Tag Archives: institutions
What the World Bank Does Not Understand About “Doing Business”
In its 10-year history, the World Bank’s Doing Business Report has achieved enormous influence. The annual study, one of the flagship knowledge products of the World Bank, is the leading tool to judge the business environments of developing countries, generating huge coverage in the media every year. Several countries—such as Rwanda—have used it as a guide to design reform programs. For its part, the Bank has advised over 80 countries on reforms to regulations measured in the DB. Its influence stretches even to academia, with over 1,000 articles being published in peer-reviewed journals using data in the index.
But does it focus on the most important issues for companies in less developed countries?
Based on my own almost 20 years of experience doing business in places such as Nigeria, Turkey, and China, the answer is no. (more…)
More on Economic Development, Foreign aid, Governance, Policies
What the OECD Does Not Understand About Fragile States
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and its International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) do an admirable job bringing together policymakers, collecting and synthesizing information, and helping set the agenda for donors.
But, as exemplified by Emmanuel Letouzé’s (lead author) and Juana de Catheu (co-author)’s recent report Fragile States 2013: Resource Flows and Trends in a Shifting World, its analysis of fragile states is flawed in a couple of important ways.
My major complaints are: (more…)
More on Foreign aid, Fragile States, Identity, Policies, Review
A Multidimensional Approach to Resolving Conflict: The Eastern DRC
Problems that have been intractable for decades are very likely the product of many different issues that intertwine with each other in a way that makes attempts to fix things highly problematic. Simple solutions — changing a person, introducing a reform, holding an election, penalizing one party — rarely work.
Conflict, weak governance, state failure, economic backwardness — all have many causes and many issues that must be dealt with. There are no magic bullets, no easy remedies, no quick strategies.
The eastern Congo is representative. Depending on who you listen to, the ongoing violence is caused by either a weak state, grievances over land and identity, greedy local elites, or international business. Some say the root cause is local, another group says it is national, and a third group defines the problem as regional. In fact, all these interpretations are correct — to some degree. Interests, actors, and causes are intertwined in a complex web. It is hard to say where one factor stops playing a role and another starts. (more…)
More on Africa, Conflict and Security, Foreign aid, Governance
Prioritization — The Easiest Way to Improve Governance
Fragile states have limited capacity to govern. They have few highly trained policymakers, few managers able to organize departments and ministries, and few officials able to implement decisions. They have very limited financial resources and little prospect (unless they have a lot of natural resources) of becoming self-sustaining anytime soon. Why then do we ask them to do so much?
These deficits are not going away anytime soon. As Lant Pritchett and Frauke de Weijer pointed out in their paper on capability traps, fragile states are:
far from any threshold of “good governance”; at their pace or average pace of progress it would take very (to infinitely) long to reach a threshold; even at very to extremely optimistic accelerations of the pace of progress . . . the time from fragile states to reach solid levels of governance is measured in decades, not years.
Yet, such countries are expected to do more or less everything much more developed countries do. They must deliver adequate public services to all their people, adopt and enforce an enormous number of laws and regulations, and meet international standards in a wide range of areas. If they receive substantial sums of foreign aid, they must deal with each donor on every project and meet all their specific requirements. Is any of this realistic? (more…)
Is the Development Community’s Focus on Fighting Poverty Passé
Fighting poverty is the most important issue to the development community. It stirs passions, brings in the money, attracts the most attention—and thus sits at the top of everyone’s agenda.
When the new head of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, engages the wider public, he asks, “What Will It Take to End Poverty?” When the prime minister of the United Kingdom touts his accomplishments in the development field, he writes about “Combating Poverty at Its Roots.” And when NGOs fundraise, they stir your heart by telling you, “Sponsoring a child is the most powerful way you can fight poverty.”
But given great reductions in absolute poverty (from 55 to 22 percent of the developing world’s population over the past three decades) and great improvements in the lives of the poor, is this focus on poverty reduction detracting from more important issues? (more…)
More on Economic Development, Foreign aid, Governance, Poverty
Development: Solving Collective Action Problems
There has been a lot of deep thinking about development problems over the past decade or so. But for the most part, a better understanding about how countries progress has not translated into dramatic changes in the activities aimed at promoting it.
International development agencies now say they emphasize politics and seek to find “best fit” solutions tailored to individual country circumstances. However, as David Booth writes in a recent Africa Politics and Power Policy Brief,
Much of the newer governance programming looks much like the old kind. Even the most reflective country activists and the best governance advisers have trouble imagining what to do differently.
Improving governance in developing countries in Africa and beyond requires that international actors undertake much greater reforms in how they operate than has been contemplated up to now. Many of the assumptions about development need to be challenged and overturned. (more…)
More on Africa, Economic Development, Foreign aid, Governance, Review
Can We Measure Politics and Political Development?
Measuring how countries perform is all the rage. Everyone from the World Bank to Bertelsmann to Africa’s most famous entrepreneur does it, producing indices on things like how competitive economies are, how hungry populations are, how free the press is, how risky investments are, and how corrupt public sectors are.
Many of these indices are directly relevant for people working in development. They help countries determine how they compare with other states and where they ought to improve their performance. And they help aid agencies decide where and how to invest their resources.
Indicators tracking everything from GDP per capita to poverty to governance are ubiquitous across the field, especially among international professionals. Such numbers are used to determine need, priorities, and strategies (such as whether a government ought to be funded directly).
But do the indicators that have the greatest influence measure the right things? Are they focused on the issues that are most important to development? Can they predict how governments work or how countries will evolve in the future? (more…)
Why Do States Die? What Happens When They Cannot?
By Brennan Kraxberger
Book Review: Fazal, Tanisha M. 2007: State Death: The Politics and Geography of Conquest, Occupation, and Annexation. Princeton University Press.
The world community – including scholars and journalists – devotes significant attention to the creation of new states. In 2011, South Sudan was born. A decade ago, Timor Leste (East Timor) garnered international recognition as a sovereign state. And we could add Eritrea and the post-Soviet states to the list.
But what about state death? For many, this question is received with confusion and mystery. In recent generations, we’ve grown accustomed to the occasional partition of states, but other types of territorial changes have basically ceased. (more…)
More on Conflict and Security, Governance, Review
Why Was Jerry Rawlings Different?
Africa has had a number of good leaders and growth stories in the years since independence. But it is had very few countries whose success spanned multiple leaders and which included a substantial increase in the institutionalization of politics, such that the country came to not depend on any particular leader.
Jerry Rawlings and Ghana are different. (more…)
More on Africa, Economic Development, Governance, Politics
Can Foreign Aid Improve Pakistan’s Political Economy?
Like many struggling countries, Pakistan’s two most critical problems are feckless leaders and a feeble state. Can donors do anything to help get such countries’ political economy moving in the right direction?
I recently convened a working group of leading Pakistani development professionals and outside experts at the Global Economic Symposium (GES) to discuss just such this question.
The group’s conclusions are summarized in this report. (more…)
More on Foreign aid, Governance, Politics, South Asia
