Search

Begin New Search Topic Development

381. Spotlight on Yemen's Forgotten War and Humanitarian Disaster: Preventing the Next Syrian Refugee Crisis

Author:
Jacqueline Lopour
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Humanitarian crises across the world are the worst since World War II, and the situation is only going to get worse. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), almost 60 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced from their homes — that is approximately one in every 123 people on the planet (UNHCR 2016a). The problem is growing, as the number of those displaced is over 60 percent greater than the previous decade. As a result, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced the first ever World Humanitarian Summit to be held May 23-24, 2016. The world’s attention is focused on the Syrian refugee crisis, which has displaced 11 million people. But in doing so, the global community has lost sight of an equally severe humanitarian and displacement crisis — the situation in Yemen. Yemen now has more people in need of aid than any other country in the world, according to the UNOCHA Global Humanitarian Overview 2016. An estimated 21.2 million people in Yemen — 82 percent of the population — requires humanitarian aid, and this number is steadily growing (UNOCHA 2016a).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, War, and Refugee Issues
Political Geography:
Yemen and Global Focus

382. Papua's Insecurity: State Failure in the Indonesian Periphery

Author:
Bobby Anderson
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
West Papua is the most violent area of Indonesia. Indonesian security forces battle the country's last active separatist insurgency there. The majority of Indonesia's political prisoners are Papuans, and support for independence is widespread. But military repression and indigenous resistance are only one part of a complex topography of insecurity in Papua: vigilantism, clan conflict, and other forms of horizontal violence produce more casualties than the vertical conflict that is often the exclusive focus of international accounts of contemporary Papua. Similarly, Papua's coerced incorporation into Indonesia in 1969 is not unique; it mirrors a pattern of long-term annexation found in other remote and highland areas of South and Southeast Asia. What distinguishes Papua is the near-total absence of the state in indigenous areas. This is the consequence of a morass of policy dysfunction over time that compounds the insecurity that ordinary Papuans face. The author illuminates the diverse and local sources of insecurity that indicate too little state as opposed to too much, challenges common perceptions of insecurity in Papua, and offers a prescription of policy initiatives. These include the reform of a violent and unaccountable security sector as a part of a broader reconciliation process and the urgent need for a comprehensive indigenous-centered development policy.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Political Violence, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Indonesia

383. Innovation: Key to a 21st Century Alliance

Author:
John Berry
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
Over 200 years ago, one of our founding fathers Benjamin Franklin urged us to innovate, with the warning: “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” One of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, was not only a talented statesman, he was an inventor and tinkerer extraordinaire. Innovation lies at the very heart of what it means to be an American. From the beginning, our country was a grand experiment. We believed then—and now—that freedom plus hard work equals progress. Innovation, invention, and creativity help turn progress into success.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
America and Global Focus

384. Latin America's Slow Pace in the 21st Century

Author:
Amado Cervo
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
The last decade of the 20th century was characterized by two deep changes in Latin American countries. The old developmental paradigm, worn, gave place to the neoliberal paradigm, embraced by Latin American elites and societies. By reaching the 21st century, the region is going through a new paradigmatic change: the exhaustion, after a decade, of the neoliberal dynamics, and the immersion into the search for another destiny.
Topic:
Development, Neoliberalism, and Elites
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and North America

385. Political Economy of Trade With the European Union: South Africa's Pursuit of Narrow Self-Interest

Author:
Oscar Van Heerden
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
In the years between 1995 and 2008 South Africa was engaged in trade negotiations with the European Union (EU), which were seen as platform for addressing the trade imbalances in favour of the EU. In 2002, a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was signed between South Africa and the EU. Despite its membership to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), South Africa engaged on the negotiations on its own which led to trade and political tensions with other countries within the community. By going alone South Africa was clearly indicating an appetite to vigorously pursue its interests at the expense of regional partners. It is argued that the exclusion, at an early stage of the negotiations, of other regional countries within SADC was counterproductive and had the potential to harm the regional trade relations. In addition, the change of approach at later stage that brought in the regional approach to the negotiations improved the regional trade relations within SADC.
Topic:
Development, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and European Union
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and South Africa

386. South Africa and Regional Stability in the Mbeki Era: The Nexus Between Personality and Geo-Political and Economic Concerns in Foreign Policy Making

Author:
Olajide Olayemi Akanji
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
This paper examines the role that South Africa during Mbeki’s presidency played in peace and security issues of Southern African Development Community (SADC). The paper infers that South Africa under Mbeki adopted a peace-building approach, comprising mediation, negotiation, peacekeeping, promotion of democracy and election monitoring, in addressing peace and security challenges in the SADC. It however argues that it was the person of Mbeki, shaped by his leadership and revolutionary experiences in the African National Congress (ANC) during apartheid era, alongside South Africa’s economic strength that underlined and shaped its approach and contributions to SADC peace and security.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Peacekeeping, and Strategic Stability
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

387. An Analysis of Firm Characteristics as Earnings Determinants: The Urban Bolivia Case

Author:
Beatriz Muriel Hernández
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
Abstract:
This article analyzes the importance of firm characteristics to explain earnings in urban Bolivia. Initially I propose a new simple theoretical model of segmented labor market where, in equilibrium, individual and firm variables jointly determine earnings at the worker level. The key for achieving this equilibrium is that workers have both specific preferences and heterogonous skills provided by years of schooling, which are in turn associated to certain firms. Given the household surveys information, I estimate two alternative earnings functions from this model, one for unsalaried workers, for which there is detailed firm data and one for salaried workers, in which sector, size and formality are used as firm proxies. I find not only that firm characteristics are fundamental determinants of earnings but that regressions that include only individual characteristics present highly overestimated coefficients.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Labor Issues, Urban, Microeconomics, and Private Sector
Political Geography:
Latin America and Bolivia

388. Development Banks and Regional Powers: An Analytical Framework

Author:
Stefano Palestini
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
Why do regional powers such as Brazil, South Africa, or Russia undertake different collective strategies to supply public goods in their regions of influence? When do those states prefer to delegate competences to existent multilateral financial institutions, such as regional development banks (RDBs), and when do they prefer to make use of their own national financial instruments? Why do those states create new RDBs that challenge the existing ones? The article builds and tests a set of hypotheses based on the interplay between capabilities and legitimacy to help answer these questions using contemporary South America as a case study. Through a process tracing analysis carried out for the period 2000–15, the article explains the different strategies undertaken by two states, Brazil and Venezuela, to supply infrastructure in the region, ranging from the use of the Brazilian National Development Bank to the creation of a new Bank of the South. It is suggested that the low capabilities and legitimacy expectations of both states explain the rising importance of external actors in the supply of regional public goods that we are currently witnessing in South America.
Topic:
Development, Regional Cooperation, Banks, Regionalism, and Financial Institutions
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, Venezuela, and Global South

389. The condition of and prospects for the private equity funds market in Poland

Author:
Barbara Nowakowska, Piotr Noceń, Michał Surowski, and Michał Popiołek
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE
Abstract:
In the publication, Barabara Nowakowska and Piotr Noceń discuss 'Poland’s Private Equity Market: Current Conditions and Development Prospects', and Michał Surowski and Michał Popiołek describe 'Private Equity From a Bank’s Perspective'.
Topic:
Development, Markets, Financial Markets, Economic growth, Banks, Innovation, and Trade
Political Geography:
Europe, Poland, and European Union

390. Quo vadis, Ukraine? Is there a chance for success?

Author:
Ivan Mikloš
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Social and Economic Research - CASE
Abstract:
"If I were to say just one thing about Ukraine, I think I would have to stress it is the most underperforming country of all the countries I know. Ukraine has had, and indeed still does have, a lot of potential. In the beginning of 1990s, in 1992 to be precise, Deutsche Bank prepared an analysis of the chances for the former Soviet Union states to be reformed and developed successfully, and according to this analysis, Ukraine had the best chance among them all to be successful. We know that in reality the opposite happened, and Ukraine is in a very difficult situation now. The main reason for this situation is that when at the beginning of 1990s communist countries collapsed, the old system in Ukraine was not replaced by a new one, one of functioning market economy. It was eroded, but not exactly replaced the way it happened for example in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Baltic states. The country was captured by oligarchs, and a very strange, dysfunctional, and corrupted system was created instead."
Topic:
Development, Economies, Finance, Economic growth, Trade, and Post-Socialist Economies
Political Geography:
Europe, Central Asia, Ukraine, Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and Poland