There is increasing recognition that strong tax systems can have impacts on economic growth, the sustainability of revenues for expenditure, state-building, and inequality, although there are debates about the trade-offs to achieving these differing and sometimes incompatible objectives. Tax revenue appears to be more likely to be used to support broad development goals than ...» more
Gender and conflict in Ukraine
The conflicts in eastern and southern Ukraine constitute a significant humanitarian crisis for the country and the region, with at least 1.7 million internally displaced persons, two-thirds of whom are women (UNOCHA 2016, p. 7; UNHCR 2015, p. 5) and approximately 1.5 million people seeking asylum or other forms of legal stay in neighbouring countries (UNHCR 2016, p. 7). Women ...» more
Disaster risk financing and insurance in the Pacific
The Pacific region has low insurance penetration compared with other parts of the world. General (non-life) insurance penetration for Pacific countries ranged between 0.5% (Indonesia) and 2.5% (Samoa) in 2012. The mean penetration rate for Pacific countries for which data could be obtained was 1.6%, which is considerably less than the rate in Australia (2.2%), half the rate of ...» more
Alternative dispute resolution for businesses in developing countries
Dispute resolution mechanisms can be arranged in a continuum. At one end are processes like which are formal, inflexible, and adversarial, and which depend on neutral third parties to decide the outcome of the process, such as litigation in court, where the outcome is decided by a judge. At the other end are increasingly informal, flexible, and consensual processes such as ...» more
Capacity development at the national level in fragile and conflict-affected states
There is a clear international consensus on desirable principles for capacity development in fragile states, which include country ownership, use of country systems, improvements to technical assistance and training, adapting initiatives to local contexts, a focus on adaptive and flexible approaches, a focus on results, improved coordination, and a focus on a clear set of ...» more
Methods for monitoring and mapping online hate speech
Approaches to mapping hate speech online can be classified into three principal groups based on their purpose: Real-time monitoring and mapping: These projects, the best known of which is the Umati project in Kenya, aim to provide continuous monitoring of online media. Such projects are rare, but they have the potential to serve as early warning systems or enable a reaction ...» more
Effectiveness of sector-wide approaches in fragile contexts
There is no consistently strong evidence that sector-wide approaches (SWAps) have been effective at achieving development outcomes in fragile contexts. Available evidence is mixed, partly because of the uniqueness of each country’s context (Negin 2010, p. 5). SWAps are generally considered to be most appropriate in relatively stable low- and middle-income countries, with ...» more
Recent literature on instability and intrastate conflict in Zimbabwe
There is consensus in the recent (2011-13) literature on Zimbabwe that although the country has stabilised considerably since the last elections in 2008, the risk of internal conflict during the period surrounding the 2013 elections is high. The principal factors underpinning the potential for conflict are: The bitter divisions among the main political parties, the apparent ...» more
Current thinking on capacity development
Capacity development (CD) emerged in the 1990s from a reassessment of earlier approaches to technical cooperation. (Pearson 2011b, p. 10) It is now “gaining greater prominence in international discussions on the performance and future of development cooperation” (Keijzer et al. 2011, p. 7) and continues to be identified as key constraint in development analysis and political ...» more
Output-based aid in water and sanitation
Output-based aid (OBA) is one of a range of results-based financing approaches which aims to improve development outcomes by linking the disbursement of aid money to achievement of specified outputs by service delivery partners. There is considerable experience with OBA in the transport sector and in Latin America, but very little experience and evidence in the water and ...» more
Development Finance Institutions and Development Outcomes
Evidence about the development impacts of DFIs is limited. DFIs carry out evaluations of their investments, but these are generally limited to examining direct outputs and economic impacts; comprehensive evaluation of impacts is complicated and expensive, and is very rarely undertaken. DFIs argue that financial performance and development outcomes go hand-in-hand, as ...» more
Financing and Cost-effectiveness of Cash Transfer Schemes
There is widespread agreement in the literature that cash transfers are effective in achieving a range of development objectives and that fears of creating dependency or enabling misuse of funds by recipients are groundless. While there are many impact evaluations of cash transfer programmes, there is very little hard data on cost-effectiveness, particularly compared with ...» more
Conflict Prevention and Local Engagement
Conflict prevention refers to approaches to avoid, minimise, and/or contain potential violent conflicts, and to prevent violent conflict from re-emerging. Engagement with local actors such as civil society, politicians, and community groups can have an important positive impact on conflict prevention, both in situations that have not yet experienced violent conflict and in ...» more
Domestic Politics of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry
Indonesia is the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world (after the USA and China) and about 85% of the country’s emissions are related to land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF), making it the source of one-third of global LULUCF emissions. The main proximate causes of deforestation and land use change in Indonesia are logging (both legal and illegal), ...» more
Performance of Civil Society Organisations
There is no clear consensus that civil society organisations necessarily perform better or worse than private sector, government, or multilateral organisations. Few studies make direct comparisons of performance, but those that do show mixed results. This is not surprising, considering the wide range of organisations and country contexts.This report focuses primarily on the ...» more
Vetting Public Employees
Vetting refers to “processes for assessing an individual’s integrity as a means of determining his or her suitability for public employment.” Vetting may be applied to people who already hold public service positions, typically in post-conflict, post-authoritarian, or otherwise transitional contexts with the objective of removing individuals responsible for war crimes, human ...» more
Changing Approaches to Technical Assistance
Technical assistance and technical cooperation have a long history in development aid and have often been criticised as being supply-driven, expensive, poorly planned and integrated, and failing to promote country ownership. Despite criticisms, these activities continue to play an important role: the OECD estimates that technical assistance makes up about one-quarter of global ...» more
French Financial Crisis (2008-2009)
There is very little academic literature available about the current economic crisis and its social impacts in France. This report includes some relevant articles from the news media. More literature is available relating to the unrest seen in 2005, and as some of that material may be relevant to the current situation a small selection has been included.Unemployment and ...» more
Indonesian Financial Crisis (1997-1998)
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Indonesia along with other Asian countries experienced strong economic growth which produced reductions in poverty and improvements in social indicators. The financial crisis of 1997 undid many of these improvements as GDP dropped, unemployment rose, wages eroded, and prices increased dramatically. The rapid descent into economic hardship ...» more
Donor Activity on Parliamentary Strengthening and Electoral Support
Parliamentary strengthening is becoming an increasingly important part of governance work in international development, and many bilateral, multilateral, and non-governmental organisations (including political parties) are involved in parliamentary strengthening. According to a recent ODI study, the World Bank Institute, the Parliamentary Centre (Canada), United Nations ...» more
