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2. Partnerships for Women's Health: Striving for Best Practice within the UN Global Compact
- Author:
- Monika Kruesmann and Martina Timmermann
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Women represent the great majority of the world's poor. With this poverty comes a range of well-documented problems: low educational attainment; low income and earning potential; inferior social power, status and influence compared with men; and importantly, poor health outcomes for both women and their children. High rates of maternal mortality and morbidity remain apparently intractable problems in many countries, particularly developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that every minute, at least one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth; and 20 more suffer injury, infection or disease.
- Topic:
- Gender Issues, Health, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- United States
3. Toward a Global Science and Technology Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development
- Author:
- Paul A. David, Can Huang, Luc Soete, and Adriaan van Zon
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- The current economic crisis has tended to sap the policy momentum that had developed during 2006 and 2007 behind public R programmes and institutional initiatives to expand the portfolio of affordable technological means of controlling global warming. This is unfortunate, since the international negotiations about concerted actions among the leading industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have so far proceeded very slowly – too slowly, considering both the global nature of the problem and the size of the stakes involved. The initial “bargaining” stance taken by some important players, notably Japan and the United States, was in some respects disappointing in that it appears to fall far short of the EU member countries' endorsement in December 2008 of the package of EC directives designed to activate its “20-20-20” renewable energy strategy – a 20 per cent reduction of GHG emissions, and 20 per cent of energy consumption from renewable sources, by the year 2020. While there have been more promising developments recently, in the convergence towards that target in some of the legislation introduced in the US Congress, and the Obama administration's issuance of US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory directives requiring the use of the latest emissions control technologies on new and retrofitted electricity power plants, the outcome of the Copenhagen conference in December 2009 remains uncomfortably uncertain.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States
4. The Internationalization of Chinese and Indian Firms: Trends, Motivations and Policy Implications
- Author:
- Sandeep Kapur and Suma Athreye
- Publication Date:
- 01-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- The last two decades have seen a significant rise in the internationalization of firms from developing economies. In addition to their growing participation in international trade, a number of leading emerging economies are contributing to growing outflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. According to the 2008 World Investment Report, outward flows of FDI from developing countries rose from about US$6 billion between 1989 and 1991 to US$225 billion in 2007. As a percentage of total global outflows, the share of developing countries grew from 2.7% to nearly 13.0% during this period.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, Markets, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and India
5. Legality and Legitimacy in International Order
- Author:
- Vesselin Popovski and Nicholas Turner
- Publication Date:
- 05-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- The 1999 NATO armed intervention over Kosovo was illegal under international law, but widely regarded as legitimate. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was both illegal and illegitimate, though unilateral attempts were made to legitimize it, using the Kosovo precedent. The sanctions against Iraq, preceding the 2003 invasion, were legal, but seen by many as illegitimate. These examples are symptomatic of a wider disconnect between legality and legitimacy which affects many areas of international life. Legality is not the only criteria for determining acceptable state behaviour. Other criteria—humanitarian, ethical and political—play a significant role in modern international relations. Ignorance of international law has serious negative consequences, but so has the blind reliance on international law, detached from human aspirations and actual circumstances.
- Topic:
- International Law
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, and Kosovo
6. Mobilizing Talent for Global Development
- Author:
- Andrs Solimano
- Publication Date:
- 08-2006
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- The generation of new ideas and their application for productive uses is an important engine for growth and development. This is an area in which developing countries usually lag behind developed countries and is where development gaps are more evident. Behind the generation of ideas, innovations, and new technologies there is 'human talent': an inner capacity of individuals to develop ideas and objects, some of them with a high economic value. The 'human factor' is critical to the success or failure of many endeavours. Several countries, particularly China and India, followed by Russia, Poland, and some Latin American countries, are becoming an important source of talented people with PhDs and degrees in science, engineering, and other areas that can lead to change in the international patterns of comparative advantages and reduce development gaps. Part of the new talent formed in developing countries goes to live and work to developed countries, typically the USA, UK, and other OECD nations. At the same time multinational corporations are outsourcing several of their productive and service activities, including research and development, to developing countries (China and India are main destinations) to take advantage of the (less expensive) talent being developed there. Today, therefore, we see a double movement of talent and capital around the globe: on the one hand talent from developing countries is moving north seeking better opportunities where people are equipped with more capital, technologies, and effective organizations. On the hand capital from the north pursues talent in the south; a process largely led by multinational corporations.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Human Welfare, and Migration
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, United Kingdom, and India
7. Hydrogen Fuel Cells and Transport Alternatives: Issues for Developing Countries
- Author:
- Grant Boyle and Lynn Mytelka
- Publication Date:
- 05-2006
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Recent technological advances in the application of hydrogen fuel cells in the transport sector have drawn considerable attention and increased funding from both public and private sources over the past ten years. The International Energy Agency estimates that about US$1billion per year is currently being invested in public hydrogen and fuel cell research, development, test vehicles, prototype refuelling stations and demonstration projects, as compared to the total annual public budget for energy research, development and demonstration of around US$8billion. While still in the early stages of development and costly in comparison to conventional vehicle propulsion and fuel technologies, fuel cells and hydrogen offer a promising solution to address growing concerns over the transport sector's dependence on oil and its impact on climate change.
- Topic:
- Development, Energy Policy, Science and Technology, and Third World
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
8. Open Source and Open Standards: A New Frontier for Economic Development?
- Author:
- Philip Schmidt and Rishab Aiyer Ghosh
- Publication Date:
- 03-2006
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Free software (also called open source software or libre software) has become one of the most talked about phenomena in the ICT world in recent years. This is remarkable, not only for the usual reasons—that open source has been around for many years as a volunteer driven success story before being discovered by big business and now government— but also because it has largely developed quietly on its own without the headline coverage and glare of international attention that it now receives.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Science and Technology, and Third World
- Political Geography:
- United States
9. New Sources of Development Finance: Funding the Millenium Development Goals
- Author:
- Anthony B. Atkinson
- Publication Date:
- 09-2004
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- In order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), substantial additional external funding needs to be mobilized. Estimates differ, but a 'ballpark' figure is an annual increase of US$50 billion. This could be achieved by a doubling of official development assistance (ODA). Welcome steps have been made in that direction, but this takes time, and time is of the essence. For this reason alone, it is necessary to consider new sources.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, International Cooperation, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- United States
10. Access to Land and Land Policy Reforms
- Author:
- Alaine de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet
- Publication Date:
- 04-2001
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Who should have access to land? What is the optimum definition of property rights and use rights in each particular context? Is government intervention justified to influence who has access to land and under what conditions? These questions remain, in most developing countries, highly contentious. It is indeed the case that land is all too often misallocated among potential users and worked under conditions of property or user rights that create perverse incentives. As a consequence, investments to enhance productivity are postponed, and responses to market incentives are weakened; many poor rural households are unable to gain sufficient (or any) access to land when this could be their best option out of poverty; land remains under-used and often idle side-by-side with unsatisfied demands for access to land; land is frequently abused by current users, jeopardizing sustainability; and violence over land rights and land use is all too frequent. With population growth and increasing market integration for the products of the land, these problems tend to become more acute rather than the reverse. As a result, rising pressures to correct these situations have led many countries to reopen the question of access to land and land policy reforms. While large scale expropriative and redistributive land reforms are generally no longer compatible with current political realities, there exist many alternative forms of property and use rights that offer policy instruments to alter the conditions of access to land and land use. A rich agenda of land policy interventions thus exists to alter who has access to land and under what conditions for the purposes of increasing efficiency, reducing poverty, enhancing sustainability, and achieving political stability.Historically, the most glamorous path of access to land has been through statemanaged coercive land reform. In most situations, however, this is not the dominant way land was accessed by current users and, in the future, this will increasingly be the case. Most of the land in use has been accessed through private transfers, community membership, direct appropriation, and market transactions. There are also new types of state-managed programmes of access to land that do not rely on coercion. For governments and development agents (NGOs, bi-lateral and international development agencies), the rapid decline in opportunities to access land through coercive land reform should thus not be seen as the end of the role of the state and development agents in promoting and altering access to land. The following paths of access to land in formal or informal, and in collective or individualized ownership can, in particular, be explored (Figure 1): (1) Intra-family transfers such as inheritances, inter-vivo transfers, and allocation of plots to specific family members; (2) access through community membership and informal land markets; (3) access through land sales markets; and (4) access through specific non-coercive policy interventions such colonization schemes, decollectivization and devolution, and land market-assisted land reform. Access to land in use can also be achieved through land rental markets (informal loans, land rental contracts) originating in any of these forms of land ownership. Each of these paths of access to land has, in turn, implications for the way land is used. Each can also be the object of policy interventions to alter these implications of land use. The focus of this policy brief is to explore each of these paths and analyse how to enhance their roles in helping increase efficiency, reduce poverty, increase equality, enhance sustainability, and achieve political stability.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Economics, and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States