MDG achievements, determinants and resource needs : what has been learnt ?

This paper reviews the effectiveness and efficiency of key policy instruments for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Based on a simple cross-country regression analysis, the paper argues that average Millennium Development Goal progress is likely to be too slow to meet education and health sector targets in a number of developing countries. The paper further shows that MDG achievement can be described by a transition path with declining rates of progress. More detailed analysis reveals that the transition toward universal primary school enrollment in poor countries with low initial enrollment has accelerated considerably in the more recent past. The main part of the paper then focuses on the role of demand versus supply-side factorsin social service utilization in education and health. The review arrives at the following rules of thumb that reflect some of the key determinants of achievement of the Millennium Development Goals: First, specific single policy interventions can have a considerable impact on social service utilization and specific human development outcomes. For example, improving access to basic health services, in particular to vaccination, has been a key factor in reducing child mortality rates in a number of very poor countries. Second, demand-side policies have proved extremely effective, for example in raising school enrollment and attainment levels. However, there may be more scope for targeting the demand-side in the health sector. Third, policy effectiveness and efficiency are highly dependent on initial conditions and the specificities of the respective policy. Fourth, complementarities between MDG targets, in particular social service utilization, are likely to be very important.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Primary Education,Teaching and Learning,Education For All

Income Diversification and Poverty in a Growing Agricultural Economy: The Case of Ghana.

This paper analyses changes in income portfolios of rural households and its determinants for the case of Ghana in the 1990s. Our analysis shows that, contrary to common beliefs, rural Ghana has seen major economic transformation, as households increasingly diversify their livelihoods by both increased migration and more local non-farm employment. These diversification decisions seem to be driven to a large extent by desperation rather than new opportunities, in particular with regard to migration. Low-income households increase their income share in particular from local non-farm activities through more participation while returns to diversifying activities stagnate or even decrease. Therefore households with a low non-labour asset-base are increasingly diversified and poor. In contrast, asset-rich households are more successful at either diversifying or specialising in those activities the household is relatively good at. They also tend to benefit more from agricultural growth.Income diversification; non-agricultural activities; remittances; migration; inequality; poverty; sub-Saharan Africa; Ghana;

The Impact of Agricultural Market Liberalisation from a Gender Perspective: Evidence from Uganda.

Focusing on intra-household allocation, we investigate the effects of coffee market liberalisation in Uganda. As coffee has traditionally been a male domain, higher income from this activity might increase gender disparities. In addition, gender-related inefficiency in household production might undermine the positive impact of improved incentives. Using data from three household surveys conducted between 1992 and 2006, we estimate Engel curves, coffee yield and labour input equations incorporating bargaining proxies. We find that income from coffee is increasingly pooled and therefore shared more equally among household members. Yet, we can only detect partial improvements in production efficiency: bargaining still appears to constraint output efficiency and the distribution of household resources continues to follow gendered lines.Market liberalisation; Gender; Bargaining; Intra-household allocation; Sub-Saharan Africa; Uganda;

Income Diversification and Poverty in a Growing Agricultural Economy: The Case of Ghana

This paper analyses changes in income portfolios of rural households and its determinants for the case of Ghana in the 1990s. Our analysis shows that, contrary to common beliefs, rural Ghana has seen major economic transformation, as households increasingly diversify their livelihoods by both increased migration and more local non-farm employment. These diversification decisions seem to be driven to a large extent by desperation rather than new opportunities, in particular with regard to migration. Low-income households increase their income share in particular from local non-farm activities through more participation while returns to diversifying activities stagnate or even decrease. Therefore households with a low non-labour asset-base are increasingly diversified and poor. In contrast, asset-rich households are more successful at either diversifying or specialising in those activities the household is relatively good at. They also tend to benefit more from agricultural growth. --Income diversification,non-agricultural activities,remittances,migration,inequality,poverty,sub-Saharan Africa,Ghana

The Impact of Agricultural Market Liberalisation from a Gender Perspective: Evidence from Uganda

Focusing on intra-household allocation, we investigate the effects of coffee market liberalisation in Uganda. As coffee has traditionally been a male domain, higher income from this activity might increase gender disparities. In addition, gender-related inefficiency in household production might undermine the positive impact of improved incentives. Using data from three household surveys conducted between 1992 and 2006, we estimate Engel curves, coffee yield and labour input equations incorporating bargaining proxies. We find that income from coffee is increasingly pooled and therefore shared more equally among household members. Yet, we can only detect partial improvements in production efficiency: bargaining still appears to constraint output efficiency and the distribution of household resources continues to follow gendered lines. --Market liberalisation,Gender,Bargaining,Intra-household allocation,Sub-Saharan Africa,Uganda

MDG Achievements, Determinants, and Resource Needs : What Has Been Learnt?

This paper reviews the effectiveness and efficiency of key policy instruments for MDG (Millennium Development Goals) achievement. We first demonstrate that average MDG progress is likely to be too slow to meet the education and health sector targets in a number of developing countries. We also show that MDG achievement can be described by a transition path with declining rates of progress. More detailed analysis reveals that the transition towards universal primary enrollment in poor countries with low initial enrollment has accelerated considerably in the more recent past. The paper then focuses on the role of demand‐ versus supply‐side factors in social service utilization in education and health. The main policy conclusions of the review reflect some of the key determinants of MDG achievement: First, specific single‐policy interventions can have a considerable impact on social service utilization and specific human development outcomes. For example, improving access to basic health services, in particular to vaccination, has been a key factor in reducing child mortality rates in a number of very poor countries. Second, demand‐side policies have proved extremely effective, for example, in increasing school enrollment and attainment levels. However, there may be more scope for targeting the demand side in the health sector. Third, policy effectiveness and efficiency are highly dependent on initial conditions and the specificities of the respective policy. Fourth, complementarities between MDG targets, in particular social service utilization, are likely to be very important.Ein primäres Anliegen dieses Beitrages ist die Untersuchung der Effektivität und Effizienz von Politikinstrumenten zu Erreichung der Weltentwicklungsziele. Zu Beginn wird gezeigt, dass der durchschnittliche Fortschritt zu langsam ist, um die angestrebten Ziele im Gesundheits‐ und Bildungssektor in einer Vielzahl von Entwicklungsländern zu erreichen. Festzustellen ist, dass sich der Transitionspfad durch eine abnehmende Fortschrittsgeschwindigkeit auszeichnet. Detailliertere Analysen zeigen, dass es in jüngster Vergangenheit beachtliche Erfolge bezüglich des Besuches von Primarschulen in armen Ländern – bei sehr schlechter Ausgangslage– gegeben hat. Ein weiterer Aspekt der Untersuchung ist die Rolle von nachfrage‐ versus angebotsorientierten Faktoren, welche die Nutzung von öffentlichen Dienstleistungen im Gesundheitsund Bildungssektor beeinflussen. – Erstens können spezifische einzelne Interventionen eine herausragende Wirkung in Bezug auf die Nutzung öffentlicher Dienstleistungen und direkter Entwicklungsindikatoren erzielen. So ist beispielsweise der Zugang zu grundlegenden Gesundheitsdienstleistungen, insbesondere Impfungen, ein bedeutsamer Faktor für die stark abnehmenden Kindersterblichkeitsraten in einer ganzen Reihe von Ländern. Dennoch gibt es offenbar nicht ausgeschöpfte Potentiale im Gesundheitssektor. – Zweitens haben sich nachfrageorientierte Maßnahmen – insbesondere zur Erhöhung der Einschulungsraten – als sehr effektiv herausgestellt. – Drittens sind sowohl die Effektivität –als auch die Effizienz von politischen Maßnahmen entscheidend von den Ausgangsbedingungen und Charakteristika des jeweiligen Instruments abhängig. – Viertens sind allem Anschein nach die Komplementaritäten zwischen unterschiedlichen Weltentwicklungszielen von großer Bedeutung

The G20 under Argentina's Presidency: Time to Deliver on the Hamburg Promises

On 1 December 2017, Argentina took over the presidency of the G20 from the German government. This is the right time to briefly review the year of the G20 under a German presidency in troubled times. It is also a prudent time to look ahead and provide a preliminary assessment of the priorities set by Argentina. The G20 under the German presidency has displayed flexibility, avoided deadlock, and - despite the protests - started to address its legitimacy problems. The Hamburg summit recognised that the gains of globalisation have not been shared widely enough, and 19 members of the G20 reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement. Yet, the summit did not deliver concrete actions. The Argentine presidency will have to keep the G20 alive and functioning, but the club will also have to demonstrate that the commitment to "shape globalization to benefit all people" does not turn out to be an empty promise. The Argentine government has set three priority issues for its G20 presidency: the future of work, infrastructure for development, and food security - topics on which some consensus is likely to be found. The proposal stresses the need for greater involvement of the private sector, particularly in terms of financing infrastructure. The G20 summit in Buenos Aires risks becoming a lost opportunity. The current Argentine proposal for the agenda is not ambitious enough, and it sends the wrong signals. Instead of managing adjustment, it overemphasises the need to enable people to adjust. Further, too much emphasis is placed on increased private-sector involvement - be it in infrastructure or agriculture. The summit in Buenos Aires presents an opportunity to start considering the concrete steps to achieving more inclusive growth through a fairer globalisation. The solution cannot be to turn yet more public assets into private ones

The G20 Compact with Africa: An Incomplete Initiative

A key element of the G20's partnership with Africa is the Compact with Africa (CWA) initiative, the primary aim of which is to support private and infrastructure investment. Draft compacts of five African countries - Côte d'Ivoire, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, and Tunisia – may be presented at the G20 Africa Partnership Conference in Berlin. The CWA initiative cannot and should not be seen as a quick fix vis-à-vis the root causes of flight and migration. It might support development in Africa, but alone it will not be decisive. The initiative addresses a key mechanism of economic (under)development, but the coordination problem that explains Africa's low income levels extends well beyond the realm of investment and infrastructure. An investment plan that fails to recognise this is bound to fail. The CWA omits four very important issues. First, it ignores investment in education, which is an essential complement to physical infrastructure and private investment. Second, it fails to discuss the G20's responsibility in creating an uncertain trade and investment policy environment that harms investment in Africa. Third, while the compact has much to say on investor risk, it does not address the social and environmental risks associated with private investment. Fourth, the CWA fails to take seriously a comprehensive sustainable development agenda, as implied by the 2030 Agenda. The CWA does better in a technical sense and proposes a number of instruments that aim to achieve a better-matched supply of capital and to facilitate better preparation of investment projects. However, the priority seems to be de-risking through subsidies, which may waste resources or induce excessive risk-taking. Other instruments and domestic financial markets may be better at leveraging private investment for small, highly profitable, and highly risky African projects. Support to Africa can only succeed as a long-term endeavour. The CWA initiative needs to be more comprehensive; this can be achieved by linking it to country development strategies based on the 2030 Agenda. Investment in education should be an integral part of the compacts. The G20 should commit to a predictable trade regime for Africa. Investors, multilateral development banks, and host countries need to address potentially adverse ecological and socio-economic effects of private investment by adhering to adequate international standards and by effectively implementing safeguards

Poverty and Distributional Impact of Economic Policies and External Shocks

Economists have had much to say about the impact of economic policies on growth, but little on their distributional consequences and poverty impact. The reorientation of development policy from structural adjustment to poverty reduction as the central objective thus called for new tools to examine distributional change. This book analyzes the poverty and distributional impact of policy changes and external shocks in three case studies from Latin America: Trade liberalization in Colombia and Brazil, and the gas boom in Bolivia. It uses an innovative approach that combines computable general equilibrium and microsimulation models. The country applications illustrate that distributional consequences depend very much on the nature of the shock or policy change as well as the characteristics of the country in question. The book issues a warning against policy prescriptions being based on oversimplifying assumptions and models

The complementarity of MDG achievements : the case of child mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper analyzes complementarities between different Millennium Development Goals, focusing on child mortality and how it is influenced by progress in the other goals, in particular two goals related to the expansion of female education: universal primary education and gender equality in education. The authors provide evidence from eight Sub-Saharan African countries using two rounds of Demographic and Health Surveys per country and applying a consistent micro-econometric methodology. In contrast to the mixed findings of previous studies, for most countries the findings reveal strong complementarities between mothers’ educational achievement and child mortality. Mothers’ schooling lifts important demand-side constraints impeding the use of health services. Children of mothers with primary education are much more likely to receive vaccines, a crucial proximate determinant of child survival. In addition, better educated mothers tend to have longer birth intervals, which again increase the chances of child survival. For the variables related to the other goals, for example wealth proxies and access to safe drinking water, the analysis fails to detect significant effects on child mortality, a finding that may be related to data limitations. Finally, the study carries out a set of illustrative simulations to assess the prospects of achieving a reduction by two-thirds in the under-five mortality rate. The findings indicate that some countries, which have been successful in the past, seem to have used their policy space for fast progress in child mortality, for example by extending vaccination coverage. This is the main reason why future achievements will be more difficult and explains why the authors have a fairly pessimistic outlook.Population Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Early Child and Children's Health,Early Childhood Development,Adolescent Health