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342. Haiti Progress Report 2010
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Even before the earthquake struck on 12 January 2010, Haiti was the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, ranked by the United Nations Development Programme as one of the world's 50 poorest countries (2009). In short, life was already a struggle for most families. Then the earthquake hit, and lives were turned upside down. It was the most powerful earthquake in Haiti for 200 years.
- Topic:
- Development, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Natural Disasters
- Political Geography:
- United Nations, Caribbean, and Haiti
343. Quantifying Vulnerability to Climate Change: Implications for Adaptation Assistance
- Author:
- David Wheeler
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- This paper attempts a comprehensive accounting of climate change vulnerability for 233 states, ranging in size from China to Tokelau. Using the most recent evidence, it develops risk indicators for three critical problems: increasing weather-related disasters, sea-level rise, and loss of agricultural productivity. The paper embeds these indicators in a methodology for cost-effective allocation of adaptation assistance. The methodology can be applied easily and consistently to all 233 states and all three problems, or to any subset that may be of interest to particular donors. Institutional perspectives and priorities differ; the paper develops resource allocation formulas for three cases: (1) potential climate impacts alone, as measured by the three indicators; (2) case 1 adjusted for differential country vulnerability, which is affected by economic development and governance; and (3) case 2 adjusted for donor concerns related to project economics: intercountry differences in project unit costs and probabilities of project success. The paper is accompanied by an Excel database with complete data for all 233 countries. It provides two illustrative applications of the database and methodology: assistance for adaptation to sea level rise by the 20 island states that are both small and poor and general assistance to all low-income countries for adaptation to extreme weather changes, sea-level rise, and agricultural productivity loss.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- China
344. What Is In Haiti's Future?
- Author:
- Robert Maguire and Tara Nesvaderani
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- Haiti's slow pace of recovery from the January 2010 earthquake is due to the magnitude of the calamity, pre-existing conditions, institutional weaknesses, resource limitations, a cholera epidemic and disputed elections. The pace of new cholera infections and deaths has begun to slow, although infections and death rates remain high in rural areas and risk of renewed high infection rates is significant. Following protracted controversy after presidential and parliamentary elections held in late November 2010, second round runoffs have been scheduled for March 20th with President Rene Préval remaining in office through mid-May. The unexpected return to Haiti in mid-January of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and the potential return of exiled former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide have added to the country's turmoil and uncertainty. Scenarios for Haiti's future are based not only on the international community's ability to provide needed support, but also on the ability of Haiti's leaders and people to successfully elect a credible national government.
- Topic:
- Development, Poverty, and Natural Disasters
- Political Geography:
- Caribbean and Haiti
345. Lessons from Haiti and Beyond: Report from the 2010 International Conference on Crisis Mapping
- Author:
- Jessica Henzelman, D. Roz Sewell, Jen Ziemke, and Patrick Meier
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- Crisis mapping is a growing field that seeks to leverage mobile platforms, computational models, geospatial technologies, crowd sourced data, and visual analytics to power effective early warning for rapid response to complex humanitarian emergencies. The second International Conference on Crisis Mapping convened from October 1 to 3, 2010, to discuss lessons learned from past and present initiatives and strategies for moving the field forward. Over 250 participants from major international organizations, the technology community, universities, and NGOs attended. Some of the main themes from the conference included the need to design environment-appropriate technologies, improve analysis tools and systems, create standards for the emergent field, engage local populations, and gain a better understanding of the challenges of operating in complex political environments.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, Natural Disasters, and Refugee Issues
- Political Geography:
- Caribbean and Haiti
346. Transition from Democracy Loss of Quality, Hybridisation and Breakdown of Democracy
- Author:
- Gero Erdmann
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- The paper points out that there is hardly any research for the reverse transition, the transition from democracy to non-democratic regimes for more than 30 years. For heuristical purposes, it provides basic data of the decline of democracy, which refers to loss of democratic quality, changes from liberal democracy to hybrid and to authoritarian regimes, during the third wave of democratisation (1974-2008). The stocktaking shows that most of the cases of decline refer to the change in and from young democracies established during the third wave, especially after 1989. Loss of democratic quality and hybridization are the most frequent cases of decline, while the breakdown of democracy has been very rare. Young democracies and poorer countries are more prone to decline than the older and richer cases – aside from a few remarkable exceptions. Finally, the overview argues that the research on the decline of democracy can benefit from the richness of the approaches of transitology, but should also avoid its methodological traps and failures, concluding with a number of suggestions for the future research agenda.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Poverty, International Affairs, and Governance
347. Girls' Education in Afghanistan
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Female education has faced significant obstacles in Afghanistan, yet there have been enormous gains since 2001. Under the Taliban, the majority of girls‟ schools were closed and gross enrollment fell from 32% to just 6.4%.In the early years after the fall of the Taliban, education was a top priority for the Afghan government and donors. Much of this donor focus was on getting children back into school, with a particular emphasis on primary level. The Back to School campaign, launched in 2002, significantly ex-panded enrollment, which has increased nearly seven-fold, from approxi-mately 900,000 in 2000 to 6.7 million in 2009.For girls, the increase has been even more dramatic: official enrollment figures have increased from an estimated 5,000 under the Taliban to 2.4 million girls currently enrolled.
- Topic:
- Education, Gender Issues, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Taliban
348. Whose Aid Is It Anyway? Politicizing aid in conflicts and crises
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Effective aid helps save lives, protect rights and build livelihoods. Yet in conflicts and politically unstable settings from Afghanistan to Yemen, lifesaving humanitarian assistance and longer-term efforts to reduce poverty are being damaged where aid is used primarily to pursue donors' own narrow political and security objectives. This is not only undermining humanitarian principles and donors' development commitments; it impacts on the lives of some of the most vulnerable people affected by conflicts and natural disasters.
- Topic:
- Security, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, Natural Disasters, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Yemen
349. TrAid+ Channeling Development Assistance to Results
- Author:
- Alex Ergo and Ingo Puhl
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Development assistance is meant to improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, but the effectiveness of aid in meeting this goal is uncertain. Demonstrating failure—or success—is difficult because traditional donor financing mechanisms track inputs, not results. This is compounded by poor coordination between actors and a lack of transparency, accountability, and country ownership. Development assistance that is ineffective or has unknown outcomes wastes resources, erodes the constituency for aid, and most importantly fails to improve the lives of poor people as much as it could. TrAid+ is a new mechanism that aims to address these problems by creating a market for certified development outputs—outputs for which both the delivery and the quality have been verified. By ensuring that these outputs, such as safe deliveries or gas connections, meet certain standards, trAid+ acts as a third-party stamp of approval that donors, tax payers, recipient-country governments, service providers, and beneficiaries can trust to know that their aid is being used effectively and is contributing to the development objectives of the recipient country. And trAid+ makes all information accessible online, making it easier for funders to link with projects that are working and projects that are working to link with anyone interested in purchasing certified development outputs. TrAid+ can be tailored to any sector where outputs can be clearly defined and measured, whether health, education, infrastructure, or agriculture. This paper describes the trAid+ concept in detail and proposes practical steps to establish the trAid+ platform.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
350. The Post-Washington Consensus: Development after the Crisis
- Author:
- Francis Fukuyama and Nancy Birdsall
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- A clear shift in the development agenda is underway. Traditionally, an agenda generated in the developed world was implemented in—and, indeed, often imposed on—the developing world. The United States, Europe, and Japan will continue to be significant sources of economic resources and ideas, but the emerging markets will become significant players. Countries such as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa will be both donors and recipients of resources for development and of best practices for how to use them. In fact, development has never been something that the rich bestowed on the poor but rather something the poor achieved for themselves. It appears that the Western powers are finally waking up to this truth in light of a financial crisis that, for them, is by no means over.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, China, Europe, India, South Africa, and Brazil