Blog
Research Entering the Policy DomainCarl-Gustav Lindén The research project ReCom-Research and Communication on foreign aid, which is co-ordinated by UNU-WIDER with funding from the...
Carl-Gustav Lindén The research project ReCom-Research and Communication on foreign aid, which is co-ordinated by UNU-WIDER with funding from the...
Policy coherence implies that donors in pursuing domestic policy objectives should avoid adversely affecting the development prospects of poor countries. To achieve policy coherence donors and multilateral institutions need to ensure security and...
GUESTAngle John Langmore and Perrin Wilkins When delivering the eighth WIDER Annual Lecture on rethinking growth strategies in 2004 Dani Rodrik...
The paper builds on recent empirical evidence on the importance of strategic donor behaviour in aid allocation in order to develop a theoretical model where donor pressure on a recipient for influencing the aid disbursement of a multilateral...
Much public discussion about foreign aid has focused on whether and how to increase its quantity. But recently aid quality has come to the fore, by which is meant the efficiency of the aid delivery process. This paper focuses on one process problem...
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...
Efforts to realize the issue of development-focused Special Drawing Rights (SDR) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been on-going for many years. Recently, however, the campaign first gained a new momentum immediately after the Asian...
This Focus is devoted to small islands' development challenges, specifically relating to the achievement of economic growth, and draws on five papers arising from the UNU-WIDER 'Fragility and Development' research project meeting held in Fiji in...
This paper analyses three major problems of the current international monetary system: the asymmetric-adjustment problem, dependence on the monetary policy of the main reserve-issuing country, and the large demand for self-insurance by developing...
This policy brief is intended to outline suggestions and stimulate discussion at a time when the world community is thinking about, and is engaged in, a debate on global governance. The policy brief not only focuses on the reform of existing...
Peter Burnell The UN Doha Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development, held late in 2008, reminds us of how far foreign aid has...
Jurgen Brauer and Robert Haywood The role of the sovereign state in driving and resolving violent social conflict remains central to studies of peace...
George Mavrotas While recent years have witnessed new interest in the finance–growth nexus, the relationship between domestic resource mobilization...
As a result of the Five Year Review of the World Summit for Social Development, the UN General Assembly in September 2000 adopted a resolution calling for 'a rigorous analysis of the advantages, disadvantages and other implications of proposals for...
External development finance consists of those foreign sources of funds that promote or at least have the potential to promote development in the destination countries if delivered in the appropriate form. This rather broad definition qualifies all...
The paper assesses the multilateral development financing system in the light of the replenishments of three key funds in 2013. It argues that the replenishments showed strong continuing support for each institution, but identifies challenges...
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...
This study is premised on the view that reports circulating in the 1990s, claiming foreign aid was in terminal crisis, were premature. Aid’s reviving fortunes are explained in terms both of a growing awareness of the uneven implications of...
Three changes in conditionality of loans are proposed in this study, in order to improve the relations between developing country borrowers and international lending agencies, and make the international cooperative effort at development and stability...
The objective of this paper is to develop a Model that integrates the biologically determined human need for food energy and the economic activity (most) people Bust engage in to be able to eat. The optimal work effort and the optimal body size of...
The object of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the international trading system from its inception as GATT in 1947 to its latest incarnation as WTO, comprising the complex array of agreements forming its substance and mandate. The study...
The first part of the paper describes steps which Tanzania took in order to provide key social services to her people. Tanzania made great efforts within the ujamaa socialist system to provide free social services for rural as well as urban people...
Tony Addison UNU-WIDER is having a very active and successful autumn. Our climate change and development policy conference at the end of September...
Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Tony Addison It’s now February, and Helsinki remains deep in snow. We had an extended blizzard last weekend, with temperatures hovering around minus...
Tony Addison This year has rushed by at speed. For UNU-WIDER it’s been a year of big successes. We will have published some 110 working papers by the...
Tony Addison As we come to the end of November, the snow has yet to arrive in Helsinki. We continue to enjoy clear skies and spectacular sunsets...
Part of Book Resetting the International Monetary (Non)System
Part of Book Resetting the International Monetary (Non)System
27 May 2013 Matt Andrews, Harvard Kennedy School A growing governance agenda and post-2015 ambitions The governance agenda has grown rapidly in the...
Poor governance and lack of state capabilities in around 45 countries pose a threat to global security and development. The involvement of the international community is required to help these states break out of their low-development–high-conflict...
The Study Group arrived at the following conclusions and recommendations: 1. Substantial surpluses on current account are likely to prevail for the next several years among many developed countries, and there is a need for their diversification...
The paper examines the state of food security in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), based on an analysis of a selection of indicators of food security and nutritional wellbeing during the period 1990-2002 within the context of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture...
The budgets of development NGOs have risen dramatically over the last decades. In stark contrast to bilateral donors, the geographic choices of NGOs remain virtually unexplored. Using a new dataset and Lorenz curves, this paper shows that NGOs are...
The paper discusses the International Finance Facility (IFF), a joint HM Treasury–DFID proposal to increase development aid substantially for the Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015. The main conclusion of the paper is that the...
Initial models of development debates on how to achieve economic growth have been added to by a focus on social issues such as education and political participation. These debates and discourses about development are shaped by international...
After the Great Depression and throughout the rest of the twentieth century, Latin American countries basically approached economic development following two successive and quite opposed strategies. The first one was import substitution...
Butcher shops and banks make an interesting contrast, as the late Cuban-American economist Carlos Diaz-Alejandro pointed out. Both may sell tainted...
by Oliver Morrissey I had the privilege of being interviewed by the Finnish TV news agency when I was in Helsinki for the World Institute for...
Tony Addison This month saw UNU-WIDER in Stockholm for the ReCom results meeting on ‘aid and the social sectors’, which took place at Sida on 13 March...
17 April 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén In recent weeks there have been several large gatherings of experts dealing with how to tackle the complex climate...
26 March 2014 Tony Addison The Nordic countries have a long-standing commitment to development, and their work in peace-building has taken Nordic...
Part of Journal Special Issue Development Assistance for Peacebuilding
Part of Journal Special Issue Development Assistance for Peacebuilding
Many World Bank investments include women’s concerns only superficially. Lack of attention to gender roles negatively impacts women’s rights. The Bank’s continued promotion of user fees in sexual and reproductive health projects prevents poor women...
This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development...
The civil service is the backbone of the state, and can either support or undermine a country’s entire system of governance. Donor’s recognize this important fact and have often tried to promote civil service reform in the countries they are...
The most successful projects and programmes are those that give local partners real ownership over the development process. Aid to health is not always allocated to the areas where it is most needed. Aid fragmentation creates extra costs for...
This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development...
Foreign aid can contribute to sustainable forestry in many ways. The goal is to secure forest benefits of the future, without compromising the needs of the present generations. This paper elaborates on forestry aid as it has evolved in the past...
After receiving at least US$20 billion in aid for reconstruction and development over the past 60 years, Haiti has been and remains a fragile state, one of the worse globally. The reasons for aid failure are legion but mostly relate to highly...
This paper primarily focuses on how global funding has supported interventions that have proven to be successful in reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality around the world. The growth rate of development assistance targeted towards these...
Today it is widely acknowledged that increasing the gender sensitivity of development aid increases its effectiveness. This report evaluates the extent to which the World Bank integrates gender concerns into its policies and investments, pointing out...
Civil service reform is one of the most intractable yet important challenges for governments and their supporters today. However, civil service reform thus far has largely failed. Based on a review of existing literature, this paper presents...
This paper explores the current evidence underlying the debate on aid effectiveness, with a specific focus on the health sector. It summarizes the history of aid and outlines the methodological challenges encountered when assessing its effectiveness...
This paper addresses the issue of the impact of aid supply on aid effectiveness. We proceed in two steps. First, we review research works that deal with the problem of governance in donor-recipient relationships and are susceptible of highlighting...
Various development objectives are worthy, but to my mind, one objective dominates all others: reducing the scourge of absolute economic misery in the world. In this paper, I focus on an important but relatively underemphasized approach to poverty...
Many concerns can be raised about the effectiveness of current aid programmes to developing countries. The appropriateness of aid is particularly questionable when one considers the likely character of the challenges that the global economy will...
This paper analyses the history and effectiveness of the two major mechanisms of resolution of balance of payments crisis. It argues that IMF lending has met its counter-cyclical objectives through history and has been improving in terms of providing...
We are now into 2015, and the year is already gathering speed. 2015 is of course the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, and a major year in...
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
Evans Jadotte On Tuesday January 12 2010, a 7.0 Richter scale earthquake, off the coast of Haiti destroyed its capital Port-au-Prince. It also razed...
Part of Book Wider Perspectives on Global Development
It is now more than fifty years since the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions were created. The world has changed since then, and so have its governance needs in terms of institutions and rules. It is time to think about the...
Part of Journal Special Issue Development Financing
The failure of the Somali state from 1993 to 2012 represents one of the world’s most profound and prolonged cases of state collapse. Initially, education and other government services came to a standstill. With the halt of fighting in some areas...
Part of Journal Special Issue Impact of the Liberalization of the Exchange Rate and Financial Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid and Institution-Building in Fragile States
Part of Journal Special Issue Development Financing
Part of Book Globalization, Marginalization and Development
Most studies show that education aid has a modest but positive effect on enrolment levels. Less is known about the effect of aid on the quality of education. The effectiveness of education aid is to a large degree dependent on the stability of the...
Education began to be included as a component of foreign assistance in the early 1960s as it is a principal ingredient of development. A number of multilateral and bilateral agencies were established around this time to implement various types of aid...
Part of Journal Special Issue Aiding Government Effectiveness in Developing Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Development Financing
This article analyses the organizational structure as well as the characteristics of development finance provided by Arab donor countries. This is done with a comparative view in relation to western donors and with the aim to develop recommendations...
This paper argues that in view of the resource crunch confronting many developing countries and the fall in overseas development aid flows to them, new sources of development finance need to be found. We consider international taxes, fees and levies...
A key issue for development in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has been an escalation of violence during post-conflict transitions. A long-term goal for international donor involvement is to assist in building legitimate and...
Since the 1970s, prolonged use of resources by the IMF has consistently expanded, among both low- and middle-income countries. Overall, this phenomenon suggests a lack of effectiveness of Fund supported programmes. In the literature conditional...
The role of international organizations grows with the acceleration of globalization and the increasing importance of global governance. However, thus far, only limited and rather narrow research has been generated on the subject. It is a state of...
This study aims to help identify how the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) could potentially constrain government action to achieve food security in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The paper considers the proposed tariff and subsidy...
This paper analyses the decentralization of decisionmaking in aid-giving in a theoretical rent-seeking framework. In this analysis the root donor establishes a necessary criterion for potential recipients: good governance. The potential recipients...
This article aims to contribute to the discussion about how to make development interventions more effective by analyzing the factors contributing to the success or failure of rural development projects. We made an aggregate level analysis of 46...
Adam Smith, Tom Paine, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx were all bold and outspoken about the injustices of extreme inequality, nationally and internationally. Yet by almost every standard, global inequality has grown substantially since they were...
Structural adjustment, as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank, reduces the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Growth does reduce poverty, but I find no evidence for a direct effect of structural adjustment on...
This paper investigates poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs), launched by the International Monetary Fund/World Bank in 1999 as conditions for debt relief and loans. It queries whether PRSPs really represent a shift away from the controversial...
The paper discusses the costs and benefits to be expected by least-developed and low-income (‘vulnerable’) economies if they accede to the WTO, the impact of current debates about WTO reform on vulnerable economies, and measures to make it easier for...
Botswana and Zimbabwe represent two cases of differential access to the world economy. Notwithstanding its lack of diversification and its reliance on a primary mineral export, Botswana has prospered while Zimbabwe has fallen into a deep crisis...
We propose two new concepts, of non-state sovereign entrepreneurs and the non-territorial sovereign organizations they form, and relate them to issues pertaining to state sovereignty, governance failures, and violent social conflict over the...
This paper assesses the institutional constraints on the effectiveness of the United Nations over the course of its existence, especially in relation to its central mission to promote international peace and security. Only passing attention is...
Part of Book New Sources of Development Finance
Part of Book New Sources of Development Finance
Part of Journal Special Issue Development Aid
This paper examines the concept of global public goods (GPGs) and in that context explores the extent of aid (ODA) presently being diverted to GPG provision and whether such diversion skews aid-flows towards some recipients and whether diverting aid...
Since the mid-1980s Uganda has had debt strategies, which clearly laid down procedures for negotiating new loans and emphasized commitment to reduce the stock of debt arrears. Over this period, the country went through six Paris Club negotiations and...
The study examines the official bilateral donors’ current aid practice for private sector development (PSD). In particular, it reviews the donors’ major instruments and channels for aid delivery and the extent to which official flows have catalytic...
This paper reviews the role of the multilateral aid agencies in the delivery of aid. The role of these institutions is as old as the debate on the role of aid in economic development. Aid is effective in a good policy environment. However, effective...
This paper addresses the nature of the demand schedule for emerging market assets in both its macroeconomic and microeconomic dimensions. The former is usually analysed in terms of the ‘push factors’ (such as interest rates or contagion) determining...
The paper reports an empirical study of the factors affecting burden sharing among OECD’s 22 DAC members in ‘bankrolling’ the multilateral aid agencies. These are the UN agencies, World Bank’s IDA and non-IDA programmes, regional development banks...
Part of Journal Special Issue Focus
22 March 2013 The share of aid to social sectors has grown over the past 20 years. Evidence shows clear links between support to these sectors and...
Omar Shahabudin McDoom What should donors do when confronted with regimes that violate important normative standards of state behavior and commit...
Part of Book Access to Land, Rural Poverty, and Public Action
Part of Book Governing Globalization
Part of Book Governing Globalization
Part of Book Social Provision in Low-Income Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Development Financing
Part of Journal Special Issue Development Financing
Part of Book External Finance for Private Sector Development
Part of Book From Capital Surges to Drought
30 October 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén Despite many successful transitions towards peace and multiparty electoral systems there are still 47 fragile...
Part of Book Advancing Development
Part of Book Advancing Development
Part of Book Entrepreneurship and Economic Development
Rachel M. Gisselquist Almost all major development institutions today say that promoting good governance is an important part of their agendas. The...
Tony Addison This month saw the visit of Kaushik Basu, the World Bank’s new Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, to...
Part of Book Food Security
Part of Book Food Security
Part of Report Development Agendas and Insights
Part of Book Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
Part of Book Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Development
Part of Book Social Security in Developing Countries
For much of the last 30 years the global economy has had a limited impact on poverty alleviation. But there are now grounds for optimism. Presently, global liquidity is ample, pushing investors into parts of the world they previously avoided, and...
In this thought-provoking lecture, Professor Bhagwati presents us quite a different perspective on globalization than what we get in the polarized debates in the media between its proponents and opponents. He first argues that the different...
The Lecture addresses one of the core issues in development: how can low income countries achieve faster rates of economic growth? Reviewing the lessons to be drawn from recent history, particularly with regard to Latin America and Asia, Rodrik...
Part of Book Poverty and Undernutrition
Part of Book Poverty and Undernutrition
Part of Book The International Mobility of Talent
Part of Book Food Insecurity, Vulnerability and Human Rights Failure
Part of Book Development Finance in the Global Economy
Part of Book The WTO, Developing Countries and the Doha Development Agenda