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Begin New Search Topic International Relations Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution United Nations University Publication Year within 25 Years

41. Aid and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Accounting for Transmission Mechanisms

Author:
Oliver Morrissey, Karuna Gomanee, and Sourafel Girma
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper is a contribution to the literature on aid and growth. Despite an extensive empirical literature in this area, existing studies have not addressed directly the mechanisms via which aid should affect growth. We identify investment as the most significant transmission mechanism, and also consider effects through financing imports and government consumption spending. With the use of residual generated regressors, we achieve a measure of the total effect of aid on growth, accounting for the effect via investment. Pooled panel results for a sample of 25 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1970 to 1997 point to a significant positive effect of foreign aid on growth, ceteris paribus. On average, each one percentage point increase in the aid/GNP ratio contributes one-quarter of one percentage point to the growth rate. Africa's poor growth record should not therefore be attributed to aid ineffectiveness.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Africa

42. Innovative Ways of Making Aid Effective in Ghana: Tied Aid versus Direct Budgetary Support

Author:
Peter Quartey
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
There has been significant amount of aid inflow s to developing countries including Ghana, but these have been very volatile. Aid flows have been associated with low domestic resource mobilization and have reduced Ghana to a country heavily dependent on aid. The amount of official development assistance (ODA) inflow s has fallen in recent years and has become unpredictable. It is general knowledge that aid has not yielded the desired benefit. In an attempt to improve aid effectiveness donors have used tie d aid not just to promote commercial interests but also to target aid to particular projects that have direct links with poverty. However, this has not yielded the maximum benefits required. Recently, the government of Ghana and its development partners agreed on an aid package dubbed the multi-donor budgetary support (MDBS), which would ensure continuous flow of aid to finance the government's poverty related expenditures.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Africa and Ghana

43. It Works; It Doesn't; It Can, But That Depends...: 50 Years of Controversy over the Macroeconomic Impact of Development Aid

Author:
Mark McGillivray, Simon Feeny, Robert Lensink, and Niels Hermes
Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper surveys 50 years of empirical research on the macroeconomic impact of aid, looking mainly at studies examining the link between aid and growth. It argues that studies dating until the late 1990s produced either contradictory or inconclusive results. Aid either worked, or it didn't, according to this research. The paper then highlights a major shift in the literature that coincided with the release of the World Bank's Assessing Aid: What Works, What Doesn't and Why. Practically all research published since that report agrees with its general finding that aid works, to the extent that in its absence growth would be lower. One controversy may therefore have been settled. Yet, we show, the report has set-off an intense de bate over the context in which aid works. That debate centres on whether the effectiveness of these inflows depends on the policy regime of recipient countries. Some possible avenues through which the heat might be taken out of this debate are considered.
Topic:
International Relations, Debt, Development, and Economics

44. Constitution Writing and Conflict Resolution

Author:
Jennifer Widner
Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Over 1975-2003 nearly 200 new constitutions were drawn up in countries at risk of conflict, as part of peace processes and the adoption of multiparty political systems. The process of writing constitutions is considered to be very important to the chances of sustaining peace, and The Commonwealth and the US Institute for Peace have developed good practice guidelines in this area. These emphasize consultation, openness to diverse points of view and representative ratification procedures. But assessing the impact of constitution-writing processes on violence is methodologically difficult, since there are many channels of influence in the relationship. This paper reports on preliminary findings from an ongoing research project into the effects of processes in constitution-writing. Regression analysis is used to control for important contextual features such as differences in income levels and ethnic diversity across countries. A key finding is that differences in the degree of participation in the drafting of constitutions has no major effect on post-ratification levels of violence in some parts of the world, such as Europe, but does make a difference in Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific together.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Peace Studies, and Politics
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, America, and Europe

45. Channels and Policy Debate in the Globalization-Inequality-Poverty Nexus

Author:
Erik Thorbecke and Machiko Nissanke
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The paper offers a critical literature review of the debate surrounding the globalization-poverty nexus, focusing on channels and linkages through which globalization affects the poor. After introducing four different concepts used to measure trends in world income inequality, it examines first the 'growth' conduit through which globalization affects poverty. Treating inequality as the explicit filter between growth and poverty reduction, the causal chain of openness-growth-inequality-poverty is scrutinized, link by link. The paper then moves on to examine other channels in the globalization-poverty nexus that operate through changes in relative factor and good prices, factor movements, the nature of technological change and diffusion, the impact of globalization on volatility and vulnerability, the worldwide flow of information, global disinflation, and institutions, respectively. The paper concludes with a discussion of strategic policy issues within the context of the globalization debate.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Globalization, and Poverty

46. The Volatility of Aid

Author:
George Mavrotas and David Fielding
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Issues related to the volatility of aid flows are now becoming crucial in view of their relevance to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The paper examines aid volatility using data for 66 aid recipients over the period 1973-2002. We improve upon earlier work in this important area by disaggregating total aid inflows into sector and programme aid. In this way we avoid focussing on a single aggregate, unlike most previous studies on aid volatility. We also adopt a different methodology to capture aid volatility. The institutional quality of the aid recipient affects the stability of sector aid but not that of programme assistance. Moreover, more open economies, which tend to be smaller and richer, ceteris paribus, are associated with more volatile sector aid flows.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, International Cooperation, and Poverty

47. Decent Work and the Informal Economy

Author:
Anne Trebilcock
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The ILO was founded for social justice, a mandate expressed today in terms of decent work as a global goal, for all who work, whether in formal or informal contexts. In June 2002, the delegates to the International Labour Conference from governments, workers' and employers' organizations adopted a resolution incorporating conclusions on decent work and the informal economy. The four components of decent work – opportunities for employment and income, respect for rights at work, social protection and stronger social dialogue – form the backbone of the ILO's approach to the informal economy. These elements can also be seen through a development lens, and necessarily feature a strong gender dimension. To make the action foreseen by the ILC conclusions more easily operational in a cross-disciplinary way, the issues they address can be cast in terms of macro policy, governance, enhancement of productivity, markets and employment, social protection/addressing vulnerabilities, and representation and voice. All play key roles in poverty reduction. Moreover, recognizing the importance of measuring progress towards decent work, developments in relation to indicators are briefly described. This paper includes annexes reproducing the ILC conclusions along with two relevant resolutions adopted by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians and a list of ILO websites that address various aspects of decent work and the informal economy.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, Economics, and Government

48. From Local to Global and Informal to Formal: Entering Mainstream Markets

Author:
Reema Nanavaty
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This is a brief sketch of the Self Employed Women's Association's (SEWA) three-decade-long journey from the local to global and informal to formal sector in search of finding work and income for now 720,000 women workers. Though SEWA remains a local and an informal economy workers' organization, its aim has always been to mainstream its issues, hopes, and achievements.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance

49. Unlocking Public Entrepreneurship and Public Economies

Author:
Elinor Ostrom
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Unlocking human potential requires a rich network of institutional arrangements in both private and public spheres. Opening the private sphere to entrepreneurship and complex market organization is well understood as a key to increasing the level and quality of private goods available to consumers. Opening the public sphere to entrepreneurship and innovation at local, regional, and international levels is also a key to increasing the level and quality of public goods – e.g., peace, safety, and health – available to citizens. This paper reviews studies of urban service delivery that have repeatedly found communities of individuals who have self-organized to provide and co-produce surprisingly good local services. In addition to unlocking individual freedom, we need to unlock the public sector from rigid, top-down, hierarchical organization.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance

50. Multiactor Global Funds: New Tools to Address Urgent Global Problems

Author:
Jeremy Heimans
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Multiactor global funds (MGFs) are emerging as important new mechanisms for the financing of development and other global priorities. MGFs like the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are distinctive because they are administered and financed by multiactor coalitions of governments, international organizations, the private sector and civil society, they operate independently of any one institution and are tied to particular issue or policy areas. This paper considers the desirability of MGFs as instruments for international financial mobilization, resource allocation and as a form of experimentation in global governance. It is argued that MGFs hold considerable promise as focal points for generating additional public and private resources to address urgent global problems and to finance global public goods. They may be more operationally nimble than traditional mechanisms and capture some of the benefits of collaboration among different actors. However, MGFs may also result in a less coherent response to global problems, duplicate existing structures and be weakly democratically accountable.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Non-Governmental Organization