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21. The End of the Beginning: Paris COP 2015

Author:
David Runnalls
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
The Paris Conference of the Parties (COP) 2015 is designed to produce the next round of climate change action. There are reasons to believe that the chances for success at the multilateral level are better now that they were before, but even under the most optimistic scenarios, Paris will not be the end of the negotiations. The Paris summit will be crucial to maintaining the momentum that has been building in the private sector and civil society on the issue of climate change. COP 21 has generated an enormous amount of public interest. Civil society actions both before and during the Paris meeting promise to be on a grand scale. In addition, COP21 has excited action from a number of other levels of government not normally seen at these events. Leaders of the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD have all stated that climate change is the principal economic issue facing the world this century. There is a growing realization among the world's economic decision makers that the shift to a low-carbon economy is not only a necessity, but also may be less costly than we believe. The need to identify both public and private financing solutions is the greatest hurdle facing the Paris COP. CIGI's climate change research is tackling the issue of financing sustainable development, in addition to how agreements can be reached by smaller countries, how to address the problems of the delayed benefits from mitigation, ways that China can exercise leadership in this arena, and how the world's financial institutions can help mobilize climate finance from the private sector.
Topic:
Civil Society, Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Regulation, Financial Markets, and Climate Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

22. The Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals: a historic opportunity

Author:
Sarah Hearn and Jeffrey Strew
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were a game-changer because they channelled aid and developing countries’ revenues into a discrete package of priorities for eradicating extreme poverty. Undeniably, significant progress was made across peaceful developing countries against the eight MDGs (see box). According to the World Bank, absolute poverty has been halved (although not evenly in each country and region). In 1990, 43.1 per cent of the population in developing countries lived on less than 1.25 US dollars (USD) a day; by 2010, this rate dropped to 20.6 per cent. The world is close to attaining universal primary education too – 90 per cent of children in developing countries are completing primary education (although sub-Saharan Africa is behind at 70 %) (World Bank, 2014).
Topic:
Education, Human Welfare, Poverty, World Bank, Children, and Millennium Development Goals
Political Geography:
Global Focus

23. Rethinking the Financial Design of the World Bank

Author:
Devesh Kapur and Arjun Raychaudhuri
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Since their inception, through 2012, the institutions comprising the World Bank group have been involved in lending nearly a trillion dollars. In this paper, we focus on the IBRD, which is the core of the World Bank. The IBRD has the potential to continue to grow and be an important player in official financial flows, supporting critical long-term development projects with large social returns, in sectors ranging from infrastructure, social sectors, or environment.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Environment, Foreign Aid, Infrastructure, and World Bank
Political Geography:
Europe

24. The Median Is the Message: A Good-Enough Measure of Material Well-Being and Shared Development Progress

Author:
Nancy Birdsall and Christian J. Meyer
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
We argue that survey-based median household consumption expenditure (or income) per capita be incorporated into standard development indicators, as a simple, robust, and durable indicator of typical individual material well-being in a country. Using household survey data available for low- and middle-income countries from the World Bank's PovcalNet tool, we show that as a measure of income-related well-being, it is far superior to the commonly used GDP per capita as well as survey-based measures at the mean. We also argue that survey-based median measures are "distributionaware", i.e. when used as the denominator of various widely available indicators such as mean consumption expenditure per capita they provide a "good-enough" indicator of consumption (or income) inequality. Finally, as a post-2015 indicator of progress at the country-level in promoting shared development and reducing inequality, we propose that the rate of increase in median consumption per capita after taxes and transfers exceed the rate of increase in average consumption in the same period.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, Poverty, and World Bank
Political Geography:
United Nations

25. US Reconstruction Aid for Afghanistan: The Dollars and Sense

Author:
Catherine Lutz and Sujaya Desai
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
The United States, and its allies, the UN, NGOs, and the World Bank, have injected billions of dollars into what is commonly termed the "reconstruction" of Afghanistan since the war began in 2001. This paper focuses on United States spending on aid in Afghanistan, describing the rationale government officials have given for the aid, what they have spent money on, who has profited from the contracts to provide aid, and what the consequences of that spending have been in terms of benefits to the people of Afghanistan or the United States. The central findings of this review of US government investigative reports and existing field-based scholarship are that reconstruction aid has been allocated primarily to re-arming and policing Afghanistan, with poor or even counterproductive outcomes in both security and other-than-security domains. Furthermore, US companies have been among the primary beneficiaries of this aid, despite widespread fraud, waste, and dysfunction. In contrast to a focus on human needs, and rather than rebuilding the basis of a modern state, reconstruction has been focused on furthering United States security interests. Reconstruction thus sets the foundation for continued violence and impoverishment in the years to come.
Topic:
Corruption, Foreign Aid, and World Bank
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and United States

26. Pakistan and Afghanistan: International Indicators of Progress

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
It is unclear that the United States has any current assessments and strategy to deal with either these governance or economic issues. If it does, it has provided no transparency as to what these plans are, and has failed to develop any effective public measures of the effectiveness of its civil aid programs after more than 10 years of effort, and in spite of the fact that the civil dimension of counterinsurgency efforts is at least as important as the military efforts. It is also important to note that World Bank and UN reporting show the same lack of progress in governance, economics, and human development in Pakistan as in Afghanistan.
Topic:
Economics, Politics, and World Bank
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, and India

27. Investing for the Few: The IFC's Health in Africa initiative

Author:
Anna Marriott and Jessica Hamer
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim has publicly stated that achieving universal health coverage (UHC) and equity in health are central to reaching the two new overarching World Bank Group goals to end extreme poverty by 2030 and boost shared prosperity. Jim Kim has also rightly emphasized the need to close the gap in access to quality health services for the poorest 40 percent of the population and to eliminate point-of-service payments that impoverish people in every country.
Topic:
Government, Health, Foreign Direct Investment, World Bank, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
Africa

28. China in the G20 Summitry: Review and Decision-making Process

Author:
Alex He
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
As the largest emerging economy, China believes that the Group of Twenty (G20), instead of the Group of Eight (G8), is the ideal platform for its participation in global governance. This paper examines the reasons why China joined the G20 rather than the G8, and then focuses on a detailed review of China's participation in G20 summits since the enhanced forum began in 2008. China took a very active and cooperative attitude in dealing with the global financial crisis in 2008-2009. The paper observes that China also insisted on its own agenda for reforms to the international monetary system, through reforms to the international financial institutions that manage it — in particular, raising the number of voting shares and the representation of developing countries at the IMF and the World Bank. Based on the reviews of China's performance in the G20 summits since 2008, the paper explores China's policy making through its participation in the G20, determining that it is shaped by several major economic departments in addition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and coordinated by a vice premier responsible for economic and financial affairs. The paper concludes that China has gained immensely from its participation in the G20. Most importantly, China entered the centre stage of global economic governance through the G20, which allowed the country to demonstrate that it is a responsible great power, and communicate and maintain relations with other major powers. The main challenges China has faced since joining the G20, from the perspective of some Chinese scholars, are a lack of capacity for agenda setting and shaping initiatives, as well as inadequate communication and coordination among different government departments and between the Sherpa and financial tracks of the G20.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, International Monetary Fund, Global Recession, Financial Crisis, and World Bank
Political Geography:
China

29. The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World's Poorest People Are Educating Themselves

Author:
Kevin Douglas
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
The Beautiful Tree is the inspiring story of James Tooley's quest to discover “how the world's poorest people are educating themselves.” Tooley begins his book by describing his serendipitous discovery of low-cost private schools for the poor in Hyderabad, India. While on an assignment for the World Bank to research the contribution of high-end private schools to the education of middle- and upper-income Indians, Tooley discovered that dozens of low-cost, for-profit private schools serve the poor in the slums of Hyderabad, and that parents choose to send their children to these private schools despite the fact that government schools are available for “free.” When Tooley returned to the World Bank and told his colleagues of his amazing find, their responses were typical of those he would receive during the rest of his investigation. Many refused to believe that low-budget private schools existed. The few who acknowledged their existence attempted to dissuade Tooley from giving them much attention, because, in their view, these schools were “ripping off the poor” and were “run by unscrupulous business people who didn't care a fig for anything other than profits” (p. 21). Tooley responded to such skepticism and cynicism by redoubling his efforts to learn about such schools. Inspired by what he found in Hyderabad, Tooley searched for similar schools in the slums of Nigeria, Ghana, and China. Tooley writes that many education officials he encountered were completely unaware of the low-cost private schools in their nations, and others went to great lengths to deny their existence. For example, in Nigeria, Tooley met Dennis Okoro, recently retired chief inspector of schools for the Nigerian federal government. Initially, Okoro professed ignorance that low-cost private schools existed; then he denied the possibility of their existence. When Tooley took Okoro into the slums of Makoko and showed him several schools, Okoro concluded that what he saw could not be private schools serving the poor, because “[t]he poor by definition cannot afford to pay fees for private schools. So if this was a fee-charging private school, it couldn't be for the poor” (p. 50). Similarly, Tooley describes officials at a regional education bureau in China who “argued” that, because the Chinese government's official position is that government provides basic education to all children, rich and poor, “what you propose to research does not only not exist, it is also a logical impossibility” (p. 97). This exchange came only moments after Tooley explained that he had already personally visited five such schools. The Beautiful Tree documents how Tooley ignored the advice of “development experts” (such as those at the World Bank) and pushed past the resistance and ignorance of education officials to build a team to help him investigate the phenomenon of low-cost private schools serving the poor. . . .
Topic:
Education and World Bank
Political Geography:
China and Nigeria

30. A Paradigm Shift thatNever Will Be?:Justin Lin’s New Structural Economics (pdf)

Author:
Ben Fine and Elisa Van Waeyenberge
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This paper assesses the attempt by Justin Lin, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, to posit a new development paradigm through his New Structural Economics, NSE. Lin’s attempt to redefine development economics deserves scrutiny for at least two reasons. He launched his new framework from the platform that his position as Chief Economist at the Bank. Critical scrutiny of his propositions then allows for continued insights into the complex relationship between scholarship and policy at the Bank and further illuminates, more broadly, the role of the Bank across the spectrum of development economics, development studies and development policy. Second, Lin’s framework claims a return to a “structural” understanding of development, with a strong industrial policy rhetoric emanating from it. This has been greeted with considerable enthusiasm by erstwhile critics of the Bank. Closer scrutiny of the NSE, however, both reveals the flawed nature of its core theoretical notion of comparative advantage and exposes its strong, if unfortunately conservative, commitment to a flawed and incoherently applied neoclassical economics. These issues are explored across Lin’s propositions regarding structural change, the role of the state and finance and are further examined in the context of specific policy interventions that Lin attaches to the NSE.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, World Bank, and Economic structure
Political Geography:
Global Focus