Triple Wins from Foreign Direct Investment: Potential for Commonwealth countries to maximise economic and community benefits from inward investments case studies of Belize and Botswana

The findings of the case study on Botswana indicate that mining companies in Botswana have adopted the philosophy of CSR and are prepared to link social and environmental initiates to their core business. Particularly impressive is the comprehensive approach taken by the diamond mining company Setswana to develop and decentralise its strategy on Corporate Social Investment. In so doing, the company demonstrated preparedness to go beyond business as usual' approach of merely creating jobs and provide Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

Securing the Livelihoods and Nutritional Needs of Fish-Dependent Communities

Starting in June 2012, the Rockefeller Foundation began investigating the pressing problem of the declining health of the oceans due to climate change, overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction, and the effects of this decline on poor and vulnerable people who depend on marine ecosystems for food and livelihoods. The goal was to better understand the nature of the problem and the potential impact of interventions in the fields of fisheries, aquaculture, poverty, and food security.The Foundation assembled a portfolio of learning grants that examined this problem from multiple perspectives in order to inform and assess the viability of and potential impact for future engagement on this topic. We supported four scoping studies that sought to identify populations dependent on marine fisheries, as well as review past experience with integrated approaches to fisheries management within a livelihoods and food security context. In partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, we also supported scoping work in four countries to assess opportunities for a coordinated strategy integrating national policy, local management, and innovative financing.We have learned a tremendous amount from the work our grantees have done, captured here by partner FSG in a summary and synthesis. We hope this information will contribute to the broader body of knowledge on this topic, as well as our own work

Evaluating service supply in conditional cash transfers

textConditional cash transfers are poverty reduction mechanisms that seek to increase demand of social services by combining an income effect with a health or education requirement. This demand-side strategy relies on a tacit assumption about the quality of and access to those services as a path to improve human capital outcomes. Some conditional cash transfers have included supply-side complementary incentives to ensure that services are suitable to deliver a good education and better health. This study reviews the existing evidence on the impact of supply-side incentives in the context of conditional cash transfers. The review finds that a limited number of studies estimate effects of supply in human capital outcomes and only a few impact evaluations consider the role of schools or health centers in enabling access. The evaluations revised find no evidence that supply side interventions coupled with conditional cash transfers directly improve program outcomes. Nonetheless, several studies highlight the relevance of school organization, in terms of school modalities and student/teacher ratios in school enrollment and attendance. Impact estimations as well as the implementation of the supply-side programs also signal the need for a more nuanced understanding of how school management influences a variety of schooling outcomes. In general, the small number of impact estimations and the restricted set of variables used limits the generalizability of the results. For this reason, a principal conclusion of the review is the need for further research on the topic, as well as consistency across impact measures and a more in-depth analysis of school supply and their influence on learning outcomes.Global Policy Studie

An Examination of the Maternal Health Quality of Care Landscape in India

India has made significant strides in maternal health over the past several decades, reducingits maternal mortality ratio (MMR) from 556 to 174 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births from1990 to 2015 (World Bank 2016a). Policies and initiatives to increase access to maternal healthservices largely account for this progress. However, the rate of improvement has slowed, and thecountry continues to contribute almost one-quarter of maternal deaths globally (Nair 2011). Inaddition, India is home to a high but difficult to measure rate of so-called near-miss maternaldeaths that often lead to maternal morbidity. Although the incidence of maternal morbidity inIndia is largely unknown due to the country's lack of diagnoses and under-reporting, it isestimated that millions of Indian women experience pregnancy-related morbidity; the GlobalBurden of Disease estimates that India contributes one-fifth of the disability-adjusted life yearslost globally due to maternal health conditions (World Health Organization 2008). These patternssuggest there is still progress to be made in maternal health in India.The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation seeks to continue its more than 20-year history supporting population and reproductive health in India and accelerate the country'sadvancement in maternal health. It has chosen to fund a three-and-a-half-year grantmakingstrategy to improve maternal health quality of care, which has emerged as a key means to furtherreduce MMR and related outcomes. This review is intended to describe current issues andinterventions in the delivery of maternal health care and provide a backdrop for the Foundation'sgrantmaking effort

Entrepreneurial Community Development - Exploring Earned Income Activities and Strategic Alliances for Community Development Nonprofits

This paper examines social entrepreneurship from a community-development perspective. The target audience is community-development nonprofit organizations. The paper begins by contextualizing social entrepreneurship in community development and creating an analytical framework in which to think about efforts of organizations to integrate entrepreneurial and businesslike thinking. The paper presents key findings regarding both earned-income activities and strategic alliances as options for these organizations, as well as 10 key issues that arose as factors that impact their successful implementation. Information was gathered through a literature review, 29 interviews of practitioners, policymakers and academics and a survey of 59 community-development nonprofit organizations

Education and Social Equity With a Special Focus on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Elementary Education

The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are among the most socially and educationally disadvantaged groups in India. This paper examines issues concerning school access and equity for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities and also highlights their unique problems, which may require divergent policy responses. The paper is divided into seven main parts. The first two sections introduce the reader to the nature of exclusion and discrimination faced by Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and outlines the debate on the role of education in improving the socio-economic profile of both groups. The third section explains the socio-economic conditions within which Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes live and their marginalized status in contemporary India. The fourth section provides a discussion of literacy advancement among these groups, and of national policies and programmes which aim to improve school access and equity. The fifth section highlights special efforts made by certain state governments to improve educational participation of these two communities as well as the educational experiments on a more modest scale undertaken by community based Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The sixth section focuses on casteism as a deeply ideological issue that undercuts even the most genuine reform measures, and suggests research and policy options that may help to address underlying structural and ideological issues. The concluding section highlights a few critical areas for further research in the area

State of Health Equity Movement, 2011 Update Part C: Compendium of Recommendations DRA Project Report No. 11-03

State of Health Equity Movement, 2011 Update Part C: Compendium of Recommendations DRA Project Report No. 11-0

Understanding collaboration in volunteer computing systems

Volunteer computing is a paradigm in which devices participating in a distributed environment share part of their resources to help others perform their activities. The effectiveness of this computing paradigm depends on the collaboration attitude adopted by the participating devices. Unfortunately for software designers it is not clear how to contribute with local resources to the shared environment without compromising resources that could then be required by the contributors. Therefore, many designers adopt a conservative position when defining the collaboration strategy to be embedded in volunteer computing applications. This position produces an underutilization of the devices’ local resources and reduces the effectiveness of these solutions. This article presents a study that helps designers understand the impact of adopting a particular collaboration attitude to contribute with local resources to the distributed shared environment. The study considers five collaboration strategies, which are analyzed in computing environments with both, abundance and scarcity of resources. The obtained results indicate that collaboration strategies based on effort-based incentives work better than those using contribution-based incentives. These results also show that the use of effort-based incentives does not jeopardize the availability of local resources for the local needs.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version