International collaboration clusters in Africa

Recent discussion about the increase in international research collaboration suggests a comprehensive global network centred around a group of core countries and driven by generic socio-economic factors where the global system influences all national and institutional outcomes. In counterpoint, we demonstrate that the collaboration pattern for countries in Africa is far from universal. Instead, it exhibits layers of internal clusters and external links that are explained not by monotypic global influences but by regional geography and, perhaps even more strongly, by history, culture and language. Analysis of these bottom-up, subjective, human factors is required in order to provide the fuller explanation useful for policy and management purposes.Comment: 12 pp, 5 Figs including map links to viewe

Institutions for Asian Connectivity

To make Asia more economically sustainable and resilient against external shocks, regional economies need to be rebalanced toward regional demand- and trade-driven growth through increased regional connectivity. The effectiveness of connectivity depends on the quality of hard and soft infrastructure. Of particular importance in terms of soft infrastructure which makes hard infrastructure work are the facilitating institutions that support connectivity through appropriate policies, reforms, systems, and procedures and through promoting effective coordination and cooperation. Asia has many overlapping subregional institutions involved in national and regional energy, transport, and telecommunications infrastructure connectivity. However, these institutions are characterized as being less effective, informal, and lacking a clear and binding system of rules and policies. This paper draws linkages between connectivity, growth and development, governance, and institutions. It details the benefits the region could achieve by addressing needed connectivity enhancements and the connectivity and financing challenges it faces. In addition, it presents various institutional options for regional infrastructure financing. To build seamless Asian connectivity, Asia needs an effective, formal, and rules-based institutional framework. The paper presents a new institutional framework together with the organizational structures of two new regional institutional mechanisms, namely the Pan-Asian Infrastructure Forum and the Asian Infrastructure Fund.asian infrastructure financing; asian infrastructure connectivity; asian institutions

A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities

Examines the state of the foundation's efforts to improve educational opportunities worldwide through universal access to and use of high-quality academic content

Immigration and innovation in European regions

The pooling of people with diverse backgrounds in particular areas may boost the creation of new ideas, knowledge spillovers, entrepreneurship and economic growth. In this paper we measure the impact of the size, skills and diversity of immigration on innovativeness of host regions. For this purpose we construct a panel of data on 170 regions in Europe (NUTS 2 level) for the period 1991-2001. Innovation outcomes are measured by means of the number and types of patent applications. Given the geographical concentration and subsequent diffusion of innovation activity, and the spatial selectivity of immigrant settlement patterns, we take account of spatial dependence and of endogeneity of immigrant settlement in the econometric modelling. We find that an increase in patent applications in a region is associated with (i) net immigration; (ii) the share of foreigners in the population of the region; (iii) the average skill level of the immigrants; and (iv) the cultural diversity of the immigrants. The magnitude of these effects varies between types of patents

NETSCAPE - Europe and the Evolving World City Network

This paper focuses on the interdependencies between firms and spatial networks (nodes and linkages) at different European spatial scales. The paper is structured into two parts: (1) Conceptualization; (2) Empirical Analysis. Part (1) consists of three chapters conceptualizing various scales of city-firm networks. The first concerns the macro scale, discussing the development of specific networks within the globalization process. The second analyses the mezzo level of European networks and their national to supranational transformation. On the micro level Rotterdam's internal and external network is conceptualized. Part (2) empirically reveals the European city-firm network at mezzo and micro scales, based on datasets including the top 100 EU multinationals, their affilates/subsidiaries and the city locations of all these firms. Chapter one analyses the mezzo scale, showing various hierarchies of city-firm interdependencies, for the sectors of manufacturing, trade, information, public services and basic materials. The second chapter analyses the relative position of Rotterdam within this interscalar network, by specifically investigating its internal and external city-firm networks. From this Rotterdam's existing strengths and weakenesses, and possible future implications are determined.

A parallel approach to analysis of costs/benefits and efficiency changes resulting from privatisation of health services

The marketisation of public health care systems is part of a long process, which is not necessarily clearly set out or understood at the beginning. Public policy plays an important role in creating internal markets and changing public health care systems. The findings of this review show that there are now recognisable steps in the process of moving from a state/ government run health care system to a marketised and privatised system but this can take place over many years

A Fresh Look at Global Governance: Exploring Objective Criteria for Representation

The geopolitical world of the 21st century is very different than that of the post– World War II era. In this new world order, what constitutes a system of global governance? We argue that it has to balance representation, which is made credible by the inclusion of key parts of the global community, and effectiveness, which means involving as small a number of actors as possible while having access to the resources—and clout—to turn decisions/intentions into action/results. In this paper, we propose simple, fundamental criteria—based on global shares of GDP and population—around which global governance might be organized. We analyze the role that these criteria would assign to different countries and compare them with some of the key components of the system of governance currently in place—the Bretton Woods institutions and the United Nations. We also examine the implications of our analysis for membership in the G-20 and the OECD. We find major disparities, which suggest the need for fundamental changes in sharp contrast to the incremental changes that are currently being considered. Overall, our analysis points to the need for a more comprehensive approach, and for much more than incremental solutions.global governance, Bretton Woods, United Nations, G-20, OECD

A review of interventions to support young workers : findings of the youth employment inventory

This Youth Employment Inventory (YEI) is based on available documentation of current and past programs and includes evidence from 289 studies of interventions from 84 countries in all regions of the world. The interventions included in the YEI have been analyzed in order to (i) document the types of programs that have been implemented to support young workers to find work; and (ii) identify what appears to work in terms of improving employment outcomes for youth. This report synthesizes the information from this inventory and a set of background reports to document the global experience with youth employment programs. As background, Section B provides a brief summary of the situation of young people in labor markets world-wide, and also reviews the existing literature on policies to address youth employment problems. Following this, we turn to the underlying framework and methodology used to assemble the youth employment inventory in Section C. In Section D, we consider the coverage of the YEI, which represents the sample of youth programs identified in our global search of the available documentation. In addressing the question of"what works", it is critical to pay close attention to the quality of the evaluation evidence. This is discussed in Section E. The study then turns to the analysis of the effectiveness of the interventions included in the inventory. The descriptive evidence is presented in Section F. In addition, the study undertakes an econometric meta-analysis to more systematically identify the determinants of program success and the results of this analysis are presented in Section G. Finally, conclusions and implications are drawn in Section H.Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Youth and Governance,,Adolescent Health