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1221. The EU’s Financial Architecture for External Investment: Progress, Challenges, and Options

Author:
Hannah Timmis and Mikaela Gavas
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In 2017, the EU launched an ambitious programme of investment mobilisation in Africa and the Neighbourhood: the External Investment Plan (EIP). The EIP aims to increase the scale, impact, and coherence of EU-supported external investment by introducing various innovations to the European financial architecture, including a new guarantee mechanism and a unique “three-pillar” approach to investment support. The European Commission is proposing a significant expansion of the EIP under the EU’s new long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021–27, replacing the current plethora of investment tools and modalities with a single framework. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the EU’s complex external investment architecture. Based on interviews with stakeholders, it documents lessons learned during the EIP’s first year of implementation and proposes a series of options for the design and operationalisation of the new investment framework. To increase the additionality, development effectiveness, and efficiency of EU-supported external investment, it recommends that the European Commission improve the current architecture by providing greater policy steer to investors; increasing competition among institutions for investment support; clarifying linkages between the three pillars; setting clear guidance, fee structures, and standardised contractual terms; and strengthening management of investment tools.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, European Union, Finance, and Investment
Political Geography:
Europe

1222. Gendered Language

Author:
Pamela Jakiela and Owen Ozier
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Languages use different systems for classifying nouns. Gender languages assign nouns to distinct sex-based categories, masculine and feminine. We construct a new data set, documenting the presence or absence of grammatical gender in more than 4,000 languages which together account for more than 99 percent of the world’s population. We find a robust negative cross-country relationship between prevalence of gender languages and women’s labor force participation and educational attainment. We replicate these associations in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in India, showing that educational attainment and female labor force participation are lower among those whose native languages use grammatical gender.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Language, Masculinity, and Femininity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1223. International Development Cooperation After Brexit

Author:
Mikaela Gavas
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Mikaela Gavas submitted written evidence to the United Kingdom's House of Lords EU External Affairs Sub-Committee on January 31, 2019. In her evidence Gavas answered questions about the future of UK-EU development cooperation after Brexit.
Topic:
Development, Regional Cooperation, European Union, and Brexit
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

1224. Measuring the Spatial Misallocation of Labor: The Returns to India-Gulf Guest Work in a Natural Experiment

Author:
Michael Clemens
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
‘Guest workers’ earn higher wages overseas on temporary low-skill employment visas. This wage gap can be used to measure gaps in the productivity of workers due to where they are, not who they are. This paper estimates the effects of guest work on Indian applicants to a construction job in the United Arab Emirates, where an economic crisis allocated guest work opportunities as-good-as-randomly among several thousand families. Guest work raised the return to poor families' labor by a factor of four, with little evidence of systematic fraud.
Topic:
Migration, Labor Issues, Migrant Workers, and Guest Workers
Political Geography:
India and Asia

1225. Governing Big Tech’s Pursuit of the “Next Billion Users”

Author:
Michael Pisa and John Polcari
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
en years ago, only 6 percent of the population in low-income and lower-middle-income countries had access to the internet. Today, nearly one in every three people there does. The rapid expansion of internet access across the globe is a welcome development, but it raises new policy challenges. And while there is broad agreement in the development community on the importance of getting digital policy “right,” too little attention has been paid to how policymakers in the developing world can best engage with the companies who dominate the digital landscape. As governments reassess their relationship with these companies, an increasing number are enacting policies that raise barriers to the cross-border flow of data and put the largely global and open nature of the internet at risk. In this paper, we review how internet use has evolved in the developing world over the last decade, with a focus on initiatives by big tech companies to reach the “Next Billion Users.” We then examine how concerns about data privacy, disinformation, and market concentration have manifested in lower-income countries and how policymakers have begun to respond. We close by considering ways the development community can support policymakers seeking to maximize the benefits of an open internet while minimizing its risks.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Governance, Inequality, Privacy, Internet, and Emerging Technology
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1226. The Two Hundred Billion Dollar Question: How to Get the Biggest Impact from the 2019 Replenishments

Author:
Andrew Rogerson and Owen Barder
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
n 2019/2020 donor governments are anticipated to pledge up to $170 billion to various multilateral organisations as part of their replenishment cycles. In the past, these large replenishments have been approached piecemeal and characterised by path dependency, which arguably has led to underperformance of the multilateral system as a whole. This unusual bunching of replenishments of some of the largest organisations in 2019 provides an opportunity to think more coherently about multilateral funding and to address key systemic problems, such as overlapping mandates and under-funding of some parts of the system. In this paper we recognise that it is unlikely that donors will take a formal, system-wide approach to the replenishments, but instead provide three suggestions that could nudge donors toward better coordinating the effect of their decisions. These are (1) multilaterals should be invited to set out in advance, and in a common format, their “offer” on a number of key issues, (2) donors should increase the envelope for core multilateral funding by diverting money away from earmarked funds, and (3) donors should provide a confidential forecast of their likely replenishments to a trusted intermediary, so that the “business as usual” baseline scenario is known.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Multilateral Relatons, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1227. Toward Medium-Term Solutions for Rohingya Refugees and Hosts in Bangladesh: Mapping Potential Responsibility-Sharing Contributions

Author:
Cindy Huang and Kate Gough
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Bangladesh is providing a significant global public good by hosting nearly one million Rohingya refugees, including 700,000 who fled violence carried out with “genocidal intent” in 2017. Most refugees are living in camps in Cox’s Bazar District, where local resources and livelihoods are under strain. The situation has exacerbated development challenges and environmental degradation, such as inadequate public services and rapid deforestation. Safe, voluntary, and sustainable Rohingya repatriation to Myanmar is ultimately the best solution. However, the conditions for return do not exist, and Myanmar has not demonstrated meaningful progress in establishing them. Even if conditions did exist and voluntary repatriation began tomorrow, estimates show a large number of Rohingya will still be in Cox’s Bazar 10 years from now. The refugee situation is likely to be protracted. Medium-term planning is critical. The international community has an opportunity to recognize Bangladesh’s contributions through a robust responsibility-sharing process. In addition to humanitarian aid, this would include commitments that support development among host communities, as well as broader regional and national development strategies. There is precedent for development financing and beyond-aid solutions for refugees and host communities, such as in the Jordan, Lebanon, and Ethiopia Compacts. These agreements seek to meet the medium-term needs and generate inclusive growth for refugees and hosts, including through policy adjustments that enable self-reliance and reduce aid dependence. This brief explores the potential range of responsibility-sharing commitments in support of Bangladesh. It does not address the separate and equally important issues of securing justice and accountability for Myanmar’s alleged atrocities and establishing the necessary conditions in Myanmar for safe, voluntary, and sustainable repatriation—nor does it make recommendations on the humanitarian response, which remains essential. This brief focuses exclusively on the medium-term, development-oriented approach. It covers several categories of contribution and commitment types, including trade and investment, labor mobility, SEZ and infrastructure investment, private sector investment, resettlement, and development and climate finance. Each category includes illustrative examples, some of which are specific to one or a subset of UN Member States and others that are more broadly applicable. Geopolitical factors surrounding the Rohingya situation and potential responsibility-sharing commitments are also discussed. Building on this mapping, we will prepare a full report in 2019. The report will highlight a subset of anchor contributions that could build momentum for a responsibility-sharing process that delivers a “win-win-win” for refugees, host communities, and Bangladesh’s broader development objectives.
Topic:
Human Rights, Refugees, Displacement, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Bangladesh and Asia

1228. Cohesive Institutions and Political Violence

Author:
Thiemo Fetzer and Stephan Kyburz
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Can institutionalized transfers of resource rents be a source of civil conflict? Are cohesive institutions better at managing conflicts over distribution? We exploit exogenous variation in revenue disbursements to local governments and use new data on local democratic institutions in Nigeria to answer these questions. There is a strong link between rents and conflict far away from the location of the resource. Conflict over distribution is highly organized, involving political militias, and concentrated in the extent to which local governments are non-cohesive. Democratically elected local governments significantly weaken the causal link between rents and political violence. Elections produce more cohesive institutions, and vastly limit the extent to which distributional conflict between groups breaks out following shocks to the rents. Throughout, we confirm these findings using individual level survey data.
Topic:
Political Violence, Violence, Institutions, and Human Resources
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1229. Enhancing Young Children’s Language Acquisition through Parent-Child Book-Sharing: A Randomized Trial in Rural Kenya

Author:
Heather A. Knauer, Pamela Jakiela, Owen Ozier, Frances Aboud, and Lia C.H. Fernald
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Worldwide, 250 million children under five (43 percent) are not meeting their developmental potential because they lack adequate nutrition and cognitive stimulation in early childhood. Several parent support programs have shown significant benefits for children’s development, but the programs are often expensive and resource intensive. The objective of this study was to test several variants of a potentially scalable, cost-effective intervention to increase cognitive stimulation by parents and improve emergent literacy skills in children. The intervention was a modified dialogic reading training program that used culturally and linguistically appropriate books adapted for a low-literacy population. We used a cluster randomized controlled trial with four intervention arms and one control arm in a sample of caregivers (n = 357) and their 24- to 83-month-old children (n = 510) in rural Kenya. The first treatment group received storybooks, while the other treatment arms received storybooks paired with varying quantities of modified dialogic reading training for parents. Main effects of each arm of the trial were examined, and tests of heterogeneity were conducted to examine differential effects among children of illiterate vs. literate caregivers. Parent training paired with the provision of culturally appropriate children’s books increased reading frequency and improved the quality of caregiver-child reading interactions among preschool-aged children. Treatments involving training improved storybook-specific expressive vocabulary. The children of illiterate caregivers benefited at least as much as the children of literate caregivers. For some outcomes, effects were comparable; for other outcomes, there were differentially larger effects for children of illiterate caregivers.
Topic:
Children, Language, Rural, Parenting, and Reading
Political Geography:
Kenya

1230. Women and the Future of Work: Fix the Present

Author:
Charles Kenny
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
There is a lot we don’t know about what automation will mean for jobs in the future, including its impact (if any) on gender inequality. This note reviews evidence and forecasts on that question and makes four main points: Past automation has been (broadly) positive for women’s average quality of life, economic empowerment, and equality. Forecasts of the gendered impact of automation and AI going forward based on the current distribution of employment suggest considerable uncertainty and a gender inequality of impact that is marginal compared to the potential impact overall. The bigger risk—and/or opportunity—is likely to be in the combined impact of automation, policy, and social norms in changing the type of work that is seen as male or female. Minimizing any potential aggravating impact of automation and AI on inequalities in economic power in the future can best be achieved by maximizing economic equality today.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Employment, Inequality, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Global Focus