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31. Can one retell a Mozambican reform story through Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation?

Author:
Matt Andrews
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Many public sector reforms in developing countries fail to make governments more functional. This is typically because reforms introduce new solutions that do not fit the contexts in which they are being placed. This situation reflects what has recently been called the 'capability trap' in development—which results in many interventions producing new forms that are not functional in states across the globe. The work on capability traps suggests that reforms can yield more functional influence in even the most complex states, however; if reformers adopt non-traditional approaches to doing reform. In particular, the work suggests that reforms will tend to be more contextually fitted if: (i) They are driven by problems that agents in the context care about; and (ii) They are introduced iteratively—through a stepwise process where ideas are tried and lessons are learned and used to adapt (or fit) ideas to context. The capability traps work embeds these ideas into an approach to doing reform called Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA). This approach has deep roots in various literatures but many observers still ask how PDIA-type reforms could work to foster successful reform in complex hierarchical developing country governments and whether these approaches really help foster reforms that better fit such complex contexts. This paper responds to such question by describing an action research study where PDIA is being used to retell a story of reform that has to date been limited. The action research study is in Mozambique’s judicial sector and will examine whether and how a problem driven iterative approach can (i) flush out the contextual factors that often limit reform success, (ii) provide a viable route to find and fit reforms that actually foster greater functionality, and (iii) promote the authority needed to ensure change is implemented and institutionalized.
Topic:
Government, Developing World, Reform, and Public Sector
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

32. The Political Economy of Bad Data: Evidence from African Survey Administrative Statistics

Author:
Amanda Glassman and Justin Sandefur
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Across multiple African countries, discrepancies between administrative data and independent household surveys suggest official statistics systematically exaggerate development progress. We provide evidence for two distinct explanations of these discrepancies. First, governments misreport to foreign donors, as in the case of a results-based aid program rewarding reported vaccination rates. Second, national governments are themselves misled by frontline service providers, as in the case of primary education, where official enrollment numbers diverged from survey estimates after funding shifted from user fees to per pupil government grants. Both syndromes highlight the need for incentive compatibility between data systems and funding rules.
Topic:
Development, Foreign Aid, Foreign Direct Investment, Governance, and Developing World
Political Geography:
Africa

33. Just Peace: Achieving Peace, Justice, and Development in Post-Conflict Africa

Author:
Corinna Jentzsch
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The analysis begins with a review of trends in financing peace operations, including the proliferation of actors; existing financing mechanisms used by the UN, the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza- tion (NATO), and the World Bank; and the devolution of these operations to African regional organizations. Efforts of the past two decades to respond effectively to challenges to peace and security in Africa have produced vari- ous new programs and institutions, funds, and budgets and led to revisions of previous programs and financing mechanisms. This proliferation of institutions and funds has also created challenges, however, which the analysis reviews next, placing particular emphasis on three: the inadequacy of UN reforms to overcome financing constraints; the insufficiency and unpredictability of voluntary contributions; and the limited capacity of African regional organizations. All are rooted in the demand for more integrated approaches to peace operations on the one hand and the lack of coordination, duplication of structures, and waste of resources on the other.
Topic:
NATO, United Nations, Developing World, Finance, Europe Union, Peace, and Justice
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Europe

34. Complaining to the State: Grievance Redress and India's Social Welfare Programs

Author:
Nicholas Robinson
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
Poor implementation of social welfare programs is a chronic challenge in developing countries such as India. Yet, despite the large number of people affected and the serious consequences of implementation failure, there have been few studies, and even less theorization, of grievance redress in these contexts. Based on fieldwork conducted by the author, this article examines grievance redress for social welfare programs in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. It argues that the idea of accountability regimes, which has been developed in the administrative law literature, provides a more useful framework for understanding grievance redress than commonly invoked alternatives, such as a purely rights-based approach or an ad hoc analysis of the costs and benefits of specific redress mechanisms. While not rejecting either of these alternatives, it claims that an accountability regime approach that focuses on how officials are monitored and controlled through grievances is both more descriptively complete and more likely to generate a wider range of useful policy prescriptions.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Developing World
Political Geography:
South Asia

35. The Security of Cities: Ecology and Conflict on an Urbanizing Planet

Author:
Peter Engelke
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Humankind recently crossed a historic threshold: over half of all human beings now live in cities. In contrast to most of human history, cities have become the default condition for human habitation almost everywhere on earth. Urbanization is proceeding rapidly and at unprecedented scales in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. These regions are poised to join Latin America, Europe, North America, and Australia as having more people living in cities than in rural areas. Between 2010 and 2050, the world's urban population is expected to grow by 3 billion people—a figure roughly equal to the world's total population in 1950—with the great majority living in developing-world cities.3 Our species, in other words, is already an urban one and will become even more so throughout this century.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Environment, Natural Resources, Urbanization, and Developing World
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Australia, and North America

36. Forests, Food and Fuel: REDD+ and Indonesia's Land-use Conundrum

Author:
J. Jackson Ewing
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS)
Abstract:
Indonesia faces pronounced land-use challenges. The sprawling archipelagic state must deal with the legacies of short-sighted land conversions, the need to pursue foreign investment, capital growth and employment generation through profitable land intensive industries, and the rising food demands of a growing and increasingly urban population. Moreover, Indonesia must pursue these already daunting objectives without overly compromising its endowment of forest resources; which provide a range of valuable services both domestically and internationally. This paper explores the intersection of these issues and comments upon some of the most pressing challenges inherent to maintaining food security, protecting the essential services that forest ecosystems provide, and remaining open to capital-producing industries that are land intensive. The paper takes as its point of entry the movement of the Reduced Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme into Indonesia's land-use calculus.
Topic:
Environment, Natural Resources, Food, Foreign Direct Investment, and Developing World
Political Geography:
Indonesia and Southeast Asia

37. Indonesia: Hope and Hard Reality in Papua

Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The conflict in Indonesian Papua continues to defy solution, but some new ideas are on the table. A spike in violence in July and August 2011 underscores the urgency of exploring them. The government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should move quickly to set up a long-delayed new Papua unit with a mandate that includes political issues. That unit should look at a set of political, social, economic, legal and security indicators produced in July by a Papua Peace Conference that could become a framework for more enlightened policies. Taken together, they represent a vision of what a peaceful Papua would look like. The conference participants who drafted them, however, were almost all from Papuan civil society. For any real change to take place, there needs to be buy-in not just from Jakarta but from the increasingly large constituency of Papuan elected officials who have influence and resources at a local level.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Development, Peace Studies, and Developing World
Political Geography:
Indonesia and Papua

38. Recommendations for Limiting Transfers of Enrichment and Reprocessing Technologies

Author:
Fred McGoldrick
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
This policy brief is based on Limiting Transfers of Enrichment and Reprocessing Technology: Issues, Constraints, Options , a report of the Project on Managing the Atom.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, Science and Technology, Foreign Aid, Nuclear Power, and Developing World

39. Migration as a Tool for Disaster Recovery: U.S. Policy Options in the Case of Haiti

Author:
Michael Clemens and Tejaswi Velayudhan
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The United States should take modest steps to create a legal channel for limited numbers of people fleeing natural disasters overseas to enter the United States. This would address two related problems: the lack of any systematic U.S. policy to help the growing numbers of people displaced across borders by natural disasters and the inability of U.S. humanitarian relief efforts to reduce systemic poverty or sustainably improve victims' livelihoods. The aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake presents a compelling case study of the administrative and legislative ways the U.S. government could address both problems. Migration is already a proven and powerful force for reducing Haitians' poverty. A few modest changes in the U.S. approach could greatly aid Haiti's recovery.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Migration, and Developing World
Political Geography:
United States, Caribbean, and Haiti

40. Preventing child abuse and interpersonal violence in low- and middle-income countries

Author:
Wendy Knerr, Frances Gardner, and Lucie Cluver
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Abstract:
Estimates suggest that up to 40 million children under age 14 experience abuse or neglect each year around the world. In a study of 12,000 mothers in five developing countries, asmany as half reported hitting a child with an object, spanking, slapping, pinching, shaking or otherwise harshly physically disciplining. In South Africa, there is evidence that “violence against children is ubiquitous. Beatings take place daily or every week. Sticks, belts, or other weapons are used and injury is common.” These figures are likely to be gross underestimates of the reality.
Topic:
Health, Human Rights, Poverty, and Developing World
Political Geography:
South Africa