Search

Begin New Search Topic Inclusion Publication Year within 5 Years

81. Which Type of Digital Currency for Financial Inclusion?

Author:
Diego Zuluaga
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
When the Libra Association first announced its plan to launch a private digital currency for domestic and cross‐​border payments — then consisting of a single token backed by a mix of stable fiat currencies — financial inclusion was a big part of its business case. With 1.7 billion people globally lacking a bank or mobile money account, Libra thought it was imperative for some of the world’s largest companies, including the leading social media platform, to join forces and bring cheap payments to the world’s “unbanked.” And while this project has faced a rocky reception from central bankers and regulators — for reasons good and bad — even they often frame the case for their own, public digital currencies (CBDCs) in terms of bringing cheap and fast electronic payments to the greatest possible number of people, as cash use and cash acceptance decline.
Topic:
Finance, Banks, Inclusion, and Digital Currency
Political Geography:
Global Focus

82. Serving the Citizens—Not the Bureaucracy

Author:
Sascha Haselmayer
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Abstract:
In a volatile and changing world, one government function is in a position to address challenges ranging from climate change to equity to local development: procurement. Too long confined to a mission of cost savings and compliance, procurement—particularly at the local level, where decisions have a real and immediate impact on citizens—has the potential to become a significant catalyst of change. In 2021 alone, cities around the globe will spend an estimated $6.4 trillion, or 8 percent of GDP, on procurement.1 Despite this vast buying power, city procurement faces several challenges, including resistance to the idea that procurement can be creative, strategic, economically formidable—and even an affirming experience for professional staff, citizens, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders. Unfortunately, city procurement is far from ready to overcome these hurdles. Interviews with city leaders and procurement experts point to a common failing: city procurement today is structured to serve bureaucracies—not citizens. City procurement is in a state of creative tension. Leaders want it to be a creative engine for change, but they underfund procurement teams and foster a compliance culture that leaves no room for much-needed creative and critical thinking. In short: procurement needs a mission. In this report, we propose cities reimagine procurement as a public service, which can unlock a world of ideas for change and improvement. The vision presented in this report is based on six strategic measures that can help cities get started. The path forward involves not only taking concrete actions, such as reducing barriers to participation of diverse suppliers, but also adopting a new mindset about the purpose and potential of procurement. By doing so, cities can reduce costs and develop creative, engaging solutions to citywide problems. We also offer detailed insights, ideas, and best practices for how practitioners can realize this new vision. Better city procurement offers the promise of a vast return on investment. Cost savings stand to exceed 15 percent across the board, and local development may benefit by multiplying the participation of small and disadvantaged businesses. Clarity of mission and the required professional skills can lead to new, pioneering innovations. Technology and the right data can lead to sustained performance and better outcomes. A healthy supplier ecosystem can deliver new supplier talent that is aligned with the goals of the city to reduce carbon emissions, serve complex needs, and diversify the supply chain. All of this not in service of the bureaucracy but of the citizen.
Topic:
Government, Citizenship, Bureaucracy, Cities, Inclusion, and Equity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

83. Recognizing Communities: Local Level Responses to the Pathfinders Grand Challenges

Author:
Tara Moayed
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
Communities are not homogenous. Within a single community, there are often divisions along class, ethnic, and gender lines. Further, not all communities are the same. Dynamics from one community to the next can widely differ, including power relations, land allocations, gender dynamics, mobility, and the level of government influence. James Scott, in Seeing Like A State, showed how much of the vocabulary of state administration carries with it the mechanisms to disempower local authority and invest it in state agents who can then wield state authority. Rebalancing this relationship requires finding ways to overcome the monopolies over information, decision-making, and convening power that state agents have, particularly in systems that emerged from an extractive colonial context. Ignoring these dynamics when designing a CDD project will most likely result in elite capture, and possibly lead to local conflict, increased inequality, and erode trust between citizens and the state. This research paper argues the importance of the role of the community within the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies discussion over inequality. The paper’s case studies are based largely on government-led community-driven development (CDD) programs that aim to ensure recognition of the complicated dynamics within the community itself. Unless the heterogeneity of communities is considered and fostered through an inclusive design and facilitation process, no program or project can hope to impact inclusion, empowerment, and the citizen-state relationship. A deep understanding of community dynamics and good facilitation are prerequisites for any CDD model to have a positive social impact.
Topic:
Citizenship, State, Community, Society, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus

84. The Way We Voluntarily Pay Taxes

Author:
Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
“Taxes are what you pay for a civilized society” stated US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1927. Time has shown that “civilized” means better lives and livelihoods for people where there is a solid tax base and collection–a necessary although insufficient condition for a society where people feel safe, heard, and participant in the decisions of the nation. A government that can efficiently collect taxes is a government with a solid administration and with legitimacy based on the fact that citizens pay their taxes by a combination of laws and a sense of duty and belonging. Paying taxes involves legal and moral obligations. The standard economic model for tax compliance assumes a cost-benefit calculation where someone balances the cost of being caught cheating the tax systems versus the benefit keeping some money hidden to the tax authorities. Yet there are other important reasons why people pay taxes that are not captured by a purely rational calculation. This background paper provides a framework that channels tax morale via trust and fairness directly and three elements for each one indirectly; trustworthiness of the government, reciprocity, and transparency/accountability for trust and three types of justice for fairness: distributive, procedural and retributive. This paper also makes a special distinction to the issue of corruption and how it relates to the elements within this framework. This paper will discuss the evidence on voluntary tax compliance, trust, and fairness, and the set of policies and actions that affect different mechanisms. It will provide a new framework based on the literature about the drivers of trust and fairness, with particular attention to the issue of corruption and also provide historical examples where specific interventions have successfully strengthened the tax system. Finally, it will provide ideas on how to identify the best sequence of interventions for increased tax morale in a specific context.
Topic:
Citizenship, Tax Systems, Peace, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus

85. Inclusive COVID-19 Relief Finance

Author:
Amanda Lenhardt
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned all countries’ attention to mitigating the impacts of the crisis, and with this attention has come a wave of finance to address the immediate health risks of the disease and the indirect effects on economies and on well-being. With this influx of spending on welfare and resilience, many have looked on with hope that this collective effort can be done in such a way that the world can ‘build back better.’ But, like any building project, the foundation is critical. This paper sets out to investigate whether countries are investing in the foundational social and economic structures that have led to the vulnerabilities currently upending people’s lives. Failure to address the structural inequalities embedded within societies and across the global political economic structure will ultimately leave the new structure vulnerable to collapse in the long term, and risks exposing marginalized groups to the harshest impacts of the crisis in the short term.
Topic:
Economy, Crisis Management, COVID-19, Marginalization, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
South Asia, East Asia, South Africa, and Latin America

86. Bridging the Silos: Integrating Strategies across Armed Conflict, Violent Crime, and Violent Extremism to Advance the UN’s Prevention Agenda

Author:
Céline Monnier and Daniel Mack
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
The consequences of violence worldwide are dire. More than half a million people die from violent deaths each year. In 2019, violence cost the global economy $14.5 trillion USD, or $1,909 USD per person. Countries with armed conflicts account for 80 percent of humanitarian spending. Beyond these cold numbers, the human toll of violence results in the suffering of families, trauma-affected communities, and increased fear and hopelessness. Different types of violence—such as crime, violent extremism, and armed conflict—are often interlinked and share risk and resilience factors. Although currently siloed, the UN system has the capacities and knowledge to develop approaches to prevention that cut across interlinked forms of violence. This policy paper makes the argument that the UN can and should adopt a more integrated violence prevention strategy across these three forms of violence. It draws from desk review of UN and academic documents, interviews with UN staff working on different types of violence prevention across the UN system, and a workshop among them. The paper discusses why there is a need for more integrated prevention approaches across different types of violence, what benefits that would bring, and what challenges need to be overcome first. It concludes by making four recommendations: governments should use the SDG 16.1 framework to bring actors together at national level; member states should ask the UN to develop evidence-based guidelines on prevention for countries to implement themselves; the UN should initiate a strategic dialogue at headquarters between fields to better identify commonalities in approaches; and country teams should develop an integrated strategy with specialized sub-strategies.
Topic:
United Nations, International Security, Peace, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus

87. Shared Capital Initiatives – for Redistribution and Recognition

Author:
Sanjay Reddy
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
Shared capital, defined as a broadly distributed pattern of rights over productive assets, can be a powerful instrument to address economic and social inequalities. We argue that initiatives to bring about shared capital can foster both redistribution and recognition, and thereby bring about more inclusive and peaceful societies. Based on experience, we suggest moreover that they are feasible and can be advanced by suitable policies and actions—at local, national, and global levels. Shared capital can involve distribution of various rights of an asset, including those of use, control, income, and transfer. This paper considers nine cases which feature some experience of shared capital involving various kinds of rights being distributed and relate these to different kinds of assets. In almost every case, the state has an important role to play in facilitating the distribution of rights.
Topic:
Regulation, Inequality, Peace, Sustainability, Capital, Redistribution, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus

88. Social Contracts: A Pathway for More Inclusive Societies

Author:
Erin McCandless
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
States and societies are in crisis around the world, as questions arise around the nature and quality of existing social contracts. COVID-19 has laid bare profound vulnerabilities within and across societies. The global pandemic is revealing deep failures in policy visions, institutional fragility, and incapacities of states to harness societal compliance where trust and a sense of national belonging is weak. At the same time, our interdependencies have never been so clear, as all countries, developed and underdeveloped alike, confront similar challenges. Crisis, however, offers opportunity to do things better, to build forward better – strengthening social contracts at all levels. How then, can social contracts, and compacting in times of crisis, offer pathways to address inequality and exclusion? This paper considers how social contracts can offer frameworks to foster new thinking and shape transformative policy to build more inclusive societies. Such frameworks should tie bold new policy visions to robust and resilient institutional arrangements that uproot harmful structural legacies with lasting effect for inclusive and peaceful societies. They must also offer means to address material conditions of inequality, and those related to recognition, identity, and dignity. The cases of South Africa, Tunisia, Colombia, and South Korea reveal that, while not easy nor predictable, such pathways exist. Key findings in this briefing include: Inequality and exclusion stem from policy choices and are fueled by corruption; they undermine foundations of inclusive and resilient national social contracts, e.g. trust in government and societal willingness to consent to difficult policy choices; Participation in formal electoral processes is declining while protest is rising, indicating a lack of faith in existing politics and institutional mechanisms for resolving conflict and fostering consensual politics; and Civil society movements in and across countries are advancing more inclusive social contracts that tackle vulnerability and risk through a variety of innovative means that deserve greater support.
Topic:
Peace, Justice, Social Contract, COVID-19, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Middle East, East Asia, South Africa, and Latin America

89. Social Contracts: Embracing a Just Technological and Energy Transition

Author:
Ian Goldin
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
Social contracts determine what is to be provided and by whom. In democracies, political processes determine these outcomes, with the extent to which individuals, communities, cities, businesses, governments, and other actors and institutions provide education, health, security, infrastructure, and justice to shape what comes to be understood as the social contract. Whether prevailing social contracts produce desirable consequences, such as human rights, individual freedom, self-determination, human development, prosperity, and equality reflects their efficacy. What is considered an effective contract in the US or Europe, may however be viewed very differently in China, with the priorities and norms associated with shaping social contracts, as well as the means to achieve them, varying from country to country and over time. In this brief, author Ian Goldin shows that many existing social contracts are inadequate and require renewal to overcome countries’ failures to address the needs of the majority of their citizens. New pressures on societies arising from the pace of change associated with the technological and energy revolutions have created an urgent need to build new social contracts which ensure that no one is left behind. This need has been made all the more urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shown the extent to which large parts of society—informal sector workers, uninsured self-employed, unemployed, migrants, and others—have fallen by the wayside due to outdated or non-existent social contracts. Establishing secure and comprehensive social contracts is not synonymous with the establishment of a welfare state, as this is only one way to secure effective social contracts. How welfare states adapt to meet the new technological and energy transition, and which other models may serve to build effective social contracts is a key question.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Science and Technology, Peace, Justice, Social Contract, Transition, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus

90. Essential Workers

Author:
Ian Goldin
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the extent to which we rely on essential workers. Around the world, health workers have been greeted by clapping, but this has not translated into improvements in their working conditions or pay. On the contrary, as COVID-19 cases and deaths have mounted, so too have the pressures and fatalities among health and other essential workers. A new deal for essential workers is not only the right thing to do on ethical and other grounds. It is in everyone’s self-interest. Without a new deal for essential workers, societies will not be able to respond to the intensifying cycle of crises that arise from an increasingly complex, interconnected, and unstable world. Whether it is a natural disaster, large-scale terrorism, geopolitical hostilities, or another pandemic, it is only a matter of time before society must again face down a crisis of unprecedented scale. To build resilience, we need a well-trained, deeply committed, and full complement of essential workers who will rise to the challenge. A new deal for these workers should be seen as a central tenet of creating more resilient economies, and an investment to reduce risk and future proof our societies. In order to close the widening divide between the rhetoric and reality, author Ian Goldin argues in this policy brief paper that a new deal is required for essential workers and begins by defining essential workers and laying out the key facts around the prevailing socioeconomic background for such workers. It then draws on the experience of mitigating and compensating for risks in other socially necessary but hazardous occupations, such as the military, and uses this to define the contours of what a new deal for essential workers should look like.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Employment, Peace, Justice, COVID-19, and Inclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus