Multi-donor trust funds and fragile states: assessing the aid effectiveness of the Zimbabwe multi-donor trust fund

It is widely acknowledged that multi-donor trust funds (MDTFs) contribute to aid effectiveness. This paper challenges this assertion through assessing the aid effectiveness of the Zimbabwe Multi-Donor Trust Fund. The paper makes four key arguments. First, political relations between recipient and donor countries are vital in the functioning of MDTFs. Second, the design of MDTFs affects the delivery and functioning of the trust fund. Third, whilst the legitimacy of national governments in fragile states is often contested, targeting legitimate and credible institutions can offer tangible and life changing results. Fourth, MDTFs focusing on the recovery of key sectors such as water, sanitation and energy have direct impacts to economic recovery and people’s lives

What determines women's participation in collective action? Evidence from a western Ugandan coffee cooperative

Women smallholders face greater constraints than men in accessing capital and commodity markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. Collective action has been promoted to remedy those disadvantages. Using survey data of 421 women members and 210 nonmembers of a coffee producer cooperative in Western Uganda, this study investigates the determinants of women's participation in cooperatives and women's intensity of participation. The results highlight the importance of access to and control over land for women to join the cooperative in the first place. Participation intensity is measured through women's participation in collective coffee marketing and share capital contributions. It is found that duration of membership, access to extension services, more equal intrahousehold power relations, and joint land ownership positively influence women's ability to commit to collective action. These findings demonstrate the embeddedness of collective action in gender relations and the positive value of women's active participation for agricultural-marketing cooperatives

Determinants of global CO2 emissions growth

This paper analyzes global CO2 emissions growth by fossil fuel type (coal, oil or gas), demand type (consumption or investment), country group (developed or developing country) and industry group. The results indicate that, among the three fossil fuels, CO2 emissions from coal use grew the most rapidly in developing countries, by 3.76 Gt in the period 1995–2009. By contrast, CO2 emissions from natural gas use grew the most rapidly in developed countries, by 470 Mt in the period 1995–2009. Further decompositions show that, despite improvements in energy efficiency, the upgrades in infrastructures and changes in electricity requirements in developing countries have led to significant CO2 emissions growth from coal use. Among these countries, China accounts for a high contribution, causing a coal-use-related CO2 emissions growth of up to 2.79 Gt in the period 1995–2009. By contrast, consumption by the public and social services as well as chemical products is the dominant force driving CO2 emission growth from gas in developed countries; the US accounts for a very high contribution, causing a gas-use-related CO2 emissions growth of up to 100 Mt

Entrepreneurship education as human capital: implications for youth self-employment and conflict mitigation in sub-Saharan Africa

Previous research has focused on stable developed economies to predict that human capital and entrepreneurship education (EE) provision at the higher education (HE) level will positively affect entrepreneurial success. This article draws on the outcome of recent EE projects in two HE institutions in a conflict-torn northern Nigeria as a proxy to advocate the introduction of entrepreneurship as a compulsory component into the secondary school curriculum in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using semi-structured interview data, it is found that the provision of EE at secondary education level could help to facilitate human capital development and assist efforts to curb youth unemployment. Specifically, the study suggests that EE comprises both generic and specific human capital that increases an individual’s ability to identify and exploit opportunities, particularly for young people, and in doing so helps to reduce their vulnerability to poverty and involvement in armed conflict. Suggestions for future research and policy considerations are provided

Taxation and Development: a Review of Donor Support to Strengthen Tax Systems in Developing Countries

Recent years have seen a growing interest among donors on taxation in developing countries. This reflects a concern for domestic revenue mobilization to finance public goods and services, as well as recognition of the centrality of taxation for growth and redistribution. The global financial crisis has also led many donor countries to pay more attention to the extent and effectiveness of the aid they provide, and to ensuring that they support rather than discourage the developing countries’ own revenue-raising efforts. This paper reviews the state of knowledge on aid and tax reform in developing countries, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Four main issues are addressed: (1) impacts of donor assistance to strengthen tax systems, including what has worked, or not, and why; (2) challenges in ‘scaling up’ donor efforts; (3) how to best provide assistance to reform tax systems; and (4) knowledge gaps to be filled in order to design better donor interventions. The paper argues that donors should complement the traditional ‘technical’ approach to tax reform with measures that encourage constructive engagement between governments and citizens over tax issues.Department for International DevelopmentBill and Melinda Gates Foundatio

African Dreams: Locating Urban Infrastructure in the 2030 Sustainable Developmental Agenda

This paper examines African urban infrastructure and service delivery as an entry point for connecting African aspirations with the harsh developmental imperatives of urban management, creating a dialogue between scholarly knowledge and sustainable development policy aspirations. We note a shift to multi-nodal urban governance and highlight the significance of the synthesis of social, economic and ecological values in a normative vision of what an African metropolis might aspire to by 2030. The sustainable development vision provides a useful stimulus for Africa’s urban poly-crisis, demanding fresh interdisciplinary and normatively explicit thinking, grounded in a practical and realistic understanding of Africa’s infrastructure and governance challenges

Developing Local Currency Bond Markets for Long-term Development Financing in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article discusses the role that local currency bond markets (LCBMs) can play in the long-term financing of sustainable development of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies and presents an empirical analysis of the factors which may hinder or promote the development of such markets in SSA. Using a new dataset for 27 SSA countries, our findings support earlier research on SSA and other regions, showing that LCBM development is related to country size, larger banking systems, greater trade openness and better regulatory frameworks and the rule of law. Foreign investor participation broadens the investor base and can give a boost to LCBM development, yet it may also increase volatility of international capital flows. Hence, with view to the experience of emerging economies in other regions, capital market liberalisation should be pursued only very cautiously and in pace with solid financial and institutional development

Towards an understanding of the political economy of the PPCR

While an analysis of the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) is inseparable from wider discussion on adaptation finance, this article primarily focuses on the drivers and ideologies that shaped the PPCR governance and delivery structures. The core narrative of mainstreaming adaptation into development through a process of government-centred policy reform challenges many principles of the UNFCCC process. Utilising the structures of international financing institutions as implementing agencies, heightens this tension. The central idea of mainstreaming adaptation through climate-proofing existing development initiatives utilises the standard economic growth narrative. This climate ‘add-on’ approach to development allows the World Bank Group and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) to claim a space in managing future climate finance flows. This drive by the Bank plays out in the exclusivity of the design process for the PPCR and through the implementation modalities, which severely curtail opportunities for multi-stakeholder dialogue and thus the potential for development of broad country ownership of programmes

Modeling preference and willingness to pay for drought tolerance (DT) in maize in rural Zimbabwe

Maize plays a leading role in the food security of millions in southern Africa, yet it is highly vulnerable to the moisture stress brought about by the erratic rainfall patterns that characterize weather systems in the area. Developing and making drought-tolerant maize varieties available to farmers in the region has thus long been a key goal on the regional development agenda. Farm-level adoption of these varieties, however, depends on local perceptions of the value they add, along with willingness to pay (WTP) for it. Focusing on Zimbabwe, this research aimed at estimating the implicit prices farmers are willing to pay for drought tolerance in maize compared to other preferred traits. Using a choice experiment framework, we generated 12,600 observations from a random sample of 1,400 households in communal areas within 14 districts of Zimbabwe. Taste parameters and heterogeneities were estimated using the generalized multinomial logit model (G-MNL). The results reveal drought tolerance, grain yield, covered cob tip, cob size, and semi-flint texture to be the most preferred traits by farm households in Zimbabwe. The WTP estimates show that farmers are willing to pay a premium for drought tolerance equal to 2.56, 7, 3.2, and 5 times higher than for an additional ton of yield per acre, bigger cob size, larger grain size, and covered cob tip, respectively. We suggest designing and implementing innovative ways of promoting DT maize along with awareness-raising activities to enhance contextual understandings of drought and drought risk to speed adoption of new DT maize varieties by risk-prone farming communities. Given the high level of rural literacy and the high rate of adoption of improved maize, trait-based promotion and marketing of varieties constitutes the right strategy