Firming up institutional policy for deprived elderly in Cameroon

In a context of deepening poverty, policy realignment is crucial in tackling deficits in social security provision for Cameroon's growing elderly population. Tackling deficiencies is undermined by institutional failings, a dysfunctional bureaucracy, and a policy process characterized by dithering rather than concrete action. This article uncovers an impasse linked to the inability of existing institutional frameworks to confront the aging problematic. Empirical data point to elderly agency and a range of resources to fill the gaps left by state retreat. Institutional strengthening and social capital theory resonate here. A triangular policy framework reveals intricacies of coping via individual, family, and mutuality, explicating cardinal administrative roles. I suggest the design and delivery of social welfare provision should concentrate on institutional strengthening, improving architecture, and the workings of ministerial departments. Embedding a people-oriented bureaucracy and delivering targeted social assistance can serve as useful paradigms in policy revamps for the deprived elderly

Risk, responsibilities and rights: reassessing the ‘economic causes of crime’ thesis in a recession

This paper explores competing accounts of an apparent inversion of the previously-prevailing relationship between young people's unemployment and the incidence of youth offending at a time of economic recession. It begins by highlighting the faltering association between unemployment and offending, and considers the paradoxical implications for risk-based methodologies in youth justice practice. The paper then assesses explanations for the changing relationship that suggest that youth justice policies have successfully broken the unemployment-offending link; and alternatively that delayed effects of recession have yet to materialise, by reference to the work of four Inter-governmental organisations and to youth protests beyond the UK. In place of ever more intensive risk analyses, the paper then focusses on the adverse effects of unemployment on social cohesion, and proposes a rights-based approach to youth justice that recognises the growing disjuncture between the rights afforded to young people and the responsibilities expected of them

Livelihoods, conflict and aid programming: Is the evidence base good enough?

In conflict-affected situations, aid-funded livelihood interventions are often tasked with a dual imperative: to generate material welfare benefits and to contribute to peacebuilding outcomes. There may be some logic to such a transformative agenda, but does the reality square with the rhetoric? Through a review of the effectiveness of a range of livelihood promotion interventions—from job creation to microfinance—this paper finds that high quality empirical evidence is hard to come by in conflict-affected situations. Many evaluations appear to conflate outputs with impacts and numerous studies fail to include adequate information on their methodologies and datasets, making it difficult to appraise the reliability of their conclusions. Given the primary purpose of this literature—to provide policy guidance on effective ways to promote livelihoods— this silence is particularly concerning. As such, there is a strong case to be made for a restrained and nuanced handling of such interventions in conflict-affected settings.Department for International Development - PO511

Unemployment, growth and welfare effects of labor market reforms

The effects of labor market reforms are studied in an innovation-driven model of endogenous growth with a heterogeneous labor force, labor market rigidities, and structural unemployment. The model is calibrated for “typical” high- and middle-income economies and used to perform a range of experiments, including both individual labor market reforms (cuts in the minimum wage and unemployment benefit rates) and composite reform programs involving additional measures. The results show that individual reforms may generate conflicting effects on growth and welfare in the long run, even in the presence of positive policy externalities. A reduction in training costs may also create an oversupply of qualified labor and higher unemployment in the long-run. The effectiveness of labor market reforms, in terms of promoting growth and employment, is enhanced when they are accompanied by productivity-enhancing policies. Public investment in infrastructure, partly through its effects on innovation, may help to mitigate the trade-o§ between growth and welfare associated with these reforms

Opportunity or necessity? Conceptualizing entrepreneurship at African small-scale mines

This article critically examines the policy environment in place for artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) – low-tech, labour-intensive mineral extraction and processing – in sub-Saharan Africa, with a view to determining whether there is adequate ‘space’ for the sector's operators to flourish as entrepreneurs. In recent years, there has been growing attention paid to ASM in the region, particularly as a vehicle for stimulating local economic development. The work being planned under the Africa Mining Vision (AMV), a comprehensive policy agenda adopted by African heads of state in February 2009, could have an enormous impact on this front. One of its core objectives is to pressure host governments into Boosting Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining by following a series of streamlined recommendations. It is concluded, however, that there is a disconnect between how entrepreneurship in ASM has been interpreted and projected by proponents of the AMV on the one hand, and the form it has mostly taken in practice on the other hand. This gulf must be rapidly bridged if ASM is to have a transformative impact, economically, in the region. © 2017 Elsevier Inc