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11. Post-War and Post-Conflict Challenges for Development Cooperation

Author:
Sabine Kurtenbach
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
Conflict and violence have become an important context for development cooperation during the last decade. Donors not only have to cope with the consequences of conflict in their day-to-day work on the ground, but also need to develop strategies in the fields of early warning and prevention, as well as instruments for conflict analysis and conflic-sensitive approaches for cooperation. At the same time, external actors have been important supporters for many peace processes aiming at the termination of armed conflicts and violence. When wars or armed conflicts end (or at least when violence on the ground decreases) the hope for sustainable peacebuilding grows. UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon pointed out the importance of the immediate post-conflict/post-war period in a report to the Security Council on June 11, 2009: “The immediate post-conflict period offers a window of opportunity to provide basic security, deliver peace dividends, shore up and build confidence in the political process, and strengthen core national capacity to lead peacebuilding efforts.” This gives a first impression of the many challenges internal and external actors face; at the same time experiences on the ground show that liberal peacebuilding conceived as a profound transformation process is a difficult endeavour.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Development, War, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
United Nations

12. The MDG Project in Crisis. Midpoint Review and Prospects for the Future

Author:
Tobias Debiel and Jens Martens
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
Since their proclamation in 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have become the leitmotiv of international development politics. With the MDGs, the development discourse among governments and international organisations has focused on eradicating the most extreme forms of hunger and poverty as well as on basic social services for the population, above all in the fields of primary education, health and water supply. Most of the MDGs are linked to clear quantitative and time-bound targets, the majority of which are to be attained by 2015.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, United Nations, and Governance

13. Privatisation in Deep Water? Water Governance and Options for Development Cooperation, INEF-Report 84

Author:
Annabelle Houdret and Miriam Shabafrouz
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
Water is an essential factor for human development and health, but also for agricultural production, the development of the tourism sector and industrial growth. The increasing scarcity of the resource contributes to high competition between these user groups. Growing tension and conflict over water allocation urge for new approaches in demand management.
Topic:
Development, Government, Health, and Privatization

14. The Institutional Dimension of WTO Accession Observations and Practical Guidelines for Improving National Trade-related Governance Capacities

Author:
Uwe Schmidt
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
For developing countries and economies in transition, accession to and membership in the global trade body is a delicate and cumbersome experience. The need to bring national legislation into conformity with WTO rules, negotiating and implementing concessions on market access for trade in goods and services, transparency requirements, emerging new trade issues (e. g. environmental standards), and the necessity to establish and maintain professional trade-related research competence places heavy burdens on applicants and developing members that not infrequently exceed their institutional capacity for formulating policy options or negotiation strategies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

15. How does globalisation affect local production and knowledge systems? The surgical instrument cluster of Tuttlingen, Germany

Author:
Gerhard Halder
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
The recent discussion of the winners and losersfrom globalisation has given prominence to regional development and industrial clusters in the global organisation of production and know-how. Tuttlingen, in southern Germany, is the recognised world leader in the global surgical instruments industry. However, price competition from emerging low-cost locations in South and South/East Asia and Eastern Europe, and rapid technological developments in medical engineering pose new challenges for the Tuttlingen cluster. In the past, institutional joint action was one of the pillars of the cluster's success, but there are doubts as to whether such institutions can face the new challenges. New public-private initiatives suggest a way forward, but it is too early to gauge their impact. In the past there wereimportant examples of small and medium sized firms coming togetherin joint marketing, production, and research and development efforts. While they continue, local competition has become more intense, making inter-firm co-operation more difficult. Some firms do, however, co-operate with suppliers further down the value chain, particularly those in Pakistan and Malaysia. The new challenges are also leading to further differentiation, both amongst firms as well as between producers and traders within the cluster. The most radical forms of product and functional upgrading are being concentrated in the cluster' sleading large firms. Innovation seems to be linked to close ties with end-users, the concentration of knowledge in medical engineering, and changes in surgical practices and health care delivery. Thus, the cluster while the 'big fish' in its own pond of surgical instruments, is having to come to terms with being a 'small fry' in the larger sea that constitutes the global health care sector.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, East Asia, and Germany

16. Improving Upon Nature: Creating Competitive Advantage in Ceramic Tile Clusters in Italy, Spain, and Brazil

Author:
Jorg Meyer-Stamer, Silene Seibel, and Claudio Maggi
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
This paper shows how using a combination of a cluster and a global value chain approach helps to assess local competitive strategies and upgrading possibilities. The global ceramic tile industry is dominated by two industrial clusters, Sassuolo in Italy and Castellón in Spain, which are not only dominating tile production in their respective countries and in Europe but are also the global technology leaders and the leading exporters. The Italian tile manufacturers are closely linked with capital goods manufacturers, the Spanish with producers of glazing materials. The equipment and materials producers drive technical change and innovation in tile design, whereas the tile manufacturers try to establish a competitive advantage in particular by innovating in downstream activities: training tilers, establishing diversified brands for different sales channels, and going into direct sales. Analyzing the value chain, from inputs and capital goods to final sales, offers new insights into scope and alternatives of local upgrading. It also helps to reassess the competitiveness of tile clusters in the developing world. This is done for Brazil's leading cluster which is located in Santa Catarina. Tile firms there can benefit from the fierce rivalry among Italian capital goods producers and among Spanish producers of glazing materials, as well as the rivalry between Italy and Spain. They are technology followers. However, having to deal with a volatile and very competitive market, they are innovative in downstream activities, experimenting with concepts which are not yet used by Italian or Spanish manufacturers.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Europe, Brazil, Spain, and Italy

17. Key Factors of Structural Change in North Rhine-Westphalia

Author:
Claudio Maggi
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
Recent years have seen the re-emergence of industrial policies and policies for the promotion of economic activity in both industrialised and developing countries, flanked by regional and national strategies for enhanced integration into increasingly globalised international markets, improved competitiveness and sustainably dynamic economic growth. The growing popularity of these policies is also a reflection of recent currents in international economic debate, notably the argument that the recipes for stability staunchly championed by neo-liberals, which gave rise to the Washington Consensus in the early eighties, need to be complemented by more committed policies designed to strengthen international competitiveness.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, Government, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, Washington, and Westphalia

18. New Perspektives of International and German Development Policy

Author:
Dirk Messner
Publication Date:
12-1998
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
Remarks on shaping globalization: Perspectives of development cooperation and elements of global governance (Dirk Messner); Old Wine in New Skins: Some critical comments on the UNDP Reports (Franz Nuscheler); The position of development policy: a functional definition (Adolf Kloke-Lesch).
Topic:
Development, Globalization, Governance, and United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
Political Geography:
Global Focus

19. Gross Human Rights Violations in 1994

Author:
Brigitte Hamm
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
Leaving theoretical questions aside, the measurement of human rights is often considered to be appropriate in evaluating a country's human rights situation. Such data are used as an auxiliary tool of exogenous pressure, which is known as political conditionality whereby aid is related to specific political practices. Often human rights organizations of the South ask for the instrument of political conditionality against repressive regimes. However, exogenous pressure directed mainly towards elections and the respect for political human rights may be criticized as a kind of imperialistic attitude, trying to implement Western values in Non-Western societies.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Politics, Terrorism, and Conditionality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

20. The "Market-Friendly Approach to Development" vs. an "Industrial Policy"

Author:
Ajit Singh
Publication Date:
02-1993
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
As Mr. Barber Conable observes in his Foreword, the World Development Report 1991 "synthesises and interprets the lessons of forty years of development experience" (p. iii). In view of the World Bank's leading role in development financing for poor countries around the globe over much of this period, this is clearly an important document. The Report is necessarily being taken very seriously in policy making circles throughout the developing world. It is therefore essential that there should be a full analysis of its intellectual approach and the evidence underlying its conclusions.
Topic:
Development, Industrial Policy, Markets, and World Bank
Political Geography:
Global Focus