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Blog
The tragedy for the Afghan people of the Taliban re-taking control of the country in August 2021 is the denouement of a process 20 years in the making. The sudden collapse of the Afghan government and the national security forces over the course of a few days is not a “surprise” to anyone, but was a...
Research Brief
Economic growth has had a negative effect on unemployment and poverty reduction in Africa. The transition from low- to middle income requires within sector increases in productivity and a shift of labour resources from low productivity agriculture to high productivity manufacturing. Structural...
Blog
11 September 2014 by Roger Williamson In this interview Finn Tarp, Director of UNU-WIDER, discusses the evidence uncovered in the aid and growth and other themes of the ReCom – Research and Communication on Foreign Aid programme, coordinated by UNU-WIDER 2011-13. Cross-country analysis Tarp presents...
Research Brief
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The five Paris principles of effective aid were only nominally successfully implemented in the state-building process of South Sudan. While the importance of the first principle, ownership, was highlighted in development plans in Southern Sudan, capacity limitations restricted the role of the local...
Research Brief
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Foreign aid is a significant element of Uganda’s long-run fiscal system. Aid is associated with increased tax collection effort and public spending in Uganda. Development assistance is also associated with reduced domestic borrowing in Uganda. Aid is not sufficient to balance Uganda’s budget. Budget...
Research Brief
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The programme did lead participating households to use improved seeds. Food consumption scores did not improve after the programme. However during the programme participating households moved to more sustainable strategies to cope with food shortages. Fertilizer use improved by 20 per cent amongst...
Research Brief
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Strong economic growth has not turned into poverty reduction in Mozambique due to stagnation in job creation. While the country sees great growth potential from natural resources, this industry is unlikely to generate many jobs as it is not labour-intensive. A fundamental challenge to job growth in...
Research Brief
pdf
There are over 900 million working people who earn less than US$2 a day, while 200 million people are unemployed. Unemployment is a bigger problem in high-income countries, in low-income countries unemployment is rarer as work is essential for survival for the poor. One of the most pressing goals of...
Research Brief
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A number of small, isolated countries are not experiencing the rapid economic growth of larger, more connected economies due to weak governance and isolation. Small, isolated economies require more aid to alleviate poverty than rapidly developing, converging economies. Potential investors are...
Blog
24 September 2013 Andy Sumner A series of papers since late 2010 has discussed a shift in the location or 'geography' of global poverty. The shift is quite simple: the distribution of global poverty has shifted from countries officially classified by the World Bank as low-income countries towards...
Research Brief
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Afghanistan has received vast amounts of development aid, but results may not be sufficiently robust. There is a limited menu of acceptable options for institutional arrangements, leading to a high dependence on external resources, technical expertise, and institutional models. There is not a...
Research Brief
pdf
Three-quarters of the world’s poor (however defined) live in countries classified as middle-income. Donors need not assume their only option is to abandon countries once they cross the arbitrary threshold in per capita income. The thresholds themselves currently used to classify countries as low...
Research Brief
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Development practice continues to operate on the assumptions of an outdated theory of modernization. Developing countries often sustain legitimacy by imitating other successful modern institutions without actually developing the functionality of the institutions they are copying. Aid...
Research Brief
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Current development practice focuses too much on the form institutions take, at the expense of worrying about function. A focus on strict rules that aim to curb corruption and inefficiency can diminish the amount of experimentation and adaptation that is possible. The desire to have a way of visibly...
Research Brief
In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Aid and Investment in Statistics for Africa’ Jeffery I. Round discusses how the effectiveness of aid aimed at improving statistical capacity in Africa can be assessed. He begins by describing the reasons behind the increasing demand for data, and the institutions involved...
Displaying 16 of 38 results