Will ‘Rising Powers’ lower global labour and environmental standards?
By Khalid Nadvi
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| image by photoeverywhere.co.uk |
A recent special issue in Oxford Development Studies explores how new players from the Rising Powers (mot notably China, Brazil and India) may challenge the global ‘rules of the game’ on social and environmental issues. In his introductory article on “Rising Powers” and Labour and Environmental Standards, Khalid Nadvi outlines what makes the Rising Powers special and in what ways they affect global labour and environmental standards.
The effects of antipoverty programmes on economic growth
We can use innovative data and methods to explore how human development policies effect economic growth. Juan M. Villa finds significant change from conditional cash transfer programmes on economic growth in Colombia using satellite data.
The study of planned development has largely been shaped by the division between a focus on economic growth on one hand and on human development on the other. This division has arguably influenced and continues to influence approaches and priorities in international development. To illustrate, if one analyses the emphasis of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, most of the policy recommendations are aimed at boosting economic growth as a means of reaching prosperity. The emphasis of the United Nations Development Programme in contrast, tends to be more focused on human development issues, such as literacy, life expectation and some others reflected on the Millennium Development Goals. However, the divergences of these two perspectives of development can be potentially bridged by generating evidence on the effects of human development policies on economic growth. In this regard, recent research, which I conducted during a PhD internship at UNU-WIDER in Helsinki, found that certain policies seeking to enhance human development can also boost economic growth. One such policy is the conditional cash transfer programme (CCT).
Reform of world trade long overdue
More commonly, the WTO is associated with what are rather wearisome disagreements between industrialised economies and their developing counterparts, as well as with the periodic crises that have afflicted the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations which have staggered on for almost a decade and a half.
What is the future of the green economy?
By Carl Death
As the 2015 Millennium Development Goals target date looms near and the successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is due to be negotiated, Dr Carl Death, senior lecturer in International Political Economy, considers the increasing focus on the green economy and breaks the concept down into four key discourses that are competing to define its meaning. He argues that it is a big idea for dramatic change but it could also reinforce rather than challenge prevailing forms of inequality and injustice.
Training in Political Economy Analysis
by Sarah Hunt.
Over the past year training donor agency staff in Political Economy Analysis (PEA), I have found the topic inevitably means facilitating a debate. The overt aim of training is to introduce practical tools for carrying out Political Economy Analysis. But, from the outset, talking about politics in development means engaging with ideas of change – and this touches not just on the contexts where donor agencies work, but on the internal systems of donors themselves. In my experience, practitioners value the space to reflect on these issues.
Buying with a conscience: Should we buy clothes from Bangladesh?
A year on from the collapse of the Rana Plaza building which claimed more than 1,100 lives, Stephanie Barrientos and Rosey Hurst ask whether the world has since changed for garment workers in Bangladesh.
Only collective action from all key actors will ensure worker rights and safety standards improve in Bangladesh’s garment industry in the wake of the Rana Plaza building collapse. This was the key message from a special debate at The University of Manchester held as part of their Social Responsibility Goal and Capturing the Gains research programme promoting better worker rights and fairer international trade. Panellists from across Bangladesh’s clothing industry relayed their own experiences in the country since last year’s tragedy which claimed more than 1,100 lives, and whether the disaster had led to a step-change in the industry.
Restructuring ICT4D and WSIS Beyond 2015
By Richard Heeks
Around the time of the MDGs, ICT4D became the focus for a critical mass of activity; a “sidestreaming” approach that saw specialist ICT4D units arise in a number of international and national organisations. Following the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), this was largely mainstreamed with specialist units being disbanded or shrinking, and ICT4D expertise seen as diffused into the main development sectors. There is a logic to mainstreaming – if done right – in ensuring integration of ICTs into a broad range of development goals.
ICT4D Research Priorities from the Post-2015 Development Agenda
By Richard Heeks
What should be the future priorities in researching ICT4D?
The post-2015 development agenda will be the single most-important force shaping the future of international development. In planning our priorities for development informatics (DI) research – the academic study of ICT4D policy and practice – we should therefore pay close attention to the post-2015 agenda.
A Development 2.0 Research Agenda
by Richard Heeks
A key theme in the post-2015 development agenda is transformation: a belief that the incremental developmental changes achieved to date will no longer be sufficient in the remainder of the 21st century; and an aspiration for a step-change in approach.
Analysis reported earlier argues development informatics research – studying ICT4D policy and practice – should give a higher priority to researching the relation between ICTs and the transformation of development. Such research already has a terminology – Development 2.0; understood as the ICT-enabled transformation of development.
Can growth in Africa be sustained?
by Chris Jordan
Over the last few years, African economies have been some of the fastest growing in the world. But significant doubts remain: why aren’t the proceeds of growth doing more to help those at the bottom of the pile, and in any case, is the boom sustainable?
An important report from the Accra based African Centre for Economic Transformation argues that big changes are needed within African countries to ensure that growth is equitable and can be sustained.