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1482. The Legacy of the Jubilee Debt Relief Movement: Agreements, Lessons, and Remaining Challenges
- Author:
- Benjamin Leo
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Over the last 25 years, the international community has pursued a series of measures to address unsustainable debt burdens in low-income countries. Early actions focused on debt relief for official bilateral claims—initially by rescheduling—followed by increasing levels of debt stock reduction. During this period, the Paris Club repeatedly reduced or rescheduled the debts of a number of countries.
- Topic:
- Debt, Development, and Foreign Aid
1483. The Arc of the Jubilee
- Author:
- David Roodman
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The Jubilee 2000 movement, which called for the cancellation of the foreign debts of the poorest nations, reached its zenith in the late 1990s and 2000-and then, by design, shut down. In the space of a few years, it became one of the most successful international, nongovernmental movements in history. As part of a larger, ongoing project to understand the consequences and lessons of the episode, David Roodman provides thumbnail assessments of Jubilee 2000 from several perspectives, deemphasizing anecdotes and statistics in favor of major themes.
- Topic:
- Debt, Development, Economics, and Non-Governmental Organization
1484. Globalisation, Domestic Market Integration, and the Regional Disparities of India
- Author:
- Arne Melchior
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Using a world trade model with India subdivided into states, the paper examines how regional disparities are affected by domestic inter-state trade as well as international trade. According to the analysis, international liberalisation promotes decentralisation and convergence, not divergence, so trade is not to blame for India's growing regional disparities. High economic growth within India makes domestic markets more important and the geographical effect of this is opposite to that of globalisation. This may counterbalance the geographical impact of international liberalisation and explain why recent changes in geographical clustering in India are limited. The empirical results are consistent with this. They also indicate that Indian services expansion is largely driven by increases in domestic demand due to growth, and that domestic market integration is essential for India's manufacturing sector. We argue that for larger nations, the domestic inter-regional trade is important and India should have a trade policy that addresses domestic as well as international market integration.
- Topic:
- Development, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Asia
1485. Will the EU get a real president? The EU's political system as another example of semi-presidentialism in Europe
- Author:
- Teija Tiilikainen
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- At first glance the EU's political system doesn't seem to correspond to any contemporary type of regime. There is a directly elected European Parliament (EP), but the way of constructing relations of power and accountability between the parliament and the three bodies with executive powers, the Commission, the European Council or the Council, complicates the picture. The Commission's accountability to the European Parliament has been confirmed in the founding treaties ever since their conclusion. But what is the value of such a rule when there seems to be a much more powerful executive emerging beyond the reach of any EU-level accountability, namely the European Council?
- Topic:
- Development and Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe
1486. The Drag on India's Military Growth
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- India's remarkable economic growth and newfound access to arms from abroad have raised the prospect of a major rearmament of the country. But without several policy and organizational changes, India's efforts to modernize its armed forces will not alter the country's ability to deal with critical security threats. Our research suggests that India's military modernization needs a transparent, legitimate and efficient procurement process. Further, a chief of defense staff could reconcile the competing priorities across the three military services. Finally, India's defense research agencies need to be subjected to greater oversight.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Development
- Political Geography:
- India
1487. Scaling Up the Fight Against Rural Poverty
- Author:
- Johannes F. Linn, Richard Kohl, Homi Kharas, Arntraud Hartmann, and Barbara Massler
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Brookings Institution
- Abstract:
- The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has for many years stressed innovation, knowledge and scaling up as essential ingredients of its strategy to combat rural poverty in developing countries. This institutional review of IFAD's approach to scaling up is the first of its kind: A team of development experts were funded by a small grant from IFAD to assess IFAD's track record in scaling up successful interventions, its operational policies and processes, instruments, resources and incentives, and to provide recommendations to management for how to turn IFAD into a scaling-up institution. Beyond IFAD, this institutional scaling up review is a pilot exercise that can serve as an example for other development institutions.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Food
1488. Comprehensive Food Security: An Approach to Sustainably Address Food Insecurity
- Author:
- Pau Khan Khup Hangzo
- Publication Date:
- 11-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS)
- Abstract:
- Food security has become one of this century's key global challenges. Given current population and consumption trends, as well as the factors of climate change and resource scarcity, the situation is set to worsen—unless drastic actions are taken. The multi-dimensional nature of the food problem requires a comprehensive approach, one that not only addresses food production and availability but also deals with access issues. Only then can sustainable food security be achieved.
- Topic:
- Security, Climate Change, Development, and Food
1489. Catalyzing Support for Small Growing Businesses in Developing Countries: Mapping the Policies of International Development Donors Investors
- Author:
- Estera Barbarasa
- Publication Date:
- 06-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- This report depicts the landscape of development organizations that fund and support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries: multilateral development banks, bilateral government donor agencies, and development finance institutions (DFIs). The report is a new contribution to both the development community, as well as the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE). Advocacy and policy work is a strategic priority for ANDE, and the report's findings will enable the Network to understand the international development community and to be more strategic in its approach as it seeks to influence and shape the international development SME agenda.
- Topic:
- Development, International Trade and Finance, Third World, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
1490. Hydropolitics in Pakistan's Indus Basin
- Author:
- Daanish Mustafa
- Publication Date:
- 11-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- Water problems in Pakistan result largely from poor management, but the consequences of management failures are accentuated, both materially and politically, by international and subnational hydropolitics. There is enough water in the Indus basin to provide for the livelihoods of its residents for a long time, provided that the water is managed efficiently and equitably and that additional water is made available not just through storage but, more importantly, through higher efficiency and intersectoral transfers. The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) seems to moderate the worst impulses of India and Pakistan toward each other, and perhaps therein lies IWT's greatest strength. Pakistani engineers typically interpret the IWT's extensive technical annexures very literally, whereas the Indian engineers tend to emphasize the treaty's criteria for techno-economi¬cally sound project design. No single completed or proposed Indian project on the three western rivers of the Indus basin alone has the potential to significantly limit flows of water to Pakistan. But the long list of proposed Indian projects on the those rivers will in the future give India the cumulative storage capacity to reduce substantively water flows to Pakistan during the low-flow winter months. The IWT, by performing an amputation surgery on the basin, made matters simple and allowed India and Pakistan to pursue their nationalist agendas without much need for more sophisticated and involved cooperation in the water field. This lack of cooperative sharing of water leaves the ecological and social consequences of the treaty to be negotiated and contested at the subnational scale. The interprovincial conflict over water distribution in Pakistan has potential—albeit entirely avoidable—repercussions for stability, at both the subnational and international levels. Instead of constructing very expensive, environmentally damaging, and economically dubious water-storage megaprojects in Pakistan, enhancement of the existing infrastructure's efficiency, coupled with better on-farm water management and more appropriate irrigation and farming techniques, would perhaps more than make up for any additional water that might be gained from megaprojects. Since the drought in southern Pakistan in the latter half of the 1990s, the single-minded focus of the Pakistani water bureaucracy on water development has made the issue of the construction of the Kalabagh Dam project a surrogate for a litany of Sindhi grievances against the Punjabi-dominated political, military, and bureaucratic system in Pakistan. The emphasis on maximizing water withdrawals and on greater regulation of the Indus river system contributed to accentuating the very high flood peaks in 2010. Although the floods are being used by the pro-dams lobby to call for construction of more storage on the Indus, the tragedy ought to inspire a more nuanced and comprehensive reevaluation of the water-management system in the basin. The IWT is a product of its time and could be fruitfully modified and renegotiated to bring it more in line with contemporary international watercourse law, the Helsinki rules, and emerging concerns with water quality, environmental sustainability, climate change, and principles of equitable sharing. But that renegotiation, if it ever happens, is going to be contingent upon significant improvement in bilateral relations between India and Pakistan. India could be more forthcoming with flow data and be more prompt and open in communicating its planned projects on the Indus basin to Pakistan, particularly in the western basin. Pakistan can engage with India within the context of the IWT more positively than defensively, and also educate its media and politicians so as not to sensationalize essentially technical arguments by presenting them as existential threats.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Development, and Water
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, South Asia, and India