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71. Understanding Multinational Corporations in War-torn Societies: Sudan in Focus

Author:
Luke A. Patey
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
What do policy-makers at national governments, international organizations, aid agencies, and non-governmental organizations need to know about Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in war-torn societies? The answer is not simple to provide. However, there is a clear starting point: understand the behaviour of MNCs in the instable and insecure environments in which they are engaged. It is certainly a worthwhile objective considering the immense influence, whether de liberate or not, MNCs have on many civil wars in the developing world.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and War
Political Geography:
North Africa

72. Understanding Multinational Corporations in War-torn Societies: Sudan in Focus

Author:
Luke A. Patey
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
There is a clear starting point for engaging Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in war-torn societies: understand the factors that determine the behaviour of these enterprises in the instable and insecure environments in which they operate. It is certainly a worthwhile objective considering the immense influence, whether deliberate or not, MNCs have on many civil wars in the developing world. Just as MNCs can act as sources of economic and social development, they can also factor into the reasoning of contemporary civil war.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and War
Political Geography:
Africa

73. Bans, Tests and Alchemy: Food Safety Standards and Ugandan Fish Export

Author:
Stefano Ponte
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Fish exports are the second largest foreign exchange earner in Uganda. When Uganda's fish export industry started to operate in the late 1980s and early 1990s, one may have thought that fish was being turned into gold. From an export value of just over one million US$ in 1990, the mighty Nile Perch had earned the country over 45 million US$ just six years later. But alchemy proved to be more than the quest of the philosophers' stone to change base metals into gold. From 1997 to 2000, the industry experienced a series of import bans, imposed by the EU on grounds of food safety. Despite claims to the contrary, the EU did not provide scientific proof that fish was actually 'unsafe'. Rather, the poor performance of Uganda's regulatory and monitoring system was used as a justification. The 'system', as the characters of an allegory, has no individual personality and is the embodiment of the moral qualities that 'the consumer' expects from 'responsible operators' in the fish sector. Only by fixing this system of regulations and inspections, and by performing the ritual of laboratory testing did the Ugandan industry regain its status as a 'safe' source of fish. Fish exports now earn almost 90 million US$ to the country. This apparent success story was achieved by a common front comprising government authorities and the processing industry, a high level of private-public collaboration not often seen in East Africa. Yet, important chunks of the regulatory and monitoring system exist only on paper. Furthermore, the system is supposed to achieve a series of contradictory objectives: to facilitate efficient logistics and ensure food safety; to match market demand and take care of sustainability; to implement a top-down food safety monitoring system and a bottom-up fisheries co-management system. This means that at least some food safety-related operations have to be carried out as 'rituals of verification'. Given the importance of microbiological tests and laboratories in the food safety compliance system, alchemic rituals are perhaps a more appropriate metaphor. While the white coats and advanced machinery of present-day alchemists reassure insecure European regulators and consumers, it leaves the Ugandan fish industry in a vulnerable position. In Uganda, fish can now be turned into gold again – but for how long?
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, United States, and East Africa

74. Trade in the Small-and Micro-Enterprise Sector in Kenya and other Countries in Eastern and Southern Africa

Author:
Poul Ove Pedersen
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Since the famous ILO report on the informal sector in Kenya was published in 1972 the smallscale enterprises have been recognised to play an important role in the Kenyan economy as in other African countries. However, although often more than half of all the small enterprises are traders. Most small enterprise policies have focussed almost entirely on the small scale producers. The small-scale traders have generally been seen as unproductive activities with no positive role to play in development, a sign of poverty, although they are responsible for a large share of the national distribution system. The paper attempts to look at this paradox and investigate the role of the small scale traders in the small enterprise sector and in the development process.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Third World
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

75. The Development of the Informal Small-Enterprise Sector in Eastern and Southern Africa: From Import Substitution to Structural Adjustment

Author:
Poul Ove Pedersen
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
In spite of its growing importance in the African economies, the informal, small-enterprise sector still plays a dubious and little understood role in development. Due to lack of data it is often treated as if it was unrelated to the rest of the economy. However, a number og large surveys carried out in a number of African countries indicate that structure and development of the small-enterprise sector vary greatly both from country to country and over time, depending in a complex way on the national differences in socio-economic structures and policies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Africa

76. Development of African Freight Transport - the Case of Kenya

Author:
Patrick O. Alila, Meleckidzedeck Khayesi, Walter Odhiambo, and Poul Ove Pederson
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The Kenyan transport system is still to a large extent structured by physical infrastructure, legislation and institutions developed during the colonial period, and by import-substitution policies which during the first decades after independence to a large extent allowed the transport system to deteriorate. However, since the late 1980s the structural adjustment policies have led to a renewed interest both from the government and the donors in developing the transport infrastructure. At the same time trade liberalisation, deregulation of domestic trade and privatisation of the parastatals have since the mid-1990s led to a reshaping of both trade and transport which is still ongoing. The so-called logistical revolution, which since the early 1970s has revolutionised transport in the industrialised and industrialising world, has with a delay of two decades also reached Africa. This is resulting in much closer integration of transport into production and trade which tend to shift the focus away from the physical transport infrastructure to the institutional structures and organisations which support and exploit the infrastructures. This paper tries to describe the resulting transformation of the Kenyan transport system.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

77. Migrant Remittances, Development and Gender

Author:
Ninna Nyberg Sorensen
Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Abstract Migration transforms not only the destiny of individual migrants but also the conditions of family members left behind, of local communities and of the wider society. Despite the fact that migratory processes are multidimensional and may generate a wide array of positive as well as negative consequences for development, remittances have lately become the single most emphasized evidence and measuring stick for the ties connecting migrants with their societies of origin.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Gender Issues, and Migration
Political Geography:
Africa

78. Taxpayer's Rights and Obligations: Analysis of Implementation and Enforcement Mechanisms in Uganda

Author:
Emmanuel Kasimbazi
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This study uses Income Tax and Graduated Personal Tax to illustrate how taxpayers' rights and obligations are enforced. Existing literature on tax reform points to the fact that consideration of the rights and obligations of the taxpayers is central to the overall tax reform strategy. In fact, reform processes that do not effectively consider the rights of taxpayers will alienate and create discontent among the citizens. In the last few years, Uganda has taken keen steps to effectively reform its tax legal regime.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

79. The EU's Security Policy Towards the Mediterranean: An (Im)possible Combination of Export of European Political Values and Anti-terror Measures?

Author:
Ulla Holm
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The Southern part of the Mediterranean has been put high on the EU-security agenda after 9/11. The Working paper makes the argument that the EU-politics towards its Arab Mediterranean neighbours are staggering between a status quo oriented politics and a politics of export of democracy. The tension is seen as an expression of two conceptualizations of the Mediterranean and the uneasy combination of four contradicting concepts on the relationship between the Mediterranean and the EU. The first conceptualization is about the Mediterranean as a cultural cradle of great civilizations. The other one is about the Mediterranean as a conflict-ridden zone. These conceptualizations are interlinked in the discourses on how to export security to the South and which kind of security the EU has to promote. The inter-linkage between the two conceptualization of the Mediterranean is furthermore linked up to two oppositional representations of the EU: the EU as an exporter of democracy and the EU as being a model to copy but not an empire-builder. This results in the following dilemmas caused by the oppositional relationship between four concepts: Respect for cultural diversity and export of political shared values. Respect for Arab sovereignty and export of European political values. The opposition between the four concepts is sharpened by Islamic terrorism which underlines the uneasy 'marriage' of the four concepts.
Topic:
Economics and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Europe and Arabia

80. Migrant Transfers as a Development Tool: The Case of Morocco

Author:
Nina Nyberg Sørensen
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
In 2003, the Global Development Finance Annual Report took formal notice of remittances as an important source of external development finance for the first time, listing Morocco as the 4th largest remittance recipient among developing countries. This paper examines the positive and negative results of remittances on Moroccan development, as well as of other migration-driven social changes. It offers a brief historical background to Moroccan migration and examines more closely Moroccan emigration to the EU from the early 1960s. Remittance practices are discussed, as is the issue of return migration. The paper concludes by discussing prospects for general development in the country and summarizing policy options in the field.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Migration
Political Geography:
Europe and Morocco