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201. Constraints to Domestic Enterprise Financing in Post-Conflict Liberia

Author:
John Gorlorwulu
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Countries emerging from protracted and devastating conflicts are often seen as needing significant external intervention in their financial markets to rebuild their private sector and promote quick and effective economic recovery. Despite enormous challenges, the provision of credit or the implementation of various lending schemes often dominate efforts to promote domestic private-sector recovery in the immediate aftermath of conflict. This approach raises a number of questions: First, how effective are loan programs in the development of domestic enterprises in the immediate aftermath of conflicts? Second, can loan programs work without significant improvements in the business climate? How sensitive is the design of lending programs to the success of domestic enterprise development projects following devastating conflicts? This paper explores the experience of the Liberian Enterprise Development Finance Company, which was established in 2007 to provide medium-and long-term credit to small and medium domestic enterprises. In addition to shedding light on the challenges such an enterprise faces in a post conflict environment, the paper explores whether the strategies employed are effective and if there are opportunities for effecting remedial changes that could improve the outcomes of such a program in post-conflict environments generally.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Development, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Africa and Liberia

202. The Health Systems Funding Platform: Resolving Tensions between the Aid and Development Effectiveness Agendas

Author:
Amanda Glassman and William Savedoff
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Global health aid is exceedingly complex. It encompasses more than one hundred bilateral agencies, global funds, and independent initiatives that interact with an equally complex and diverse set of institutions involved in financing and providing health care in developing countries. Numerous efforts have been made to better coordinate these activities in the interest of making them more effective. The Health Systems Funding Platform (the Platform) is one of the most recent of these initiatives. Established in 2009, the Platform has advanced farthest in two countries, Ethiopia and Nepal, and is currently expanding to several others. This paper briefly assesses the Platform and argues that the way the initiative is proceeding differs little from prior initiatives, such as sector- wide approaches and budget support. However, the initiative does represent an opportunity to make global health aid more effective if it were to deepen its commitment to improving information for policy, link funding explicitly to well-chosen independently verified indicators, and establish an evaluation strategy to learn from its experience.
Topic:
Development, Health, International Cooperation, International Organization, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Nepal and Ethiopia

203. Aid and Conflict in Afghanistan

Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
After a decade of major security, development and humanitarian assistance, the international community has failed to achieve a politically stable and economically viable Afghanistan. Despite billions of dollars in aid, state institutions remain fragile and unable to provide good governance, deliver basic services to the majority of the population or guarantee human security. As the insurgency spreads to areas regarded as relatively safe till now, and policymakers in Washington and other Western capitals seek a way out of an unpopular war, the international community still lacks a coherent policy to strengthen the state ahead of the withdrawal of most foreign forces by December 2014. The impact of international assistance will remain limited unless donors, particularly the largest, the U.S., stop subordinating programming to counter-insurgency objectives, devise better mechanisms to monitor implementation, adequately address corruption and wastage of aid funds, and ensure that recipient communities identify needs and shape assistance policies.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, War, Foreign Aid, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and United States

204. Conflict in the Niger Delta

Author:
Chris Newsom
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Neither Nigeria nor foreign donors are investing enough to end violent conflict in the Niger Delta. While Nigerian officials opt to buy short-term cease-fires, such as the 2009 amnesty process, other governments spend too little in money and manpower to grow local civil society, engage core conflict issues, or adequately understand the region's problems. All parties likewise fail to focus on deeper trends when planning their anticonflict strategies. This causes them to undervalue the potential costs of ongoing violence, as well as the importance of a peaceful Niger Delta to Nigeria's economic development and global energy security. A tragedy of the commons results. The situation in the delta remains fragile and will likely return either to intermittent conflict or full-blown insurgency within six to eighteen months if a "business as usual" approach is taken to interventions. The amnesty process opened a door for stabilization but did not reduce the long-term potential for violence or deal with root conflict issues. Governance is both at the heart of the conflict and the best place to seek solutions. To best help catalyze peace in the region, donors should invest heavily in democratization and learn lessons from a decade of setbacks and poor investment choices. International support for governance reform in the delta must start at the grass roots. The key is to lay a foundation to support and argue for better government practices higher up. Civil society is already having some success promoting accountability at the community level. Obstacles are high and progress is slow, making longer commitments from donors a must. Reformers in the Niger Delta also have operated too much in isolation. Local and international actors need a multilateral strategy allowing them to combine levers and use each other's momentum. They must ground this strategy in deeper analysis of the region's problems and a unified theory of change. Donors should also complement their support of governance reform in the delta with funding for innovative local development work. Ideas and best practices should be sought from other countries, with flexibility for keying in to promising government initiatives.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Civil Society, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

205. Incentive Proliferation? Making Sense of a New Wave of Development Programs

Author:
William Savedoff
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
A new wave of development programs that explicitly use incentives to achieve their aims is under way. They are part of a trend, accelerating in recent years, to disburse development assistance against specific and measurable outputs or outcomes. With a proliferation of new ideas under names such as “payments for performance,” “output-based aid,” and “results based financing,” it is easy to lose sight of basic underlying similarities in these approaches and to miss some significant differences. This paper proposes a way of classifying and distinguishing the range of incentive programs being debated today, emphasizing two particular dimensions: the agent whose behavior the incentive seeks to change and the specificity of the output or outcome measure. It begins by characterizing a basic incentive arrangement, discussing the range of available contracts and how they appear in development programs, presents a classification of existing incentive programs and illustrates the scheme with examples. The paper concludes by identifying four broad categories that address different problems and offers some cautionary notes.
Topic:
Development, International Political Economy, Poverty, and Foreign Aid

206. Scholars Who Became Practitioners

Author:
Nora Lustig
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Celebrated by academics, multilateral organizations, policymakers and the media, Mexico's Progresa/ Oportunidades conditional cash transfers program (CCT) is constantly used as a model of a successful antipoverty program. Here I argue that the transformation of well-trained scholars into influential practitioners played a fundamental role in promoting a new conceptual approach to poverty reduction, ensuring the technical soundness and effectiveness of the program, incorporating rigorous impact evaluation, and persuading politicians to implement and keep the program in place. The involvement of scholar-practitioners also helped disseminate the new CCT “technology” to many countries around the world quite rapidly.
Topic:
Development, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Mexico

207. Pakistan Floods Progress Report July 2010 / July 2011

Author:
Lucy Davies
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
A year has passed since the first news reports alerted the world to unnaturally heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan's north-western province of Kyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), a region already ravaged by conflict and only just recovering from the devastating earthquake of 2005. The floods that followed were of a size and scale that are difficult to conceive. Floodwaters inundated up to one-fifth of the country and affected 20 million people, destroying 1.6 million homes and leaving over 14 million people acutely vulnerable (www.pakresponse.org). Oxfam launched a fundraising appeal on 3 August 2010, asking supporters to give generously to save lives. Over $75m (PKR 6,400m, €57m, £48m) was raised by Oxfam for the relief effort in Pakistan through a range of donors: the public, donor governments, and other institutions and organisations. Together all Oxfam affiliates raised $21m (PKR 1,805m, €14m, £13m), much of this was from public sources. This was a good result given difficult economic times, and the money entrusted to Oxfam directly helped to improve the lives of over 2.4 million people. This report is intended as a tool to account to the individuals, governments, and other institutions who have given generously to Oxfam's humanitarian fund, and to partners, allies, staff and volunteers. A finance section at the end of the report provides an overview of how funds were raised and spent. And the final section focuses on 'The Future' and identifies Oxfam's plans for helping during the reconstruction phase of this emergency.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Natural Disasters, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

208. 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

209. Taking Development Activities to Scale in Fragile and Low Capacity Environments

Author:
Johannes F. Linn and Laurence Chandy
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Fragile states present one of the greatest challenges to global development and poverty reduction. Despite much new learning that has emerged from within the development community in recent years, understanding of how to address fragility remains modest. There is growing recognition that donor engagement in fragile states must look beyond the confines of the traditional aid effectiveness agenda if it is to achieve its intended objectives, which include state building, meeting the needs of citizens, and managing risk more effectively. Current approaches are constrained by relying heavily on small-scale interventions, are weakened by poor coordination and volatility, and struggle to promote an appropriate role for the recipient state.</p
Topic:
Development, Poverty, and Foreign Aid

210. The Triple Compact: Improving Accountability in State Building

Author:
Ben Rowswell
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
As a result of international state-building efforts, progress has been made in Afghanistan, however, political dysfunction and a lack of accountability remain problems. It has been suggested that failures of accountability may, in fact, be a product of the state- building effort itself. In the hybrid form of governance where authority is divided between the government and the international community, it can be difficult for the population to determine where accountability lies, leading to feelings of frustration and disempowerment.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, War, Foreign Aid, and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Afghanistan