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22. Anticorruption Reform: Learning From Experience Across Sectors
- Author:
- Tom Shipley
- Publication Date:
- 12-2023
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Natural Resource Governance Institute
- Abstract:
- Even armed with a thorough approach for diagnosing corruption risk, anticorruption reformers may struggle to decide on next steps. Solutions to corruption problems do not always readily present themselves. The politicized nature of the issues also means generating real momentum behind reform can seem daunting. To help reformers with these choices, this NRGI briefing brings together eight case studies from other sectors. Cases were selected where positive changes can be demonstrated, even if the reform process is often incomplete. NRGI and the author also selected reforms which have potential replicability in the extractives sector, while recognizing that the details will look different. The case examples are organized by reform categories, as shown in the table below. The briefing presents a short summary of each case and provides links to further materials, as well as accurate and up-to-date a summary as possible in each case, with the caveat that circumstances frequently change in anticorruption work. The briefing concludes with five lessons on anticorruption reform which can be drawn from across these cases. The aim is to show what can be achieved and support users of the diagnostic tool to learn from experiences outside the extractives sector. The tool provides guidance to multi-stakeholder groups to identify forms of corruption harming a country’s extractive sector. Developing an anticorruption action plan is the sixth step in the tool and a key outcome of the diagnostic process. The action plan should follow from a broader discussion on strategy, through which users make choices on the issues to tackle, the people and agencies to engage, and how to brand reforms (see section 6.1. in the diagnostic tool, “Strategizing”). To ensure the action plan provides a sound basis for reform, users of the tool should apply the following key principles: Engage all relevant stakeholders throughout the action planning process to secure buy-in for reforms. Set clear and specific objectives which balance feasibility and ambition. Ensure clear ownership and incentives, and lines of responsibility for actions. Set clear indicators and conduct regular monitoring to assess progress. Build in flexibility and be prepared to adapt plans to changes in the context. The diagnostic tool includes templates and guidance for users when developing an action plan.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Reform, and Stakeholders
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
23. Profit-shifting Frictions and the Geography of Multinational Activity
- Author:
- Alessandro Ferrari, Sébastien Laffitte, Mathieu Parenti, and Farid Toubal
- Publication Date:
- 06-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII)
- Abstract:
- International tax rules are commonly viewed as obsolete as multinational corporations exploit loopholes to move their profits to tax havens. This paper uncovers how international tax reforms can curb profit shifting and impact real income and welfare across nations. We introduce profit shifting and corporate taxation in a quantitative model of multinational production. The model delivers "triangle identities" through which we recover bilateral profit-shifting flows. Our estimates of both tax-base and profit-shifting elasticities, together with profit-shifting frictions, govern how taxes shape the geography of production and profits. Our model accommodates a rich set of corporate taxation scenarios. A global minimum tax would be beneficial for welfare since it would increase the public good provision and encourage countries to raise their statutory corporate tax rates. Instead, a border-adjustment tax that eliminates profit shifting could result in welfare losses.
- Topic:
- Reform, Multinational Corporations, Tax Systems, and Profit Sharing
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
24. Large-Scale Land Deals and Social Conflict: Evidence and Policy Implications
- Author:
- Alexander De Juan, Daniel Geissel, Jann Lay, and Rebecca Lohmann
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- How do large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) increase the risk of conflict, and what kind of policies can mitigate this effect? We address these questions with a systematic and poli-cy-oriented synthesis of prior research. First, we suggest a simple conceptual framework linking LSLAs to social conflict through relative deprivation. Second, we present empirical evidence on the associations between land investments and social conflict, drawing on pre-existing quantitative and qualitative studies as well as on own descriptive analyses and case studies. Taken together, this evidence suggests that conflicts accompany a sub-stantive share of LSLAs (10 to 20 percent). Specifically, contentious dynamics often start with violations of community interests, which spur largely peaceful community protests that trigger coercion and violence at the hands of armed actors associated with national governments and investors. Third, we develop a set of policy recommendations in high-lighting the need for thorough regulatory frameworks, meaningful consultation, and full transparency.
- Topic:
- Reform, Regulation, Conflict, Transparency, Land, and Community
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
25. Reforming the World Bank and MDBs to Meet Shared Global Challenges
- Author:
- Center for Global Development
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development (CGD)
- Abstract:
- Last July, the Center for Global Development hosted a meeting with other think tanks to exchange perspectives on the multilateral development bank (MDB) system. We shared a common diagnosis that MDBs must more aggressively address the global challenges that defy national borders and threaten human life as we know it. By virtue of its global reach, financial firepower, and expertise, the World Bank is especially well positioned to be a major driver of progress on climate, pandemic preparedness natural resource conservation, and other global public goods. But it is not meeting its full potential. Participants at our meeting agreed to set out a shared “call to action” where we lay out ideas to evolve the World Bank. The central ideas are to make climate mitigation and adaptation a core component of the World Bank’s mandate; greatly expand its financing capacity; create more incentives for countries to invest in climate and health preparedness; and reform the organizational structure of the institution. Together these could help lay the foundation for a modern World Bank that is meeting the defining challenges of our time head on. Unless otherwise noted, we the undersigned support these ideas in our personal capacity. More information on related work underway in our organizations can be found at our respective websites.
- Topic:
- Sovereignty, Reform, Finance, and Banking
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
26. A Package of Reforms for Financing Pandemic Preparedness and Response for the G7
- Author:
- Amanda Glassman and Eleni Smitham
- Publication Date:
- 06-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development (CGD)
- Abstract:
- COVID-19 has shown the detrimental consequences of insufficient and fragmented financing for outbreak preparedness, prevention, and response (PPR). As the world seeks to recover from the current COVID-19 pandemic, and to mitigate recovery needs for future health crises, more must be done to accelerate global efforts to ensure rapid, adequate funding and governance for global health security, which has been under-resourced and under-prioritized. The rationale for reforming and replenishing the global health architecture to prepare for the next pandemic is clear: to protect health, human lives, and economic well-being.[1] Without dedicated and accelerated investment—in scaled up surveillance, strengthened national health systems, enhanced research and development of medical countermeasures, and more—we will continue to face more frequent and more complex epidemics and pandemics in the years ahead, and be less prepared to stop them.[2] Without the capacity to surge financing to respond at-scale to infectious disease outbreaks, we risk a repeat of the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last July, the High-Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, mandated by the Italian Presidency of the G20, released the report A Global Deal for Our Pandemic Age, laying out policies and investments needed to reduce vulnerabilities to future pandemics.[3] Likewise, in 2021, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response[4] described the shortcomings of the existing architecture and suggested similar policies for the future, including greater assessed contributions for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the need for dedicated financing to prevent and prepare for the next COVID-19 variant and pandemic risk. The Global Preparedness and Monitoring Board’s periodic reports went in this same direction[5] , as did earlier assessments following Ebola, SARS and MERS outbreaks though recommendations often went without implementation.[6] These reports and the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic itself have again made clear that existing mechanisms for financing pandemic preparedness and response are not fit-for-purpose, nor at the sufficient speed and scale needed to ensure global health security. Current financing for pandemic preparedness is small, fragmented, and concentrated in the health sector.[7] Different organizations across the global health and international financial institution architecture hold different comparative advantages in mobilizing and deploying monies and need to be fully financed to do what they are best suited to do. However, no institution (that is adequately funded, credible, and capable) is currently mandated to or accountable for ensuring pandemic preparedness, resulting in financing and accountability gaps, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where Global Health Security Action Plans too often go un-costed and unfunded.[8] Further, new regional organizations and groupings are leaders in their own development, and must be a central part of a new global health security architecture—the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Forum for the Progress and Development of South America (PROSUR), among others, are examples. Adequate reforms and robust replenishments of global health organizations new and old are needed to ensure stronger global health security and pandemic preparedness now and in the future. External funders should take a comprehensive view of the major global health initiatives and consider how a range of reforms, when combined, have the potential to respond more coherently and efficiently to the financing demands related to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, other macro risks that affect public spending on health, and in the face of future health threats. There are reasons for optimism. Unlike the experience during previous pandemic threats, COVID-19 has finally seen the International Monetary Fund become more aware and vocal on the need to address both COVID-19 and future pandemic risks as “systemic risk(s) to the global economy, not just the development […] of a particular country.”[9] Finance, health and development policymakers are increasingly coming together in different fora and recognizing the need to invest across sectors and to connect the international financial architecture with health initiatives in ways that will deliver better outcomes.[10]
- Topic:
- Reform, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
27. Schooling for All: Feasible Strategies to Achieve Universal Education
- Author:
- Justin Sandefur
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development (CGD)
- Abstract:
- This report debates the case for specific public investments in education in low- and lower-middle-income countries, drawing on evidence of what has worked not just in small-scale experiments but historically and in large-scale national programs. Its messages are intended more for economic policymakers than educators, as they speak to what can be accomplished with fiscal instruments (money) and where trade-offs must be made. CGD does not take institutional positions. Each chapter is authored by a different set of CGD researchers (with some editorial steer), and each commentary is written by external contributors (who were promised space to disagree). This introduction tries to summarize the main arguments across all these contributions, noting points of consensus and ongoing debate.
- Topic:
- Development, Education, Reform, and Sustainability
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
28. How to save the WTO with more flexible trading rules
- Author:
- Robert Z. Lawrence
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
- Abstract:
- The clash between the Western and Chinese economic systems is threatening the world trading system, with countries increasingly using trade as a tool to coerce other countries. It is imperative to return to an inclusive, rules-based international trading order before the problems in trade spill over into the other geopolitical frictions that plague the world. This Policy Brief argues for a system that steers between two extremes that have emerged: “deep integration,” a single undertaking in which all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are expected to adhere to all rules regardless of their preferences and circumstances, and “decoupling,” in which groups of countries centered on the United States or China limit trade with each other. Instead, Lawrence says, the world trading system should have a “variable geometry” that allows open plurilateral agreements among self-selected members that desire deeper integration on particular issues while allowing members that prefer to implement distinctive domestic policies to remain outside some of these agreements and follow a set of more limited rules. The universal rules would permit diversity but still promote trade between all countries through measures such as safeguards that would deal mainly with the most harmful systemic frictions. If the multilateral system is not up to the task of creating such an approach, it is likely to lose its relevance as differentiated regional or topic groupings become increasingly dominant.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, Reform, and Trade
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
29. The World Bank, the IMF, and the GATT/WTO: Which institution most supported trade reform in developing economies?
- Author:
- Douglas A. Irwin
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
- Abstract:
- The 1980s and 1990s saw a policy revolution in developing countries in which many highly protected (if not closed) economies were opened to world trade. These reforms were largely undertaken unilaterally, but international economic institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization supported these efforts. This paper examines the ways in which these institutions promoted, or failed to promote, trade policy reform during this pivotal period.
- Topic:
- Development, World Bank, Reform, Trade, IMF, and WTO
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
30. A reform strategy to transform energy: From piecemeal to systemwide change
- Author:
- Steven Fries
- Publication Date:
- 08-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
- Abstract:
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report on Climate Change Mitigation highlights the vast gap between climate change mitigation actions and climate stabilization goals. But its broad policy prescriptions are likely to leave policymakers pondering what specific actions to take. Informed by accumulating evidence on transforming aspects of energy systems like power generation from solar and wind resources and battery electric cars, this paper develops a more pointed energy reform strategy than that of the IPCC to deliver the necessary systemwide changes. It makes the case for two unorthodox policies. One is for governments to provide, in addition to R&D supports, market-creating supports for early deployment of low-carbon technologies in initial markets. The second is to sequence emissions pricing after innovation and market-creating supports and differentiate this pricing across key energy sectors rather than imposing one economywide price. Compared with a single price, targeting higher emissions pricing on sectors that are costlier to decarbonize still promotes cost-effective emission cuts but limits adverse distributional impacts. The paper also considers nonprice barriers to change and ways to coordinate domestic reforms across countries.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, Reform, Carbon Emissions, and Energy
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus