Making energy efficiency pro-poor : insights from behavioural economics for policy design

This paper reviews the current state of behavioural economics and its applications to energy efficiency in developing countries. Taking energy efficient lighting in Ghana, Uganda and Rwanda as empirical examples, this paper develops hypotheses on how behavioural factors can improve energy efficiency policies directed towards poor populations. The key argument is that different types of affordability exist that are influenced by behavioural factors to varying degrees. Using a qualitative approach, this paper finds that social preferences, framing and innovative financing solutions that acknowledge people’s mental accounts can provide useful starting points. Behavioural levers are only likely to work in a policy package that addresses wider technical, market and institutional barriers to energy efficiency. More research, carefully designed pre-tests and stakeholder debates are required before introducing policies based on behavioural insights. This is imperative to avoid the dangers of nudging

From What We Wear to What We Eat: Upgrading in Global Value Chains

In recent academic debates, upgrading has emerged as a key way for developing countries to meet the competitive challenges of globalisation and trade liberalisation. This article draws on global commodity chains literature to comparatively explore the conditions within which upgrading occurs in two sectors: export horticulture in Kenya and textile/apparel in Tamil Nadu, India. In both sectors upgrading into new products, functions or markets has generated increased employment and sustained incomes. However, firms in horticulture and textile/apparel are governed by a small number of global buyers with demanding requirements. Firms without the linkages to these buyers or the capabilities to meet their requirements can be locked out of international markets. The article concludes that insertion into global value chains creates varying outcomes for developing country firms, both providing and circumscribing opportunities for broad‐based development

Global garment chains, local labour activism: New challenges to trade union and NGO activism in the Tiruppur garment cluster, South India

Almost on a daily basis newspapers and magazines tell us of the exploitative circumstances under which workers produce garments for the global market. While local trade unions, international NGOs, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) officers claim to act in the interests of garment workers, the latter continue to lack voice and representation in their everyday struggles for better and fairer employment. Focusing on a South Indian garment cluster, the article explores the reasons why key labour rights, such as the freedom of association, keep being violated, and why local trade union and international NGO activists fail to prevent such violations. Through the lens of a major labour dispute, we consider the decline of a once successful trade union and the challenges of emerging localinternational activist collaborations. The article concludes that for union, NGO, and corporate interventions to be successful in the context of a liberalising state, the political economy of labour has to be taken into account, and labour struggles have to be understood within their political and historical context