pdf

Related Publications:

UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development

http://www.un-ngls.org/IMG/pdf_ngls_bulletin_1.pdf

In an effort to help keep interested stakeholders informed on the latest developments and events leading to the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development taking place in New York from 1-3 June 2009, NGLS has launched a dedicated weekly ’bulletin’ up to the Conference. This first issue reviews the mandate and background of the Conference. It also contains information on related meetings and reports from the UN system.

DCED has launched a new web page providing links to a selection of the many materials now being produced on the global financial crisis and its impact in developing countries.
http://www.enterprise-development.org/page/the-global-financial-crisis

The Centre for Development Policy and Research is pleased to announce the publication of Development Viewpoint #24, ‘‘How the Global Crisis Is Transmitted to Developing Countries”. The author, Jan Toporowski, Department of Economics, SOAS, expose how developing countries are extraordinarily vulnerable to the financial crisis that is unfolding in the U.S. because its debt deflation (its reduction of expenditures to repay its debt) will reduce developing-country exports and, in turn, the outflow of U.S. dollars, the international reserve currency, which is crucial to financing international trade. He also notes that the recent fall in commodity prices and the appreciation of the U.S. dollar will only exacerbate developing-country problems.
http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/49755.pdf

CDPR also announced the publication of Development Viewpoint #26, ‘‘Global Financial Crisis and Recession: What Could Happen to Major Emerging Economies?”
http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/49965.pdf
. The authors, Terry McKinley, Director of CDPR, and Naret Khurasee, a researcher at Alphametrics, draw on the results of a 2010-2015 global scenario, generated by the State of the World Economy macroeconomic model, to assess the projected impact on the major emerging economies of Brazil, China, India and South Africa. They find that as the global economy is projected to recover after 2010, all four economies should resume credible rates of economic growth. But China is expected to perform the best during 2010-2015. The other three economies are projected to grow more slowly and confront problems of current-account deficits or government debt. For related material on the State of the World Economy model, see:
http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/researchareas/worldmodel
.

The Centre for Development Policy and Research is pleased to announce the publication of Development Viewpoint #28, ‘‘The Roots of the Global Financial Crisis”,
http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/50940.pdf
. The author, Costas Lapavitsas, Department of Economics, SOAS, and Research on Finance and Money, identifies several factors that he believes are at the root of the current crisis: loose US macroeconomics policies in the early 2000, the extraction of financial profits by commercial banks directly out of personal incomes (such as through subprime mortgages) and the adoption by banks of highly risky investment banking functions (such as securitisation of mortgages).

Labor Market in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its Adjustment to Global Financial Crisis
http://www.adbi.org/email.notification/url.php?id=2711&url=%2Fevent%2F2941.labor.market.prc.global.financial.crisis

Filed under: Africa, Asia, Banking, Caribbean, Crisis, Development, Economy, European Union, OECD, Poverty, Publications

Key reading on ex-ante Poverty Impact Assessment

Promoting Pro-Poor growth: A Practical Guide to ex-ante Poverty Impact Assessment

http://www.oecd.org/document/…

This practical guide, developed by the DAC Network on Poverty Reduction (POVNET), is designed to help staff in developing countries and in aid agencies to plan and execute PIAs and to interpret their findings, the ultimate goal being to design and implement more effective poverty reduction policies and programmes. Download:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/39/38978856.pdf

Ex ante appraisal of the impacts on poverty of the project ”Plateforme du Millénaire de Diamniadio”

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/32/39206523.pdf

Process documentation of the first Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA) in the Republic of Senegal, by Kerstin Meyer, Andrea Warner, Roland Hackenberg, Nathalie Manga Badji, GTZ, Dakar, June 2007

Sample Mission Report

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/53/38609100.pdf

Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment for Regional Economic Development: Green Belt Siem Reap Province, Cambodia

Sample Mission Report

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/31/27/41768805.pdf

Financial Cooperation with Cambodia. Poverty Impact Assessment for Rural Electrification II

Managing for Development Results and Mutual Accountability
The value of evidence based decision-making for advancing cross cutting issues

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/40/38607559.pdf

Workshop on Development Effectiveness in Practice, Dublin, Ireland, 26-27 April 2007

Using Poverty and Social Impact Analysis to design more effective poverty reduction measures

http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus14.pdf

This IPC Focus issue examines the usefulness of two recently developed analytical tools: Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) and Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA). Both approaches provide a framework to analyse the distributional impact of policies, programmes and projects. PSIA involves in-depth analysis of complex policy reform processes and offers evidence-based policy choices. PIA focuses on decisions concerning development projects and programmes. To explore PSIA’s and PIA’s potential contribution to more effective poverty reduction policies, individual articles in this volume.

Lessons learned in conducting Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment

http://www.mfdr.org/rt3/Glance/Day3/Sen.ppt

Lessons learned in conducting Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment for a Natural Resource Management Programme in India Third Round Table MfDR – Hanoi 2007.

Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment

http://www.mfdr.org/RT3/Glance/Day3/Dio.ppt

Presentation by Wolf M. Dio, GTZ, POVNET Task Team Leader, Third International Round Table MfDR, Hanoi 2007

Poverty (and social) impact analysis compared

http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus14.pdf

PSIA is an approach developed in 2001 by the World Bank and other donors, while the PIA came about in 2006 as a result of discussions within the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The main difference between both tools is that the PIA is designed to focus on project, programmes or specific policy reforms, while the PSIA approach is better for macroeconomic and structural policy reforms. Since PSIA was introduced, approximately 150 assessments have been conducted and the International Poverty Centre (IPC) show that it has been applied with a different degree of success in different occasions. Most of the articles in the journal agree that further progress needs to be made in order to unleash PSIA’s full potential.

As well as the PIA approach, POVNET has recently developed and is actively disseminating guidance for donors on promoting pro-poor growth , including in relation to:
Agriculture:

http://www.oecd.org/document/…

Employment:

http://www.oecd.org/document/…

Infrastructure:

http://www.oecd.org/document/…

Private sector development:

http://www.oecd.org/document/…

Social protection:

http://www.oecd.org/document/…

Poverty and Social Impact Analysis

http://www.worldbank.org/psia

This World Bank website was conceived as a forum for interaction and a tool for disseminating experience.

Sourcebook on Emerging Good Practice in Managing for Development Results (MfDR)

http://www.mfdr.org/Sourcebook.html

The Sourcebook is a valuable resource which provides solution-oriented examples of MfDR in action for practitioners at many levels and in many contexts. By focusing on observable and replicable interventions, the Sourcebook aims to increase the understanding of MfDR and illustrate how many stakeholders are effectively implementing MfDR principles for greater development effectiveness.

Filed under: ILO, Links, Methods, OECD, Poverty, Publications, Research

ADB launched Climate Change Fund

ADB has establishing a new fund to slow the onset of climate change and to help the Asia-Pacific region adapt to the expected devastating impact of global warming. ADB will provide an initial $40 million to the Climate Change Fund, which will be open for further contributions from countries, other development organizations, foundations, the private sector and other sources.

”The purpose of the fund is to facilitate greater investments in developing countries in Asia and the Pacific to address the causes and consequences of global warming. Money from the fund will be used to provide grant financing for technical assistance, investment projects, research and other activities, and we welcome interested parties to participate in the fund,” said Mr. Werner Liepach, Principal Director of ADB’s Office of Cofinancing Operations.
http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2008/12474-asian-climates-changes

Filed under: Development, Economy, Publications, Asia

New Publications

Responsible enterprise, foreign direct investment, and investment promotion

http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=15511IIED

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is widely considered to be a key factor in economic development in middle and low income countries. Positively, it can be associated with the introduction of new technologies, job creation, access to new markets and improvements in the competitiveness of host countries. But too often, FDI has been associated with environmental degradation, increased inequality, and lack of integration with the local economy. A number of host country government departments have a role in influencing the overall investment climate. Among them, Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) are often players because they are in the front line of targeting investors and marketing the country as a whole. This book brings together a series of papers identifying opportunities for IPAs to attract FDI that is associated with positive contributions to sustainable development and good corporate social responsibility practices. The papers are written by IIED researchers and other sectoral experts, multilateral organizations working closely with IPAs in attracting FDI, and representatives of IPAs themselves. The book points to a number of opportunities for IPAs in attracting FDI with good CSR practices and highlights key leverage points and practical tools to achieve this. It is intended to provide a primer for investment promotion agencies and pointers for approaches that could be deployed in the future. By Annie Dufey and Maryanne Grieg-Gran. International Institute for Environment and Development, 2008.

Commodity Dependence, Resource Curse and Export Diversification in Africa

http://www.iwim.uni-bremen.de/africa/africanyearbook.htm

The 12th edition of the African Development Perspectives Yearbook published in April 2007 by the Institute for World Economics and International Management (IWIM), University of Bremen is entitled ”Africa – Commodity Dependence, Resource Curse and Export Diversification”. It contains detailed analyses and development theory perspectives on the challenges at the policy and economic level in managing the high dependence on natural resources in numerous African states. The high resource dependence of these countries coupled with poor handling of resource wealth, especially with regard to resources of high geostrategic significance like oil, are primarily responsible for the above problems.

Stepping up the ladder: how business can help achieve the MDGs

http://tinyurl.com/59asvl

Business and development is the topic to watch and work on in 2008, as businesses
respond to sustained pressure to contribute to the MDGs. Maintain the pressure, manage the engagement, and the prize is a new contribution by business to poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods: social welfare contributions and links to social enterprises, yes, but also new procurement practices and new kinds of partnership with local communities and local government. To understand the potential, think of business engagement as a (short) ladder with three – possibly four – steps.

How to Design, Negotiate, and Implement a Free Trade Agreement in Asia

http://www.aric.adb.org/pdf/FTA_Manual.pdf

This ADB reference book is intended to be used mainly in present and planned FTA training courses of the Asian Development Bank, to increase the knowledge and capacity of officials who are active in designing, negotiating, and implementing FTAs. Building on theories of international trade economics and the good?practiceFTA experiences accumulated by both front-runners and late beginners in this area, the book explains important facts and benchmarks to be considered when preparing, negotiating, and enforcing FTAs. Rather than going into the details of specific topics, this reference book covers the overall FTA process and its main features.

OECD-DAC Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation. Arabic, English and French

http://tinyurl.com/6djkvf

Evaluation is a field where development partners work closely together and need to use a common technical vocabulary, despite widely differing linguistic backgrounds. Accordingly, the OECD-DAC Network on Development Evaluation has developed a glossary of key terms in evaluation and results-based management to help to clarify concepts and to promote consistent use of common terms in these areas. The glossary was originally published in 2002 in English, French and Spanish and has since been made available in Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Kiswahili, Turkish and Swedish. It has been very widely used and is now a standard reference. The present publication now offers the glossary in Arabic, in a trilingual format with English and French.

The 2008 Reader on Private Sector Development – Measuring and Reporting Results

http://www.mmw4p.org/dyn/bds/docs/detail/649/4

Paper by Jim Tanburn, ITC, SDC
There is little information available about the impacts of programmes for private sector development (PSD), mainly because programme goals are often very ambitious, and impacts costly to quantify, relative to the resources available. Indeed, the cost of measuring impacts is often classified as an ‘overhead’, to be kept to a minimum. Those aiming to stimulate systemic change also point out that their work does not lend itself to the mechanistic model of inputs-outputs-outcomes-impacts in conventional thinking. Besides, practitioners would need to accept the methodology, and to be rewarded for good performance, for results measurement to be adopted on a large scale. However, current indicators in common usage, such as leverage (to be maximised) and overhead (to be minimised), encourage perverse incentives and distract from the core task of achieving developmental goals. The many self-published ‘success stories’ leave most observers confused.

GTZ’s experience in value chain development in Asia: an external perspective

http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/doc/GTZ_experience_in_VC_development_Asia.pdf

Value chain development has become an increasingly common focus for development agencies over the last few years. GTZ’s experience in this sphere has also been growing, both practically and conceptually. Practically, projects have been implemented following best practices and approaches available. Conceptionally, the ”ValueLinks” methodology, which is now accepted as the typical ”GTZ approach”, was developed based on networking between GTZ supported programs in 3 continents and GTZ headquarters. In order to gain more insight from the practical point of view, this discussion paper was commissioned to examine and compare experiences made in the last few years with differing approaches across a region. Focussing on five countries in Asia – Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam – it aims to outline the main characteristics of GTZ’s value chain work and identify the key challenges emerging from this. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to learning within GTZ and in the wider donor community.The paper is built on one key premise: that in working in value chains GTZ’s interest is to achieve impacts that are large-scale and sustainable, requiring systemic change beyond individual firms. It is structured around a framework of issues and criteria for describing and assessing work in value chains and the four key stages in value chain development work: initial selection and analysis, strategies, detailed interventions and monitoring and evaluation.

Public-Private Partnership Models in TVET and their Impact on the Role of Government

http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/doc/2.2_06_GTZ_ENG.pdf

This paper by Edda Grunwald looks at how public private partnerships (PPP) in Technical and Vocational Education (TVET) have been used in developing countries such as Egypt and Chile with support from the German Development Cooperation. The emphasis is on the gains that can be made from such partnerships and the governance frameworks that need to be in place in order for them to work optimally. The processes through which each of these countries went in order to implement such systems are described in some detail. The PPPs build on the experience of the German dual system of vocational education and encompass the changing focus of donor support as articulated, for example, in the Paris Declaration, to emphasise the need to support the policies of partner countries. The most interesting aspect of the approach is the way in which it combines an educational paradigm and an economic or pro-poor paradigm with the intention of ensuring that traditionally marginalized groupings are able to earn a reasonable income, contribute to economic growth and social cohesion.

Creating an enabling environment for for private sector development in Sub-Saharan Africa

http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/doc/07-89144_Ebook1.pdf

This report discusses how the business environment in Sub-Saharan African can be improved in order to foster enterprise development. Past efforts to boost private sector development have shown disappointing results. This holds especially for the orthodox structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 90s. But also the wide array of support schemes by governments and donors aimed to strengthen specific industries, groups of enterprises, or supporting institutions have rarely had a significant impact. Although a few remarkable project successes exist, these mostly remain isolated events with no country-wide outreach and no measurable effect on aggregate economic growth.

This study provides an analytical framework to compare the different approaches, making their underlying assumptions explicit and proposing a terminology to distinguish different notions of the ‘business enabling environment’. It shows that the Doing Business agenda is embedded in a neoclassical framework assuming that markets work reasonably well if property rights and competition are guaranteed. The agenda thus advocates minimal regulatory government intervention and a very limited role for supporting particular economic actors. Especially important for Sub-Saharan Africa, it presupposes a significant growth potential even for informal micro enterprises if unfair regulations are abolished. This is in marked contrast to neo-structuralist positions that emphasize market failure and the need for corrective policies, especially to enhance competitive advantages and to support disadvantaged groups.

Field Manual: Supporting Microfinance through Grants in Post-Crisis Settings

http://www.microfinancegateway.com/files/44668_file_Field_Guide_FINAL.pdf

This DAI field manual offers guidance to small grant program managers on supporting microfinance institutions (MFIs1) in countries recovering from conflict or natural disaster through small, shortterm grants.2 These guidelines will help practitioners – particularly those with limited experience in financial services – (i) determine if investment in microfinance is appropriate given a number of environmental and institutional factors, and (ii) outline options for supporting MFIs in postcrisis environments through grants and other forms of technical assistance.

Regulating Transformational Branchless Banking: Mobile Phones and Other

http://www.microfinancegateway.com/files/46734_file_FocusNote_43.pdf

This CGAP paper recommends a regulation to help in the advancement of branchless banking. The note is based on research in seven countries from Asia, Africa, Central Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Protecting the poor: A microinsurance compendium

http://tinyurl.com/6djkvf

This authoritative IKO compendium brings together the latest thinking of leading academics, actuaries, and insurance and development professionals in the microinsurance field. The result is a practical, wide-ranging resource which provides the most thorough overview of the subject to date. The book allows readers to benefit from the valuable lessons learned from a project launched by the CGAP Working Group on Microinsurance analysing operations around the world. It also discusses the various institutional arrangements available for delivery such as the community-based approach, insurance companies owned by networks of savings and credit cooperatives and microfinance institutions. The roles of key stakeholders are also explored and the book offers insightful strategies for achieving the right balance between coverage, costs and price.

Microfinance and Disaster Management
Stuart Mathison / The Foundation for Development Cooperation (FDC)
2007 / Global, –
”This paper enunciates policies and strategies to help MFIs prepare for the impact of natural disasters. MFIs will be better placed to respond effectively when a disaster strikes if they has worked through the issues, designed policies and products, and negotiated collaboration with Disaster Management Agencies (DMAs), before disaster strikes rather than in the midst of it.”

http://tinyurl.com/5c9563

Microfinance in post-disaster and post-conflict situations: Turning victims into shareholders
Marek Hudon, Hans Dieter Seibel / Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
ttp://tinyurl.com/5c9563

The goal of this article is to study the role of member-owned institutions (MOIs) in the provisions of the reparations for victims of human rights abuses or reconstruction in post-conflict and post-disaster situations.

Data Download: 2007 CGAP Regional Funder Survey – Sub-Saharan Africa

http://cgap.org/portal/site/Portfolio/Apr2008Data/

In 2005, CGAP began surveying funders working in Africa to increase access to finance. In 2007, despite an expected slight decline in global official development assistance, CGAP’s survey found that sub-Saharan Africa still draws attention from funders and aid to increase access to finance continues to rise.

Doing Business: Women in Africa

http://www.doingbusiness.org/gender/womenentrepreneurs.aspx

This report from the World Bank profiles seven women entrepreneurs, describing reasons for their success, as well as some of the legal, regulatory, and practical obstacles they faced in expanding their business efforts. It also highlights reforms that can level the playing field for women and create better business environments that benefit both women and men. The report, the first in a series of regional studies, casts a spotlight on seven women entre- preneurs in Cameroon, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Market Development in Crisis-Affected Environments.

Emerging Lessons for Achieving Pro-Poor Economic Reconstruction

http://www.seepnetwork.org/files/5659_file_001_Market_Development_4
.
This SEEP paper presents the background to market development and then the background to crisis environments. These chapters are included to ensure that market-development and relief practitioners have a common understanding of frameworks, terminology, and strategies. Chapter 3 presents the cases themselves in summary form, along with the methodology used for gathering information. Chapter 4 presents a proposed framework for carrying out market development in post-crisis settings. Chapter 5 identifies and discusses the key challenges and issues raised by the practitioners submitting the cases, and then presents lessons learned and recommendations emerging from the cases. The latter are summarized in chapter 6. More detail of the cases is presented in the annexes.

Aid to Fragile States: Do Donors Help or Hinder?

http://tinyurl.com/6jo7zu

The record of aid to fragile and poorly-performing states is the real test of aid effectiveness. Rich countries can justify aid to fragile states both through altruism and self-interest. But, with some exceptions, donors have appeared at the wrong times and with the wrong attitudes, even sometimes undermining development progress. State failure has dimensions of both will and capacity. Failure demands constructive engagement by donors, in some cases to save people in weak states from their leaders, and in all cases to save the states from circumstances which they cannot control. This UNU-Wider paper examines the aid relationship with respect to three weak countries: Burma, Rwanda, Zambia.

Women, gender and the informal economy: An assessment of ILO research and suggested ways forward

http://tinyurl.com/5crzkm

This ILO discussion paper provides a review and analysis of the International Labour Office’s (ILO) research on women, gender and the informal economy. In particular, it compares and contrasts analytical and methodological frameworks used in various studies; identifies research gaps and directions for future research; and pulls out key findings that may assist concerned ILO units in taking action and formulating policy directions.

Financial Arrangements in Informal Apprenticeships: Determinants and Effects
Findings from Urban Ghana

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/finance/download/wp49.pdf

This ILO paper uses quantitative and qualitative data collected through a survey among entrepreneurs and apprentices in micro and small enterprises in Accra, Ghana, to analyse the financial arrangements in informal apprenticeships. It discusses the relationship between the financing of apprenticeships and the financing of enterprises in which the training takes place. It also examines the way apprentices finance apprenticeship training. The findings suggest that masters commonly charge fees for the training, either at the beginning (commitment fees) and or at the end (graduation fee) of the training. The payment of an allowance to the apprentices (chop money) is a widespread practice. Even if the amount of this allowance in the majority of cases exceeds the amount of fees paid for the training, it would appear that the financing costs of the apprenticeship (fees and living expenses) restrict poor youth from entering and completing an apprenticeship. Finally, the paper presents potential entry points for microfinance institutions to support and improve the quantity and quality of apprenticeship training and ensure its positive contribution to youth employment.

Trade in the WAEMU: Developments and Reform Opportunities

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2008/wp0868
.
This IMF paper provides an overview of trade reform in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) since 1996 and a quantitative assessment of potential effects on trade patterns and tariff revenue of the current reform agenda. Despite evidence of significant trade complementarities within WAEMU, implementation of the union’s current trade regime still suffers from persistent non-tariff barriers and administrative weaknesses. Based on an assessment of prospects for further trade integration, the paper also recommends strengthening the implementation of the present tariff union and supports the plan to extend it to all ECOWAS members. Finally, the paper stresses that an Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU could bring to the region the political momentum needed to address the weaknesses of the current trade regime, while also underlining the corresponding challenges in terms of trade diversion and tariff revenue losses.

Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2008/AFR/eng/sreo0408.pdf

The region’s prospects continue to be promising, but global developments pose increased risks to the outlook. Growth in sub-Saharan Africa should again average about 6½ percent in 2008 with oil exporters leading the way; meanwhile, growth in oil importers is expected to taper off, though only modestly. With food and energy prices still rising, inflation is projected to average about 8½ percent this year for countries in the region, setting aside Zimbabwe. Risks in 2008 are tilted to the downside, but the region is better placed today to withstand a worsening of the global environment.

Value Chain Activities for Conflict-affected Populations in Guinea

http://www.microlinks.org/ev01.php?ID=22554_201&ID2=DO_

This report is part of a USAID-funded research project using guided case studies to explore whether and under what conditions the application of a value chain approach can help accelerate growth in conflict-affected environments. This study uses the value chain framework to look at an integrated community development initiative called ”Social and Economic Recovery through Community Development Initiatives” (SER-CD).

The Role of Mass Media in Local and Regional Economic Development

http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/doc/Mass_Media_in_LRED.pdf

This paper has been prepared by GTZ’s Employment-oriented Private Sector Development Programme (EoPSD) in Abuja Nigeria as a result of work that it has embarked on in media development and local economic development. This work has built on similar work in other parts of Africa and focuses on developing radio programmes on business and local economic issues. EoPSD has supported the launch of two local programmes focused on the local economic issues of two northern states in Nigeria (Nasarawa and Niger States) and is in the process of supporting a third station to develop business programming. This has provided EoPSD with a working insight into the potential role of mass media in supporting local economic development initiatives.

Local Economic Development Strategic Planning and Practice Casebook

http://tinyurl.com/6n25wc

As a practical product of the World Bank program, this LED Strategic Planning and Practice Casebook seeks to help the reader understand municipal approaches to LED strategic planning by identifying good practice in strategic planning methodology. The Casebook serves as a collection of six local economic development strategies that provide examples of good practice from across Europe and from the Cities of Change network. The Casebook also contains good practice notes and comments.

Social and Ecological Market Economy Principles in German Development Policy

http://www.bmz.de/en/service/infothek/fach/konzepte/konzept158.pdf

The guiding principles for the design of German Development cooperation are as follows:

1. Supporting the rule of law
2. Striving for broad-based growth
3. Strengthening the private sector
4. Improving conditions for the market economy
5. Making an economy viable for the future
6. Creating a social partnership
7. Shaping the economy based on ecological concerns
8. Ensuring equal opportunities

Are Estimates of Poverty in Latin America Reliable?

http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCOnePager52.pdf

This One Pager questions the validity of the ‘one-dollar-a-day’ and ‘two-dollars-a-day’ measurements of poverty in Latin America. Alternatively, the author argues, there are other methods that better capture the state of poverty.

The Vast Majority Income (VMI): A New Measure of Global Inequality

http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPolicyResearchBrief7.pdf

The UNDP authors Anwar Shaikh and Amr Ragab introduce a new worldwide measure of welfare, which they call the Vast Majority Income (VMI). The VMI directly calculates the per capita income of the first 80 per cent of the population. It combines information on income levels and their distribution into a single measure.

Migration restrictions and the ‘brain drain’: The wrong response to an ill-defined problem.

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/opinions/98_migration_apr08.pdf

Is restricting migration an effective response to personnel shortages in the developing world? And is the fear of a brain drain really justified? ODI Paper.

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Filed under: Economy, Publications, Remittances

World Social and Economic Survey 2007

Greater longevity is an indicator of human progress in general. Increased life expectancy and lower fertility rates are changing the population structure worldwide in a major way: the proportion of older persons is rapidly increasing, a process known as population ageing. The process is inevitable and is already advanced in developed countries and progressing quite rapidly in developing ones.

The 2007 Survey analyzes the implications of population aging for social and economic development around the world, while recognizing that it offers both challenges and opportunities. Among the most pressing issues is that arising from the prospect of a smaller labor force having to support an increasingly larger older population. Paralleling increased longevity are the changes in intergenerational relationships that may affect the provision of care and income security for older persons, particularly in developing countries where family transfers play a major role.

At the same time, it is also necessary for societies to fully recognize and better harness the productive and social contributions that older persons can make but are in many instances prevented from making. The Survey argues that the challenges are not insurmountable, but that societies everywhere need to put in place the policies required to confront those challenges effectively and to ensure an adequate standard of living for each of their members, while respecting and promoting the contribution and participation of all.” United Nations Development Policy and Analysis Division. The website allows one to download the book itself, and to download the background papers that were prepared for its authors.

Source: United Nations Development Policy and Analysis Division,
http://www.un.org/esa/policy/wess/

Filed under: Development, Publications, Research

World Bank/IMF: Global Monitoring Report 2008

This new report warns that most countries will fall short on the MDGs. Though much of the world is set to cut extreme poverty in half by then, prospects are gravest for the goals of reducing child and maternal mortality. The report also stresses the link between environment and development. The implication of this assessment is clear. If the world is to get back on track to meet the MDGs, the international communityneeds to move quickly to generate stronger and broader momentum toward these goals. In the context of expediting and broadening progress toward the MDGs, and ensuring the sustainability of that progress, the report proposes an agenda for inclusive and sustainable development.
http://tinyurl.com/5zbweg

Filed under: Development, Publications, MDGs

Publications

A Billion to Gain?

http://tinyurl.com/68lmym

The reports of ING Microfinance Support systematically chart large global financial institutions’ activities and future plans in microfinance. This third edition in the ‘A Billion to Gain?’ series provides an update of the latest report and serves three main objectives: To update global financial institutions’ activities and future plans regarding microfinance; to discover recent major developments and trends in global financial institutions’ involvement in the microfinance sector; and to reveal the impact of global banks’ involvement in the development of the microfinance sector.

An Investigation of the Competitiveness Hypothesis of the Resource Curse

http://biblio.iss.nl/opac/uploads/wp/wp455.pdf

Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Working Paper no. 455, Author: L. Serino

CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement : An Overview

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2008/april/tradoc_138569.pdf

Information paper by DG Trade, European Commission, gives an overview of the content of the agreement, outlining the provisions with respect to various subject areas.

CGAP Good Practice Guidelines for Funders

http://tinyurl.com/5euxvx

Good Practice Guidelines for Funders of Microfinance provides operational guidance for staff of donors and investors in the field and at headquarters who conceptualize, design, implement, and monitor programs related to improving poor people’s access to financial services.

Clusters, Functional Regions and Cluster Policies

http://www.insme.info/documenti/Cluster&Cluster_Policies.pdf

This INSME paper by Charlie Karlssongives an overview of research on economic clusters and clustering and is motivated by the growing intellectual and political interest for the subject. Functional regions have the features that agglomeration of economic activities i.e. clusters, benefit from. Functional regions have low intra-regional transaction and transportation cost and has access to the local labour market. The features of spatial economic concentration were for a long time disregarded. The scientific interests of cluster and clustering phenomenon have after the ”new” introduction rapidly increased in the last decade. Hence, the subject is being thought at various education levels. The importance of cluster and clustering has also been recognized at a national, regional and local level and cluster policies are becoming a major part of political thinking. These policies are however often based on a scarce analysis where no strict criterions are statet.

Country-Level Savings Assessment Tool

http://www.microfinancegateway.org/files/45915_file_CLSA_Tool.pdf

CGAP produced this Draft Country-Level Savings Assessment (CLSA) Tool to help guide analysts and researchers who wish to undertake CLSAs and to guide governments and donors who wish to commission CLSAs. It explains the areas of analysis covered, the methodology, and how it can be tailored to the needs of the agency commissioning the CLSA. This draft tool is a work in progress.”

Delivering Microfinance and Social Services in Conditions of Fragility in Nepal

http://www.microlinks.org/ev_en.php?ID=19700_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC

USAid, Field Report no 3. Natural disasters, civil conflicts and the HIV/AIDS pandemic are forcing an increasing number of people to live in conditions of fragility, complicating the delivery of basic public services. Despite the obstacles posed by these fragile conditions, relief and development organizations as well as national governments have been able to increase their outreach to affected populations by developing new approaches and strategies. This case study documents the strategies used by microfinance institutions (MFI), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private businesses to deliver financial and non-financial goods and services (e.g., business development services; health and education services; basic consumer goods; sanitation services) to populations affected by the Maoist insurgency in Nepal.

Developing women’s entrepreneurship

http://www.unescap.org/icstd/pubs/st_escap_2468.pdf

This UN document explores the potential for women in entrepreneurship and e-business in the niche area of green or ”organic” cooperatives. It seeks to promote women’s entrepreneurship and e-business development by providing policymakers and entrepreneurs with background on this niche area, potential entrepreneurship and e-business development opportunities, and a discussion of its implications for rural development.

Développement Economique Local et Régional

http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/doc/LRED_framework_fr.pdf

Ce manuel de la GTZ des praticiens du LRED est basé sur l’expérience récente de la GTZ dans l’appui au Développement Économique Local et Régional (LRED) en Afrique du Sud.

Explaining Success and Failure in Development

http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2008/wp2008-013.pdf

United Nations University (UNU-MERIT), Working Paper No. 13, Author: A. Szirmai

Financial literacy – a comparative study in selected countries

http://www.sparkassenstiftung.de/uploads/media/Financial_Literacy_Study.pdf

Financial literacy is not only an issue for industrialised nations; it is even more important for developing and transformation countries. When combined with other measures of development cooperation, financial literacy can essentially contribute to combating poverty. By Sparkassenstiftung für internationale Kooperation, Bonn, Germany.

Geographical Distribution of Financial Flows to Developing Countries

http://www.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/display.asp?sf1=identifiers&st1=432008073P1

Disbursements, Commitments, Country Indicators, 2002-2006: 2008 Edition

German BMZ: Development Partnerships with the private sector

http://tinyurl.com/5mowgd

The creation of global development partner-ships is one of the eight UN Millennium Development Goals. Our PPP programme is one way we contribute to the achievement of this goal. In this programme we join together with partners from the private sector to seek – and often to find! – sustainable solutions for the development policy challenges facing our part-ner countries. In 2006, nearly 400 new partnerships were formed.

Global employment trends for women

http://tinyurl.com/5mowgd

The ILO report shows clearly that most regions are making progress in increasing the number of women in decent employment, but that full gender equality in terms of labour market access and conditions of employment has not yet been attained.

Individual Entrepreneurship Capacity and Performance of SMEs

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/8179/1/MPRA_paper_8179.pdf

This paper analyses the importance of human capital and organizational capital on the determination of SME’s performance, by proposing and testing a conceptual model about Individual Entrepreneurship Capacity, and its impact both on non-economic and economic performance.

Innovation and Export of Vietnam’s SME Sector

http://tinyurl.com/6x59sx

In this paper, the authors investigate how the firms’ export behavior depends on their innovation activities, or whether the more innovative firms are more likely to export. The authors find that innovation as measured directly by ‘new products’, ‘new production process’ and ‘improvement of existing products’ are important determinants of exports by Vietnamese SMEs.

Local Economic Development Strategic Planning and Practice Casebook

http://tinyurl.com/6n25wc

In 1999 World Bank and Bertelsmann Foundation started a Cities of Change program in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics and Balkans to reduce unemployment and poverty. As a result the local economic development cluster emerged. The Cities of Change program aimed to help the LED cluster cities to design and implement their own LED strategies. A core task of the program was to develop practical knowledge products that could be used by municipal governments and communities to understand, design and implement integrated LED strategic planning. As a practical product of the program, this LED Strategic Planning and Practice Casebook seeks to help the reader understand municipal approaches to LED strategic planning by identifying good practice in strategic planning methodology. The Casebook serves as a collection of six local economic development strategies that provide examples of good practice from across Europe and from the Cities of Change network. The Casebook also contains good practice notes and comments.

Mobile Banking: DFID Knowledge map & possible donor support strategies

http://tinyurl.com/5p24xc

Mobile banking (m-banking) involves the use of a mobile phone or another mobile device to undertake financial transactions linked to a client’s account. M-banking is one of the newest approaches to the provision of financial services through ICT, made possible by the widespread adoption of mobile phones even in low income countries. The roll out of mobile telephony has been rapid, and has extended access well beyond already connected customers in developing countries. There is mounting evidence of positive social impact on poorer people and communities as a result. There are sound reasons for the hope that m-banking could have similar impact.

Moving Toward Competitiveness: A Value-Chain Approach

http://tinyurl.com/6keu8z

A strong business environment based on sound institutions and policies is a necessary basis for enhanced competitiveness of private firms that produce and deliver goods and services. When business environment constraints—inefficiencies and cost disadvantages—can be identified, policy makers have the opportunity to jumpstart economic reform processes that target priority areas along the product/service life cycle known as the value chain. This technical report outlines a pragmatic approach for analyzing value chain performance as the basis for identifying binding constraints to growth and competitiveness. This approach is intended to facilitate formulating a targeted reform agenda. The World Bank Group (WBG) uses a myriad of policy tools to support its ongoing private sector development work.

OECD Competition Assessment Toolkit

http://tinyurl.com/5glxzk

Governments can reduce unnecessary restrictions by considering the use of methods in the OECD’s new ”Competition Assessment Toolkit”. The Toolkit provides a general methodology for identifying unnecessary restraints and developing alternative, less restrictive policies that still achieve government objectives. One of the main elements of the Toolkit is a Competition Checklist that asks a series of simple questions to screen for laws and regulations that have the potential to unnecessarily restrain competition. The Toolkit is available in: Chinese, English, French, Hungarian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.

Organisational learning for aid, and learning aid organisations

http://www.capacity.org/en/content/view/full/219/(issue
)/15869
Although many aid agencies claim to be learning organisations, a recent review found that they still need to address some major challenges, especially at field level. Ben Ramalingam asks why this is the case, and what aid agencies can do to learn more effectively.

Publication: The strategic partnership between the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean: a joint commitment

http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/library/publications/lima_en.pdf

This brochure sets out the framework of the strategic partnership, presenting the background and the most recent developments. The chapters are divided by theme and geographical entity, focusing on the most important elements of the partnership and its evolution. They illustrate the political, trade and cooperation re lations between the EU and each subregion.

Raw Deal: Europe’s damaging corporate trade agenda – impacts and new threats

http://www.wdm.org.uk/rawdeal
– English

http://www.wdm.org.uk/desaccordsinjuste
– Francais

http://www.wdm.org.uk/tratoinjusto
– Espanol

This new Third World Network report presents evidence from existing European trade deals with South Africa and Mexico showing how they have hindered rather than helped development. Looking at examples in agriculture, industrial products and services, the report shows how the reality of these bilateral deals is far removed from the ‘win-win’ rhetoric.

Removing Barriers to SME Access to International Markets:

http://www.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/display.asp?sf1=identifiers&st1=852008021P1

This book sheds light on facilitating SME internationalisation and also presents a synthesis of the Conference discussions and the main outcome of the Conference: the ”Athens Action Plan for Removing Barriers to SME Access to International Markets”.

Social innovation: Good for you, good for me

http://www.wbcsd.org/includes/getTarget.asp?type=DocDet&id=Mjk1MTI

Big firms are joining the queue to follow in Muhammad Yunus’s footsteps by developing businesses designed to fix social ills.

Supporting pro-poor growth processes: Implications for donors

http://tinyurl.com/5jjj6c

Eva Ludi and Kate Bird of Overseas Development Institute discuss policies and programmes to strengthen the productive capacities of poor people.

The new EPAs: comparative ananlysis of their content and the challenges for 2008

http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=36293

This report, prepared by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) addresses questions around national level impacts of interim EPAs, individual level agreements in relation to future regional integration initiatives and details of agreed opt out options and time schedules. It also examines how far the agreed texts are similar to each other and how development friendly are they?

Turning the Tables: Aid and accountability under the Paris framework

http://www.eurodad.org/whatsnew/reports.aspx?id=2166

A major new civil society report has been launched which reveals that the world’s rich countries have only made patchy progress in making aid more effective for helping the poor, despite high-profile commitments to reform aid.

UNRISD: Poverty and Inequality in China

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/rode/12/2

A special of the Journal ”Review of Development Economics” includes papers emerging from UNU-WIDER’s 2004/2005 research project on poverty and inequality in China and is free online.

Vocational education and training in Germany

http://tinyurl.com/5mowgd

This Cedfop overview of vocational education and training in Germany has been produced to mark Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the EU. It forms part of the series of short descriptions regularly published by Cedefop on national VET systems.

What Makes an Entrepreneur?

http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/What_Makes_an_Entrepreneur.pdf

The World Bank authors tests two competing hypotheses on what makes an entrepreneur: nature – attitude towards risk, I.Q., and self-confidence; or nurture – family background and social networks. The results are based on data from a new survey on entrepreneurship in Brazil, of 400 entrepreneurs and 540 non-entrepreneurs of the same age, gender, education and location in 7 Brazilian cities. We find that family characteristics have the strongest influence on becoming an entrepreneur. In contrast, success as an entrepreneur is primarily determined by the individual’s smartness and higher education in the family. Entrepreneurs are not more self-confident than non-entrepreneurs; and overconfidence is bad for business success.

World Bank Research Highlights 2007

http://econ.worldbank.org/research/highlights2007
. This is the annual report of the World Bank’s principal research unit, the Development Research Group (DECRG). The report describes the major research themes and highlights of 2007 for DECRG’s six research teams: Finance and Private Sector Development; Human Development and Public Services; Macroeconomics and Growth; Poverty and Inequality; Sustainable Rural and Urban Development; and Trade and International Integration. The on-line version also provides a complete list of the unit’s published output in 2007, comprising 25 books, 175 journal articles, 90 book chapters, 180 working papers, and 12 new public-access datasets.

Filed under: Development, Publications, Research

EU-ACP: 10th EDF country strategy papers adopted

A good number of country strategy papers for the implementation of the 10th European Development Fund in the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries have now been adopted and signed. They are available on EC website at:
http://ec.europa.eu/development/how/iqsg/documents_library_en.cfm

A rapid overview of the 31 CSPs that were signed on 9 December 2007 at the occasion of the EU-Africa Lisbon Summit shows that:
- in general, the strategies seem to be more focused on a limited number of priorities (not more than 2 in most cases) than in the case of the 9th EDF.
- Non-state actors are often mentioned but no full and detailed inventory of envisaged support to civil society has been made yet.
- Governance is a focal sector in 12 countries which represent more 39% of the countries.
- Infrastructure (including mainly transport but also the rehabilitation of basic infrastructures in post conflict situations like Liberia and Sierra Leone as well as energy and water infrastructures) is a focal sector in 22 countries (70%). Transport has always been a key sector of the EDF. For the coming 6 years, the focus will be on regional connections with the building of main regional road axes in view of promoting regional integration and trade relations.
- Regional integration and trade is effectively mentioned as a focal sector in 11 cases and most generally combined with transport except in the case of Cameroon and Congo Brazzaville.
- Another important focal sector mentioned in 9 CSPs is rural development, in certain cases combined with agriculture and in others with food security.
- Water and sanitation is also mentioned in 5 CSPs and energy in 3.
- Social sectors are to be supported mainly through general budget support but are however specifically mentioned as a focal sector in 6 cases for education and only 3 cases for health (Burundi, Swaziland, and Zambia).

For 31 countries, however, the CSP is not yet posted on the website and many signatures are still pending. Not all countries are eligible to general budget support, in several cases, sectoral budget support is envisaged for supporting the focal sectors while no general budget support is provided. Source: EU News

Filed under: ACP, Africa, Caribbean, Development, European Union, Publications, Trade

UNCTAD Information Economy Report 2007-2008

The Information Economy Report 2008 reveals that although most developing countries remain far behind industrialized nations in availability and use of information and communication technology (ICT), some are emerging as major global suppliers of ICT products and services. The report analyses the current – and potential – contribution of ICT to knowledge creation and diffusion. It provides latest figures on the global digital divide and looks at how developing countries use ICT to improve the livelihoods of the poor and support enterprise competitiveness. The Report also explores the links between ICT use by enterprises, innovation and development, the role of mobile telephony, e-banking, and e-commerce legislation in developing countries. The Report will contribute to a roundtable debate planned for UNCTAD XII (20-25 April in Accra, Ghana) with the theme ”Harnessing knowledge and technology for development”.
http://www.unctad.org/press

Filed under: Development, Publications, Technology

ILO Global Employment Trends 2008

Economic turbulence largely due to credit market turmoil and rising oil prices could spur an increase in global unemployment by an estimated 5 million persons in 2008. This is one of the main findings in the GET report 2008. This new projection for 2008 is in contrast to 2007, a watershed year in which sound global GDP growth, led to a ”stabilization” of global labour markets with more people in work.
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/download/get08.pdf

Filed under: Development, ILO, Migration, Networks, Publications

OECD publishes Principles and guidelines to promote sustainable lending practices in the provision of Official Export Credits to Low Income Countries

The provision of official export credits to public and publicly guaranteed buyers in low income countries should reflect Sustainable Lending practices (lending that supports a borrowing country’s economic and social progress without endangering its financial future and long-term development prospects). Export Credits Guarantees (ECG) Members agree to apply principles to obtain reasonable assurances that their commercial lending decisions are not likely to contribute to debt distress in the future in relation to any official export credit with a repayment term of one year or more.

http://www.oecd.org/topic/0,3373,en_2649_34169_1_1_1_1_37431,00.html

Filed under: OECD, Publications, Trade

Cluster Management: A Practical Guide, by GTZ

This GTZ-manual provides an encompassing and concise overview of methods and instruments of cluster management. It was developed in Croatia commissioned by the GTZ and financed by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It is, however, not only applicable to Croatia and to other transformation countries, but by all means suitable for a worldwide use. In addition to being useful for cluster management as such, it can also be applied to other forms of enterprise cooperation which go beyond pure supplier-buyer-relationships.

Part A: Overview.

http://www2.gtz.de/dokumente/bib/07-1496.pdf

Cluster Management – A Practical Guide. Part B: Tools

http://www2.gtz.de/dokumente/bib/07-1498.pdf

German version: Überblick:
http://www2.gtz.de/dokumente/bib/07-1492.pdf
, Tools:
http://www2.gtz.de/dokumente/bib/07-1494.pdf

Filed under: Clusters, Development, Publications, Research, Rural Economies

GTZ-Reader: Knowledge Management and Knowledge Systems for Rural Development

Knowledge Management (KM) is a relatively novel management concept. It has been pushed by the rapid developments of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). ICT facilitates a speedy exchange of data, information and documents. There is groupware for communication; content management systems to organise and retrieve documents; expert systems, data mining and text mining systems, tracing services and search engines, e.g. Google. Communication via email, fax, and phone- and video-conferences is ordinary business. It is good guessing that technological advances will continue to revolutionize the way we communicate and interact with each other. While the speed and ease to exchange data and information will increase, a new challenge for users emerges: to select relevant data, information and documents. To better understand potential and limitations it is importance to recognise the differences between data, information and knowledge.

http://www2.gtz.de/wbf/doc/en-Knowledge-Management-Reader-2007.pdf

Filed under: Development, Publications, Rural Economies

Moving Toward Competitiveness: A Value-Chain Approach

Developing countries face tremendous opportunities for economic growth given economic liberalization worldwide, and rapid advancement and application of information and communications technologies. However, along with the many opportunities global network trade has to offer, firms in developing countries also face strong competitive pressures for greater efficiency and productivity to maintain market share or even survive. A strong business environment based on sound institutions and policies is a necessary basis for enhanced competitiveness of private firms that produce and deliver goods and services. When business environment constraints – inefficiencies and cost disadvantages – can be identified, policy makers have the opportunity to jumpstart economic reform processes that target priority areas along the product/service life cycle known as the value chain. This technical report outlines a pragmatic approach for analyzing value chain performance as the basis for identifying binding constraints to growth and competitiveness. This approach is intended to facilitate formulating a targeted reform agenda.

http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/fias.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/MovingTowardCompetitiveness/$FILE/Value+Chain+Manual.pdf

Filed under: Development, Publications, Value Chains

The Role of Remittances in Leveraging Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

This Accion Internacional paper deliberates on the type of financial services which can help leverage the economic impact of remittances.
http://www.microfinancegateway.org/files/46093_file_46.pdf

Filed under: Development, Migration, Publications, Remittances

Banking on Development : private banks and aid donors in developing countries

The aim of this ECD Working Paper No. 263 is precisely to contribute to this debate and process. It highlights how private banks and other private financial operators like private equity firms and investments funds, can play a pivotal role in economic development. All in all, they are interesting potential partners for public aid donors willing to deepen impacts on developing countries. As documented, some of the private banking firms are more active in specific regions. UK and French banks seem, for example, to be potential interesting partners for aid donors in Africa while Spanish banks or US counterparts are more relevant for Latin America and German, Swiss and Italian banks for Eastern Europe. Beyond international banks, local private banks in Brazil, India, South Africa, Morocco and other developing countries are becoming increasingly aware and sensitive to economic, social and environmental impacts.

http://lysander.sourceoecd.org/vl=1107072/cl=11/nw=1/rpsv/cgi-bin/wppdf?file=5l4bhbfrf037.pdf

Filed under: Development, Publications, Research