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1251. Moving beyond the 'crisis': Recommendations for the European Commission's communication on migration

Author:
Katharina Bamberg
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Policy Centre
Abstract:
The year 2015 marked the arrival of an unprecedented number of migrants and refugees in the EU. Soon politicians, policymakers and the press dubbed these events a ‘migration crisis’, and it quickly rose to the top of the political agenda. The European Commission had – and still has – a significant role to play in how the ‘migration crisis’ narrative came about. In its communications, it tended to highlight two factors: the numbers, and the uncontrolled nature of arrivals. In the past five years, it developed from a rather unstructured use of several words and phrases to a coherent story about the ‘crisis’ as a stand-alone and historically unprecedented phenomenon. In this Discussion Paper, however, Katharina Bamberg counters that the Commission’s use of the crisis narrative has not been accurate; neither as a fateful description of what was happening nor as a way to address citizens’ concerns. Instead, it served to frame migration as a security issue and legitimised restrictive policy measures, such as ramped-up border controls and increased cooperation with third countries to curb migration. More problematic, however, is that this narrative has contributed to an environment wherein right-wing populists are given ample room to spread their message. In many member states, they saw their chance to capitalise on voters’ concerns and used the situation as a tool to stir up fear and distrust. Mainstream politicians have subsequently also adopted a sterner discourse on migration, in the hope to appeal to voters who favour more restrictive measures. To counter these dynamics, Bamberg argues that the Commission has to abandon the crisis narrative and instead develop a more proactive and diversified communication strategy.
Topic:
Migration, Public Opinion, European Union, and Refugees
Political Geography:
Europe

1252. Poisoned heritage for the new Commission: The rule of law question

Author:
György Fóris
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Policy Centre
Abstract:
The rule of law issue is not going anywhere anytime soon. The Polish and Hungarian governments will likely remain in power for years. Czech, Croat and some Romanian leaders seem impressed and ready to follow the paths Kaczyński and Orbán have paved. And Italy might not have seen the last of Matteo Salvini. Member states that increasingly question, ignore, or even attack previously agreed-upon policies, political priorities or common principles are becoming a regular occurrence within the Union, one that the new Commission will have to deal with. In this Discussion Paper, György Fóris finds that in an increasingly politicised Union, the design of the current rule of law mechanism is lacking. He argues it cannot function effectively on legal grounds alone as long as the existing Treaty foundations remain ambiguous and the final decision is taken at the political level, where it is the Council and not the Commission that is the decisive player. So the von der Leyen Commission will face a difficult choice: either try to live with all of the formal members of the Union, listening to and mediating between them, while continuing to defend the rules and values that were entrusted to it as the Guardian of the Treaty and thus preserve the EU’s unity. Or, take sides and lead an open political fight against those who seem to weaken the previously agreed interpretation of fundamental European rules and principles. Fóris, however, offers a third option: While not giving up on unity, likeminded and willing EU countries could intensify their level of cooperation, while formally retaining all parties within the framework of a larger (and looser) Community.
Topic:
Treaties and Agreements, European Union, and Rule of Law
Political Geography:
Europe, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Czech Republic

1253. Downsizing Defense in Development: Unpacking DOD’s Development Assistance

Author:
Sarah Rose
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The US Department of Defense (DOD) is not a development agency, but it does manage millions of dollars of development assistance. In the early 2000s, DOD took on a significantly expanded development role, prompting a number of concerns and creating a lingering perception of intensive US military involvement in development activities. In fact, lessons learned from this era drove a reconceptualization of the Pentagon’s role in development. Today, the military controls only a tiny portion of US development funds, most of which go toward health (mainly PEPFAR) and disaster relief activities. This paper provides a brief landscape analysis of DOD’s recent development aid-funded efforts, breaking down its engagement into six key thematic areas. It concludes with five considerations related to DOD’s role in development assistance: (1) DOD has comparative advantages that make it an important actor in US development policy; (2) civilian-military coordination is hard but critical for development policy coherence; (3) adequate resourcing of civilian agencies is critical for effective civilian-military division of labor; (4) increasing the flexibility of civilian agencies’ staffing, programming, and funding could complement the military’s rapid response capabilities; and (5) incomplete transparency and limited focus on results reduces accountability around DOD’s aid investments.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Development, Military Strategy, Bureaucracy, and Civil-Military Relations
Political Geography:
United States and North America

1254. Struggling with Scale: Ebola’s Lessons for the Next Pandemic

Author:
Jeremy Konyndyk
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. Preparing for this inevitability requires that policymakers understand not just the science of limiting disease transmission or engineering a drug, but also the practical challenges of expanding a response strategy to a regional or global level. Achieving success at such scales is largely an issue of operational, strategic, and policy choices—areas of pandemic preparedness that remain underexplored.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Ebola, Public Health, and Pandemic
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1255. Where Do Internally Displaced People Live and What Does that Mean for Their Economic Integration?

Author:
Cindy Huang and Jimmy Graham
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
There are over 68.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world, including about 40 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have moved because of conflict, including political, communal, and criminal violence.[i] There are millions more IDPs who have been displaced by other drivers, including disasters, economic instability, and development projects such as infrastructure construction. These IDPs, 99 percent of whom are in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), face severe economic challenges as a result of displacement.[1] To help them overcome these challenges, policymakers should focus on helping IDPs achieve greater self-reliance. The best approach to doing so will depend in large part upon the context—particularly the extent to which IDP populations are based in urban or rural areas. Our analysis shows that about half of IDPs in LMICs are in urban areas, that the composition varies significantly across countries, and that there is a substantial lack of IDP location data.
Topic:
Displacement, Urban, Rural, Internal Displacement, and Economic Integration
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1256. How Urban are IDPs and What Does that Mean for Their Economic Integration?

Author:
Cindy Huang and Jimmy Graham
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
As of December 2017, there were over 68.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world, including about 40 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) displaced by conflict.[1] Millions more were displaced internally by other drivers, including disasters, economic instability, and development projects such as infrastructure construction.[2] IDPs face severe economic challenges as a result of their displacement, with harmful impacts on consumption, health, education, security, housing, labor conditions, and social outcomes.[3] They face these challenges for long periods of time: IDPs often spend many years or even decades displaced.[4] And for displaced women and girls—who face unique challenges ranging from legal restrictions on owning property to larger wage reductions following displacement—the economic challenges can be even greater.[5] Furthermore, IDPs tend to be disproportionately located in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): over 99 percent of the world’s IDPs displaced by conflict are in LMICs. Within these countries, populations in more marginalized areas are often more severely affected by displacement.[6] Thus, those who are displaced tend to face greater economic difficulties to begin with and displacement only compounds these difficulties.
Topic:
Displacement, Urban, Internal Displacement, and Economic Integration
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1257. Modicare Post-Election: Recommendations to Enhance the Impact of Public Health Insurance on UHC Goals in India

Author:
Kalipso Chalkidou, Nishant Jain, Françoise Cluzeau, and Amanda Glassman
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Hailed as one of the largest publicly funded health insurance programs in the world, India’s “Modicare” has, since its launch a little more than six months ago, made universal healthcare coverage an election theme for the first time in the country’s history.[1] In this note, we describe the program, with an emphasis on its better-known secondary and tertiary care component, and offer policy recommendations to strengthen the scheme post-election to enhance its contribution to India’s vision for universal health coverage (UHC). In a country of almost 1.4 billion people that is home to one-third of global maternal deaths, where public spending for health accounts for roughly 1 percent of GDP and where 60 million people fall into poverty every year because of healthcare bills, fixing healthcare is a daunting task that will determine the world’s performance against the Sustainable Development Goals over the coming decade.
Topic:
Health, Health Care Policy, Public Health, and Health Insurance
Political Geography:
India and Asia

1258. The Kunming-Vientiane Railway: The Economic, Procurement, Labor, and Safeguards Dimensions of a Chinese Belt and Road Project

Author:
Scott Morris
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Kunming-Vientiane (K-V) railway, part of the Kunming-Singapore multi-country rail network (or “Pan-Asia Railway”), is an anchor investment of the Chinese government’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI). This case study will assess the rail project along four dimensions: economic implications; procurement arrangements; labor; and environmental and social safeguards. In each of these areas, evidence from the railway project suggests that Chinese policy and practice could be better aligned with the practices of other sources of multilateral and bilateral development finance. Where the project’s standards are broadly aligned, at least in principle, there is nonetheless reason to believe that China’s approach carries heightened risks given the overall scale of financing. These risks hold for China’s global program of official finance, which has made the country the largest source of official credit in the world. In this regard, BRI policymakers should consider a more rigorous set of “best practices” that align Chinese official finance with leading multilateral standards, even if these practices don’t currently characterize many other bilateral lenders. Such an approach would be consistent with the multilateral vision for BRI espoused by Chinese officials and reflected in the framework of the annual Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. This study considers what a stronger set of standards would look like in the context of the four areas of focus.
Topic:
Infrastructure, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Transportation, and Railways
Political Geography:
China and Asia

1259. Does the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Help or Hinder Financial Inclusion? A Study of FATF Mutual Evaluation Reports

Author:
Michael Pisa
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
As the organization responsible for setting international standards on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has encouraged countries to design measures that protect the integrity of the financial system and support financial inclusion. But it has also received criticism that poor implementation of its standards can undermine financial access. One of the FATF’s main tools for compelling effective use of its standards is the mutual evaluation process, which relies on peer reviews to assess countries’ level of compliance with the FATF Recommendations. We explore whether these reviews have been conducted in a way that helps or hinders national efforts to promote financial inclusion by reviewing the 33 developing country mutual evaluations that took place between 2015-2018. Overall, these findings suggest that assessment teams have conducted mutual evaluations in a way that supports efforts to promote financial inclusion and the flexible use of simplified measures. There is, however, inconsistency in how assessors treat risks emanating from financial exclusion, which suggests the need for a more systematic approach to evaluating these risks.
Topic:
Development, Terrorism, Finance, and Financial Integrity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1260. Understanding the Opportunity Cost, Seizing the Opportunity: Report of the Working Group on Incorporating Economics and Modelling in Global Health Goals and Guidelines

Author:
The Working Group on Incorporating Economics and Modeling in Global Health Goals and Guidelines
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Internationally set goals and guidelines directly influ­ence the setting of health care priorities at the national level, affecting how limited resources are generated and allocated across health care needs. The influence of global priority setting, such as through the formu­lation of overarching goals or normative guidelines for specific disease areas, is particularly significant in low- and middle-income countries that rely heavily on overseas development assistance. Because no sys­tematic approach exists for dealing with resource con­straints, however, which vary across countries, goals and guidance are often inappropriate for some country contexts; their implementation can, therefore, reduce the efficiency and equity of health care spending. The Working Group on Incorporating Economics and Modelling in Global Health Goals and Guidelines, co-convened by the Center for Global Development, Thanzi la Onse, and the HIV Modelling Consortium, has brought together disease specialists, policymakers, economists, and modelers from national governments, international organizations, and academic institutions across the globe to address these issues, to take stock of current approaches, and make recommendations for better practice. The Working Group deliberated on the roles and purposes of goals and guidelines and consid­ered how economic evidence might be formally incor­porated into policy recommendations and health care decision making. The target audiences for this report are international health institutions, large stakehold­ers in disease programs across the world, and national governments.
Topic:
Development, Health, Health Care Policy, and Public Health
Political Geography:
Global Focus