Search

Begin New Search

56561. A Millennium Learning Goal: Measuring Real Progress in Education

Author:
Lant Pritchett, Amer Hasan, and Deon Filmer
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Millennium Development Goal for primary schooling completion has focused attention on a measurable output indicator to monitor increases in schooling in poor countries. We argue the next step, which moves towards the even more important Millennium Learning Goal, is to monitor outcomes of learning achievement. We demonstrate that even in countries meeting the MDG of primary completion, the majority of youth are not reaching even minimal competency levels, let alone the competencies demanded in a globalized environment. Even though Brazil is on track to the meet the MDG, our estimates are that 78 percent of Brazilian youth lack even minimally adequate competencies in mathematics and 96 percent do not reach what we posit as a reasonable global standard of adequacy. Mexico has reached the MDG—but 50 percent of youth are not minimally competent in math and 91 percent do not reach a global standard. While nearly all countries' education systems are expanding quantitatively nearly all are failing in their fundamental purpose. Policymakers, educators and citizens need to focus on the real target of schooling: adequately equipping their nation's youth for full participation as adults in economic, political and social roles. A goal of school completion alone is an increasingly inadequate guide for action. With a Millennium Learning Goal, progress of the education system will be judged on the outcomes of the system: the assessed mastery of the desired competencies of an entire age cohort—both those in school and out of school. By focusing on the learning achievement of all children in a cohort an MLG eliminates the false dichotomy between “access/enrollment” and “quality of those in school”: reaching an MLG depends on both.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and Education
Political Geography:
Brazil and Mexico

56562. Fragile States and U.S. Foreign Assistance: Show Me the Money

Author:
Stewart Patrick and Kaysie Brown
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Bush administration has increasingly acknowledged that weak and failing states represent the core of today's global development challenge. It has also recognized that such states are potential threats to international peace and security. But despite the rhetoric, it has yet to formulate a coherent strategy around fragile states or commit adequate resources towards engaging them. Excluding funding for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and HIV/AIDS, the administration's FY07 budget request proposes to spend just $1.1 billion in direct bilateral assistance to fragile states—little more than a dollar per person per year. In this new working paper, CGD research fellow Stewart Patrick and program associate Kaysie Brown urge U.S. policymakers to consider increasing aid to fragile states and to think creatively about how and when to engage these troubled countries. The authors also call for the policy community to integrate non-aid instruments into a more coherent government strategy. To put its money where its mouth is, the U.S. should treat aid to weak and failing states as a form of venture capital, with high risk but potentially high rewards.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

56563. New data on African health professionals abroad

Author:
Gunilla Petterson and Michael A. Clemens
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The migration of doctors and nurses from Africa to developed countries has raised fears of an African medical brain drain. But empirical research on the causes and effects of the phenomenon has been hampered by a lack of systematic data on the extent of African health workers' international movements. We use destination-country census data to estimate the number of African-born doctors and professional nurses working abroad in a developed country circa 2000, and compare this to the stocks of these workers in each country of origin. Approximately 65,000 African-born physicians and 70,000 African-born professional nurses were working overseas in a developed country in the year 2000. This represents about one fifth of African-born physicians in the world, and about one tenth of African-born professional nurses. The fraction of health professionals abroad varies enormously across African countries, from 1% to over 70% according to the occupation and country. These numbers are the first standardized, systematic, occupation-specific measure of skilled professionals working in developed countries and born in a large number of developing countries.
Topic:
Development, Health, and Migration
Political Geography:
Africa

56564. Social Cohesion, Institutions

Author:
William Easterly, Michael Woolcock, and Jozef Ritzen
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
We present evidence that measures of “social cohesion,” such as income inequality and ethnic fractionalization, endogenously determine institutional quality, which in turn casually determines growth.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Government, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Global Focus

56565. Development, Democracy, and Mass Killings

Author:
William Easterly
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Using a newly assembled dataset spanning from 1820 to 1998, we study the relationship between the occurrence and cruelty of episodes of mass killing and the levels of development and democracy across countries and over time. We find that massacres are more likely at intermediate levels of income and less likely at very high levels of democracy, but we do not find evidence of a linear relationship between democracy and probability of mass killings. In the 20th century, discrete improvements in democracy are systematically associated with less cruel massacre episodes. Episodes at the highest levels of democracy and income involve relatively fewer victims.
Topic:
Civil Society, Crime, Democratization, and Development

56566. A Policymakers' Guide to Dutch Disease

Author:
Owen Barder
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
It is sometimes claimed that an increase in aid might cause Dutch Disease—that is, an appreciation of the real exchange rate which can slow the growth of a country's exports— and that aid increases might thereby harm a country's long-term growth prospects. This essay argues that it is unlikely that a long-term, sustained and predictable increase in aid would, through the impact on the real exchange rate, do more harm than good, for three reasons. First, there is not necessarily an adverse impact on exports from Dutch Disease, and any impact on economic growth may be small. Second, aid spent in part on improving the supply side—investments in infrastructure, education, government institutions and health—result in productivity benefits for the whole economy, which can offset any loss of competitiveness from the Dutch Disease effect. Third, the welfare of a nation's citizens depends on their consumption and investment, not just output. Even on pessimistic assumptions, the additional consumption and investment which the aid finances is larger than any likely adverse impact on output. However, the macroeconomic effects of aid can cause substantial harm if the aid is not sustained until its benefits are realized. The costs of a temporary loss of competitiveness might well exceed the benefits of the short-term increase in aid. To avoid doing harm, aid should be sustained and predictable, and used in part to promote economic growth. This maximizes the chances that the long-term productivity and growth benefits will offset the adverse effects—which may be small if they exist at all—that big aid surges may pose as a result of Dutch Disease.
Topic:
Economics, Health, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Europe

56567. Will Debt Relief Make a Difference? Impact and Expectations of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative

Author:
Todd Moss
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) is the latest phase of debt reduction for poor countries from the World Bank, the IMF, and the African Development Bank. The MDRI, which will come close to full debt reduction for at least 19 (and perhaps as many as 40) qualifying countries, is being presented as a momentous leap forward in the battle against global poverty. However, the analysis in this paper suggests that the actual gains may be more modest and elusive. This is not because, as some anti-debt campaigners fear, that the initiative is a mere accounting trick. Rather, the limited short-term financial impact of the MDRI on affected countries is because the debt service obligations being relived were themselves relatively insignificant. For example, in 2004 the average African country in the program paid $19 million in debt service to the World Bank, but received 10 times that amount in new Bank credit and more than 50 times as much in total aid. Just as importantly, finances are rarely the binding constraint on poverty and other development outcomes. This is not to say that the MDRI is futile. Indeed the impact could be considerable over the long-term, especially on the ability of creditors to be more selective in the future. But most of the impact of the MDRI will be long-term and difficult to measure. As such, expectations of the effect on indebted countries and development indicators should be kept modest and time horizons long.
Topic:
Debt, Development, Economics, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Africa

56568. The U.S. External Deficit and the Developing Countries

Author:
William R. Cline
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In the absence of US fiscal adjustment and a further correction of the dollar, the current account deficit is headed to $1.3 trillion by 2010 (8 to 8.5 percent of GDP) and net US foreign liabilities to over $8 trillion (50 percent of GDP). According to CGD/IIE Senior Fellow William R. Cline, the rising trade deficit and associated borrowing from abroad are now financing a decline in personal saving and a rise in the government deficit. This imbalance will increasingly put the US economy—and the developing countries—at risk. This working paper focuses on the impact that the US external deficit and a possible “hard landing” for the US and world economies will have on developing countries. Cline finds that these countries are at risk since they have relied heavily on a continuing expansion of trade surpluses with the United States as a source of demand. Developing countries with high borrowing abroad are also doubly sensitive to a spike in world interest rates—once directly from higher US interest rates, and once indirectly through higher risk spreads—that might be associated with a hard landing. This Working Paper is based on The United States as a Debtor Nation, a book published in 2005 by the Center for Global Development and the Institute for International Economics.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Third World
Political Geography:
United States

56569. The Economics of Young Democracies: Policies and Performance

Author:
Nathan Converse and Ethan Kapstein
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Since the “third wave” of democratization began in 1974, nearly 100 states have adopted democratic forms of government, including, of course, most of the former Soviet bloc nations. Policy-makers in the west have expressed the hope that this democratic wave will extend even further, to the Middle East and onward to China. But the durability of this new democratic age remains an open question. By some accounts, at least half of the world's young democracies—often referred to in the academic literature as being “unconsolidated” or “fragile”—are still struggling to develop their political institutions, and several have reverted back to authoritarian rule. Among the countries in the early stages of democratic institution building are states vital to U.S. national security interests, including Afghanistan and Iraq.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, China, and Iraq

56570. Back to the Future for African Infrastructure? Why State-Ownership Is No More Promising the Second Time Around

Author:
John Nellis
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Too many African state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly those in infrastructure sectors, have a long history of poor performance. African governments and donors labored through the 1970s and 1980s to improve SOE performance through “commercialization”——i.e., methods short of ownership change. These generally failed, giving rise, in the 1990s, to much more heavy reliance on private sector participation and ownership. This approach produced some successes, but Africa's private participation in infrastructure (PPI) initiatives have been comparatively few and weak. A number of those that have been launched have run into problems, to the point where both investor and African government interest in the approach has waned in the last few years. The reform is not popular——surveys of public opinion in 15 African countries reveal that only a third of respondents prefer private to state-owned firms. Nonetheless, African states (and their supporters) should not jettison the PPI approach. Rather, they should acknowledge its limitations, and recognize the large scope and moderate pace of the preparatory measures required both to improve their investment climates and to make PPI work effectively.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Non-Governmental Organization
Political Geography:
Africa