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Publications (24)
Research Brief
Fragile and conflict-affected states, like Sierra Leone, can maintain a strong public financial management structure if they are able to find foreign support for administrative capacity and sufficient domestic political and executive support. PFM legal framework, budget planning and scrutiny, still...
Research Brief
Civic education programmes can have meaningful and relatively long-lasting effects in terms of increasing political information, feelings of empowerment, and mobilizing individuals to engage in political participation. Civic education programmes are much less likely to affect more ‘deep-seated’...
Research Brief
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The National Solidarity Programme (NSP) serves as a success story that has improved many Afghan lives and laid the groundwork for potential longer-term development. The NSP had a positive effect on access to drinking water and electricity, acceptance of democratic processes, perceptions of economic...
Research Brief
– Exploring the Fatal Flaw
Aid to Haiti has not been effective due to failure of the country’s political and economic elites to participate and assist in the development process. US foreign policy has in some cases reinforced the tendency for elites to personally profit from aid initiatives. Haiti has received more than US$20...
Research Brief
pdf
A secure environment is an important component of successful economic development initiatives. Policing reforms in African states have been disappointing; the image of state policy and police–community relations remain poor. States that have enacted successful police reforms have had four important...
Research Brief
pdf
Japan’s post-war liberalizing reforms were a success. This was partly due to the fact that US occupation preserved the strength of national institutions and made effective use of their capacity. Improvement in the scope of the state and the strength of Afghan institutions has been weak, despite the...
Blog
30 October 2013 Roger Williamson The UNU-WIDER meeting held last week in New York on the topic of fragility and aid argued forcefully that you cannot ‘fix’ failed states as you would a broken window. Drawing on over 80 papers from the governance and fragility theme of the ReCom—Research and...
Blog
30 October 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén Despite many successful transitions towards peace and multiparty electoral systems there are still 47 fragile states and economies in the world according to the OECD. Around 1.5 billion people are affected by conflict and political instability. Most of them live on...
Research Brief
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Kosovo and East Timor share many similar characteristics, and yet they have had divergent results in post-conflict state building. East Timor has enjoyed far greater development success since its independence, whereas Kosovo is now the poorest and most economically depressed country in Europe. Many...
Research Brief
pdf
Transitional justice processes often fail to adequately deal with gender issues. Attempting to deal with gender-based violence during periods of transitional justice is often seen as destabilizing and a threat to future stability. Women’s rights are still often seen as yielding rights that have to...
Research Brief
pdf
The natural resource sector in Liberia has failed to produce links to other important sectors of the economy, and in particular has failed to create jobs for the large majority of the population. Creating new and productive jobs is key to national reconciliation. The aid community needs to...
Research Brief
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 providing aid to. However these attempts have all too...
Research Brief
– Budget Support, Aid on Delivery or Project Aid?
One persistent concern raised during discussions of whether aid effectively promotes the goals of donors is fungibility, that is; the possibility that aid is used in ways not intended by donors when disbursing the funds. It could be used to lower taxes, to fund projects in a different sector, or...
Research Brief
Foreign aid has been slow to react to the challenge of urbanization, but must do so if it is to be an effective force going forward. In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Improving Donor Support for Urban Poverty Reduction: A focus on South Asia’ Nicola Banks argues that if a donor’s urban poverty reduction...
Blog
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 talk about the global crisis and the impact on emerging economies at a UNU-WIDER seminar. You can see a video interview with Kaushik here. Kaushik is an...
Research Brief
Australia has a plan to double its Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) by 2015. To attain this goal identifying new channels through which aid can be delivered, and used, as effectively as possible is crucial. One example of this is an aid-delivery mechanism, based on a partnership with churches...
Displaying 16 of 24 results