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1841. National Political Dialogue Handbook

Author:
Public International Law Policy Group
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:
Over the past three decades, states emerging from internal conflict have increasingly turned to national political dialogues (NPDs) to achieve durable peace and comprehensive political settlements. NPDs are inclusive and participatory mechanisms for political and social stakeholders to negotiate political transitions. NPDs take various forms because every state, conflict, and peace process involves a unique set of circumstances. NPDs may differ in their mandate, size, level of inclusiveness, and role(s) within a state’s broader political transition. Numerous states around the world have conducted NPDs in various forms, including: Guatemala, East Timor, Nepal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Mali, Kenya, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen. Once parties to a conflict have made a commitment to peace, they often agree to resolve the outstanding issues of the political transition through a participatory dialogue process. The design and preparation of a NPD is the crucial first step to carrying out this process. Though the design of a state’s dialogue will differ according to the particular context of a particular state, the most successful dialogues share several key features and objectives, including a strong mandate with well-defined goals, inclusive and participatory processes that are jointly- owned by all major stakeholders, and public buy-in and acceptance of the dialogue process. The most effective way to ensure that a NPD fulfills these characteristics of a successful dialogue is through careful preparation and design. This Handbook explores the various aspects of planning for and carrying out a successful national political dialogue as part of a broader peace process and political settlement effort. Planning a NPD involves focusing on key elements and considerations for during the preparatory stages of a NPD, such as establishing dialogue guarantees, forming a preparatory committee, setting an agenda for discussions, selecting participants, establishing a governance structure, and engaging in public outreach. Conducting a NPD involves key elements of carrying out the dialogue discussions, including the structure of the talks and division of work, seeking support from international actors, managing dialogue logistics, administering internal governance structures, encouraging internal decision- making and consensus building, and finalizing outcomes and recommendations. The Handbook addresses each of these elements to help practitioners design and carry out a dialogue that can lead to the implementation of meaningful outcomes.
Topic:
Governance, Domestic Politics, Peace, and Transition
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Kenya, Africa, Iraq, Middle East, Asia, Yemen, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South America, Nepal, Rwanda, Guatemala, Mali, Niger, and East Timor

1842. How can developing cities provide better water to their residents?

Author:
Benjamin Edwards and Mohammad Hamze
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
The world’s urban population is projected to add 2.5 billion people by 2050, with nearly 90 percent of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa. The provision of safe, clean drinking water in urban settings is a high priority for international development, and justifiably so. Drinking water that is protected from contamination improves health, education, and economic growth, yet roughly 150 million urban dwellers do not have access, with numbers on the rise. Fortunately, the problem has not gone unrecognized. An expansive body of work explores the causes of water market failures and the policy interventions national governments can use to mitigate them. This body of work, however, has paid less heed to local governments’ role in implementing those policies, a critical link in the chain of service provision.
Topic:
Development, Government, Water, and Cities
Political Geography:
Africa, Asia, and Global Focus

1843. A more comprehensive picture of local public spending in global health and education

Author:
Jameson Boex and Benjamin Edwards
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
As we approach this year’s deadline for achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, the global development community is trying to decide how to make the new targets for 2030 more responsive and appropriate to local needs. An important piece of this debate concerns the role of local governments, and how local spending on public services such as health care and education could promote human welfare. A growing body of research explores this relationship, but so far the focus of most studies has been limited to spending by elected local governments, with the assumption that this type of local spending is the only type that matters. Yet many local entities responsible for service delivery in the developing world are not elected. Excluding resources provided directly by central government ministries or their local administrative arms ignores a rich and complicated story of how different levels of government interact to provide basic services.
Topic:
Development, Education, Government, and Health
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1844. How do urban migrants access land and services in African cities?

Author:
Luke Fuller
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Africa is on the move. Cities across the continent are continuing to grow, shrink, and transform in response to the demographic and economic pressures that drive urban migration. By conservative estimates, every hour Dar es Salaam, Tanzania is growing by 47 people; Kinshasa, DR Congo by 53 people; and Lagos, Nigeria by 58. Today about 40 percent of Africans are city dwellers, and that number will rise to nearly 60 percent by 2050 as sub-Saharan cities swell with 800 million new residents. This tremendous shift in where people live represents a major opportunity to guide development, but it also raises important questions. In places where land is scarce and expensive, how do urban migrants find a foothold? What opportunities or anchors do people use to establish themselves in the city? How do they buy or rent land for their own use and welfare? And what does this mean for governments?
Topic:
Demographics, Urban, Cities, and Migrant Workers
Political Geography:
Africa

1845. How can we strengthen local government responses to displacement in Africa?

Author:
Caroline Smith and Luke Fuller
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Of the world’s 10.5 million refugees, just one-third reside in camps. This figure turns on its head the common perception that refugees live in rural camp settings and begs the question: where are the other seven million refugees? The short answer is that many refugees and displaced peoples make their way to cities or other communities in pursuit of better opportunities for employment and education, to join existing ethnic or familial social networks, and to gain some level of security not available to them in settlements. However, host country policies designed to protect and support refugees often apply only to those residing in settlements, implicitly discouraging refugees from moving into urban areas. So if policies largely overlook the existence of urban refugees, how do governments, humanitarian agencies, civil society organizations, and others plan, implement, and coordinate efforts to ensure that this massive segment of the refugee population is cared for?
Topic:
Government, Refugees, and Displacement
Political Geography:
Africa

1846. What defines a “city”?

Author:
Ammar A. Malik and Julia Hagen
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
Readers love lists, especially city rankings. There are lists that rank the world’s leading cities of opportunity, the most sustainable cities, the bike-friendliest cities, the top shopping cities, and even the most competitive cities in the future. What they all share is an attempt to measure cities. But what defines a city? The answer isn’t as clear-cut as it seems. Every year, leading corporations fund the publication of an increasingly large number of benchmarking studies, which generate significant interest in the media. Even the UN has jumped on this bandwagon by adapting, for the first time, an urban goal within the Sustainable Development Goals framework. However, the basic question of what constitutes a city is often defined inconsistently across rankings. This could leave general-interest readers and policymakers, confused, or worse—misled.
Topic:
United Nations, Urbanization, Sustainable Development Goals, and Cities
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1847. Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation - Comment

Author:
Jonas E. Arias, Guido Ascari, Nicola Branzoli, and Efrem Castelnuovo
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Working with a small-scale calibrated New-Keynesian model, Coibion and Gorodnichenko (2011) find that the reduction in trend inflation during Volcker's mandate was a key factor behind the Great Moderation. We revisit this finding with an estimated New-Keynesian model with trend inflation and no indexation based on Christiano, Eichenbaum and Evans (2005). First, our simulations confirm Coibion and Gorodnichenko's (2011) main finding. Second, we show that a trend inflation-immune Taylor rule based on economic theory can avoid indeterminacy even at high levels of trend inflation such as those observed in the 1970s.
Topic:
Economics, Monetary Policy, Economic Theory, and Inflation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1848. Government Connections and Financial Constraints: Evidence from a Large Representative Sample of Chinese Firms

Author:
Robert Cull, Bo Sun, and Lixin Colin Xu
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We examine the role of firms’ government connections, defined by government intervention in CEO appointment and the status of state ownership, in determining the severity of financial constraints faced by Chinese firms. We demonstrate that government connections are associated with substantially less severe financial constraints (i.e., less reliance on internal cash flows to fund investment), and that the sensitivity of investment to internal cash flows is higher for firms that report greater obstacles to obtaining external funds. We also find that those large non-state firms with weak government connections, likely the engine for innovation in the coming years in China, are especially financially constrained, due perhaps to the formidable hold that their state rivals have on financial resources after the ‘grabbing-the-big-and-letting-go-the-small’ privatization program in China. Our empirical results suggest that government connections play an important role in explaining Chinese firms’ financing conditions, and provide further evidence on the nature of the misallocation of credit by China’s dominant state-owned banks.
Topic:
Privatization, Governance, Business, Fiscal Policy, Innovation, and Banking
Political Geography:
China and Asia

1849. Risk Choices and Compensation Design

Author:
Mark Carey and Bo Sun
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We analyze the impact of bad-tail risks on managerial pay functions, especially the decision to pay managers in stock or in options. In contrast to conventional wisdom, we find that options are often a superior vehicle for limiting managerial incentives to take bad-tail risks while providing incentives to exert effort. Arrangements similar to collar options are able to incent the desired project choice in wider range of circumstances than call options or stock. However, information requirements appear high. We briefly explore alternatives with features similar to maluses and clawbacks, which are a bit like weakening the limited liability of managers.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Risk, Business Management, Stock Markets, and Wage Growth
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1850. Large Capital Inflows, Sectoral Allocation, and Economic Performance

Author:
Gianluca Benigno, Nathan Converse, and Luca Fornaro
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper describes the stylized facts characterizing periods of exceptionally large capital inflows in a sample of 70 middle- and high-income countries over the last 35 years. We identify 155 episodes of large capital inflows and find that these events are typically accompanied by an economic boom and followed by a slump. Moreover, during episodes of large capital inflows capital and labor shift out of the manufacturing sector, especially if the inflows begin during a period of low international interest rates. However, accumulating reserves during the period in which capital inflows are unusually large appears to limit the extent of labor reallocation. Larger credit booms and capital inflows during the episodes we identify increase the probability of a sudden stop occurring during or immediately after the episode. In addition, the severity of the post-inflows recession is significantly related to the extent of labor reallocation during the boom, with a stronger shift of labor out of manufacturing during the inflows episode associated with a sharper contraction in the aftermath of the episode.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, Labor Issues, Capital Flows, Manufacturing, and Capital
Political Geography:
Global Focus