On 9 December 2014 UNHCR will convene a ministerial level pledging conference in Geneva on resettlement and other forms of humanitarian admission for refugees from Syria.
The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is unprecedented. The increasing number of cases, the poor health infrastructure, the shortage of skills, knowledge and personnel, and the fear surrounding the disease are proving a huge challenge to affected governments and to the international community as they battle to bring the epidemic under control.
Topic:
Disaster Relief, Health, Human Welfare, and Infectious Diseases
The international response to the Ebola epidemic is on the right path, but there is a long way to go. The UN's interim objective was to treat 70 percent of cases and to ensure that 70 percent of burials were done safely within 60 days, i.e. by 1 December 2014. Case numbers are stabilizing in Liberia and Guinea, but remain out of control in Sierra Leone – such that the targets for cases treated has not been met. The UN has not provided figures for what had been achieved by 1 December, but a previous sitrep on 21 November showed that only 13 percent of Ebola cases in Sierra Leone have been isolated, compared with 72 percent in Guinea.
Topic:
Disaster Relief, Human Welfare, Infectious Diseases, and Health Care Policy
In May 2014, initial reports were received of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. One month later, the president of Sierra Leone declared a public health state of emergency in a bid to contain the spread, limiting public gatherings. Since then, quarantine measures have been imposed, including self-quarantines informed by district and chiefdom bye-laws and government-imposed quarantines. In November 2014, standard operational procedures (SOPs) on the management of quarantines were released by the National Ebola Response Coordination (NERC) function to streamline quarantine operations across the country.
Almost a century after the ILO Constitution recognized the need for workers to earn a living wage, the question of whether wages enable workers to meet their needs and those of their families has gained renewed momentum. Much has been written on the issue, but very little that assesses how companies are implementing it, and the outcomes.
To what extent have developing countries' patterns in reducing under-5 mortality rates (U5MR) changed since the advent of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? This paper investigates that question across multiple time horizons, with attention to the fact that countries' progress had already begun to accelerate during the late 1990s compared to the early 1990s. The paper gives special consideration to countries the MDGs were primarily intended to support, including initially “Off Track” and low-income countries. Although only 21 percent of originally Off Track countries and 34 percent of originally low-income countries are now on a path to achieve the MDG target by 2015, at least 80 percent of each group has seen accelerated progress since 2001. Approximately 90 percent of countries in sub-Saharan Africa have accelerated. Most importantly, regression analysis indicates that cross-country trends since 2000 differ considerably from previous decades. The years since the launch of the MDGs include the first extended period in at least four decades during which rates of U5MR decline have not been negatively correlated with U5MR levels. Compared to a conservative counterfactual trend from 1996 to 2001, at least 7.5 million additional children's lives are estimated to have been saved between 2002 and 2013. The results suggest that much of the greatest structural progress has been achieved by countries not likely to achieve the formal MDG targets, even if their progress might be linked to the pursuit of those targets. Implications are considered for setting U5MR targets through to 2030.
Topic:
Development, Health, Human Welfare, and Health Care Policy
This paper uses cross-country panel data to estimate the agronomic inputs that lead to cereal yield improvements and the consequences for developing countries' processes of structural change. The results suggest a clear role for fertilizer, modern seeds and water in boosting yields. It then estimates empirical links in developing economies between increased agricultural yields and economic growth; in particular, the spillover effect from yield growth to declines of labor share in agriculture and increases of non-agricultural value added per capita. The identification strategy for the effect of fertilizer includes a novel instrumental variable that exploits variation in global fertilizer price, interacted with the inverse distance between each country's agriculturally weighted centroid and the nearest nitrogen fertilizer production facility. Results suggest that a half ton increase in staple yields (equal to the within-country standard deviation) generates a 13 to 20 percent higher GDP per capita, a 3.3 to 3.9 percentage point lower labor share in agriculture five years later, and approximately 20 percent higher non-agricultural value added per worker a decade later. The results suggest a strong role for agricultural productivity as a driver of structural change.
Carol Graham, Tuugi Chuluun, and Sarandavaa Myanganbuu
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
We conducted the first extensive study of well-being in Mongolia, a country that has experienced a dramatic transition in both its economy and polity in recent decades. We found that most of the standard determinants of well-being were no different in Mongolia than they are for most countries in the world, with individual income, health, marital status and exercise all positively associated with life satisfaction; the same variables had positive but weaker correlations with our hedonic well-being measure. As in many other contexts, we found that, controlling for individual income, average community income was negatively correlated with life satisfaction, although not with hedonic well-being. This is not surprising, as comparison effects are more likely to influence overall life evaluations than they are daily (or weekly) moods and experience. In contrast, average community-level well-being—in both evaluative and hedonic dimensions—was positively associated with individual well-being. While being around wealthier people may generate envy among some, being around happier people has positive externalities (except, perhaps, for the very unhappy). Thus, at least in Mongolia, wealthier neighbors are not necessarily g ood for you, but happier ones surely are.
A decade of reform of U.S. development assistance programs has brought significant and important improvement in the nature and delivery of U.S. assistance. But the 21st century world is witnessing constant change in development. More developing countries are ascending to middle income status and gaining the capability, resources, and desire to finance and direct their own development. The rapid expansion of private capital flows, remittances, and domestic resources has significantly reduced the relative role of donor assistance in financing development. Donors are becoming more numerous and varied. There is growing recognition that the private sector, both nationally and internationally, is an indispensable component of sustainable development.
Mandis or physical, primary agricultural markets are old and ubiquitous institutions of economic life in many parts of India. Wherever they form, they are usually dense sites of economic, social and political activity, connecting and shaping the relations between town and countryside, and between local markets for commodities and larger, national and global circuits of capital and commerce. According to available estimates, there are over 7500 regulated agricultural markets in India today, operating under different state level acts covering a huge variety of notified agricultural produce.