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51. Improving livelihoods through conservation and education

Author:
Rich Karl, Magda Rich, Ganga Changappa, and Babu Raghavan
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
In many parts of the developing world, those with physical or mental handicaps are often considered to be a burden on society, with limited to no remunerative activities available in the workforce. Activities such as butterfly farming, which require precision and attention to detail, are potentially relevant for disadvantaged groups as a source of livelihoods. At the same time, such activities can be integrated with community-led conservation efforts as well. We provide a case study of the development of a butterfly garden at the Swastha Centre for Special Education and Rehabilitation in the Kodagu area of Coorg, a region in the state of Karnataka in India through which conservation-based activities are integrated with special education in a manner than builds skills, improves livelihoods, and serves as an important resource for environmental education. Our case demonstrates a scalable means by which butterflies can be used to educate, improve the environment, and offer livelihoods to the disadvantaged in a country where such opportunities are greatly needed.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Environment, and Governance
Political Geography:
India and Karnataka

52. Sustainability Coffee Certification in India

Author:
Rich Karl, Magda Rich, P.G. Chengappa, Arun Muniyappa, Yadava C.G, Ganashruthi M.K., Pradeepa Babu B.N., and Shubha Y.C.
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Certification programs has been employed in many agricultural products as a means to encourage and communicate compliance with standards associated with various attributes, such as organic, fair-trade, GMO free, and eco-friendly, among others. Such programs further seek to provide added value, through a price premium, to producers and supply chain actors associated with the label. In this paper, we review a number of global labeling and certification programs that could add value for coffee farms in India through the promotion of conservation and environmental protection. We provide results from a survey conducted on a sample of coffee farms in Coorg district, India to assess their awareness and perceptions related towards certified coffee and environmental conservation in general. Survey results illustrate strong positive associations with the environment by coffee planters, particularly among certified and organic producers. However, price premiums for certified and organic coffee are relatively small. While the potential of conservation-oriented certification for coffee in Coorg could be relatively limited outside of a few individual-level niches, branding Coorg more generally as a conservation-oriented region could hold promise, leveraging and personalizing the uniqueness of the natural offerings from Coorg and tapping into burgeoning associations with place and region in India.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
India

53. Promoting conservation in India by greening coffee

Author:
Magda Rich, P.G. Chengappa, Arun Muniyappa, Pradeepa Babu B.N., Karl M. Rich, and Yadava C.G.
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Indian coffee sector is at an important transition point, increasingly stuck in the middle between quality and value segments of the market. A potential niche for India is in the development of eco-friendly (green) coffees, leveraging the natural environment and biodiversity present in many regions. In this study, we conducted a value chain assessment of the coffee sector in Coorg, a major production area in India, to identify the potential entry points and constraints to a conservation-oriented strategy of upgrading. The results highlight that coffee value chains in Coorg are fragmented and largely uncoordinated, with innovative upgrading efforts largely individually motivated. This suggests that integrating conservation principles in a broad-based branding strategy could be difficult at the level of the chain without institutional support or the entry of chain champions. On the other hand, integrating conservation as a diversification activity e.g. through the development of butterfly gardens for tourism, could provide a low-cost way of adding value for farmers while promoting good environmental stewardship.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and Biosecurity
Political Geography:
India

54. TSG IntelBrief: The U.S.-India Relationship Reinvigorated

Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Soufan Group
Abstract:
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's September visit to the United States allowed for the "soft reset" of a strategic partnership that has been in search of greater focus in recent years The smiles and handshakes served to ease the anxieties that had been building on both sides and had contributed to increased squabbling in the bilateral relationship Mutual frustrations are likely to continue in areas such as intellectual property rights and multilateral trade negotiations, where there has been no reconciliation in the two countries' largely incompatible points of view The U.S. and India share clearly convergent interests in both combating Islamist militancy and in balancing against a rising China Although the partnership's full potential is far from realized, these two geostrategic issues are sufficient to keep the trajectory positive and to sustain widely-held hopes that ties between the world's two largest democracies will continue to deepen.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, and India

55. Let Bygones Be Bygones: The Case for India's Inclusion in APEC

Author:
Kevin Carmichael
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will miss the 2014 Beijing APEC summit. His former spokesman says it does not matter. "[I]t's safe to say that Canada won't lose out by skipping this particular summit, at this particular time, for this particular reason," Andrew McDougall (2014) wrote in an opinion article posted on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC's) website on November. In early October, a US State Department official told an audience in Washington, DC that Beijing was shaping up to be a "good" summit, in part because US President Barack Obama was planning to attend after missing the previous two APEC leaders' meetings (Wang 2014).
Topic:
Economics and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, India, and Asia

56. HIV/AIDS Intervention Packages in Five Countries: A Review of Budget Data

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Denizhan Duran, Rachel Silverman, and Victoria Fan
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
More than ever, global health funding agencies must get better value for money from their investment portfolios; to do so, each agency must know the interventions it supports and the sub-populations targeted by those interventions in each country.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Health, Humanitarian Aid, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
India, Philippines, Ethiopia, and Nigeria

57. Does Lean Capability Building Improve Labor Standards? Evidence from the Nike Supply Chain

Author:
Greg Distelhorst, Jens Hainmueller, and Richard M. Locke
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
This paper offers the first empirical analysis of the introduction of lean manufacturing as a "capability building" strategy for improving labor standards in global supply chains. Buyer interventions to improve supplier management systems have been proposed to augment existing, and widely deemed insufficient, private regulation of labor standards, but these claims have yet to be systematically investigated. We examine Nike Inc.'s multiyear effort to promote lean manufacturing and its associated high-performance work systems in its apparel supply base across eleven developing countries. Adoption of lean manufacturing techniques produces a 15 percentage point reduction in serious labor violations, an effect that is robust to alternative specifications and an examination of pre-trends in the treatment group. Our finding contradicts previous suggestions that pressing suppliers to adopt process improvements has deleterious effects on labor conditions and highlights the importance of relational contracting and commitment-oriented approaches to improving labor standards in the developing world.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
India

58. Identifying Options for a New International Climate Regime Arising from the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action

Author:
Robert N. Stavins, Ottmar Edenhofer, and Christian Flachsland
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The goal of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements is to help identify and advance scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic public policy options for addressing global climate change. Drawing upon leading thinkers in Argentina, Australia, China, Europe, India, Japan, and the United States, the Project conducts research on policy architecture, key design elements, and institutional dimensions of domestic climate policy and a post-2015 international climate policy regime. The Project is directed by Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, Industrial Policy, International Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Europe, and India

59. Crucial Collaborators or Petty Players? The Globalization of R and the Rise of China and India

Author:
Andrew B. Kennedy
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Course Pack
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
In recent decades, research and development has become a key new arena of globalization. Whereas multinational corporations once conducted R primarily in their home countries, it is now often dispersed across multiple locations around the world. Has this process transformed economic ties between the world's dominant state and its would-be rising powers in ways that imply an important power shift? Focusing on China and India's growing collaboration with the U.S., this paper argues that it has not. China and India remain considerably more reliant on the globalization of R than the U.S. does, and this remains a potential source of leverage for Washington. This vulnerability mainly reflects the fact that U.S. R investments in China and India are far more important for these two Asian countries than they are for the U.S. These investments loom larger in the Chinese and Indian innovation systems than they do in their American counterpart, and it is difficult to imagine any country substituting for the U.S. in this regard. In contrast, the U.S. cannot derive a great deal of leverage as a platform for R Both China and India are considerably less dependent on the U.S. in this respect.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, China, and India

60. The West must allow a power shift in international organizations

Author:
Jakob Vestergaard and Robert Hunter Wade
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
More than three years after the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s governing body agreed to reform the organization's governance so as to better reflect the increasing economic weight of dynamic emerging market economies in the world economy, only microscopic changes have been made. Emerging market and developing countries (EMDCs) have become increasingly frustrated with Western states for clinging to their inherited power, in the IMF and other important international economic governance organizations. The emerging cooperation among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) – as seen in the advanced-stage negotiations to establish a Development Bank and a Contingent Reserve Arrangement – sends a “wake up and smell the coffee” call to the West, and the latter will carry a heavy responsibility for eroding global multilateral governance if it continues to drag its heels on the needed adjustments.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Monetary Fund, Governance, and Reform
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, South Africa, and Brazil