Creativity as development : discourse, ideology and practice

What the new global policy imaginary of "creativity" has amounted to is, on the one hand, a profoundly disintegrated research landscape with a heavy interest in creative “industries” (Cho, Liu, & Ho, 2018) and, on the other hand, an approach to development framed by a somewhat more general and hegemonic global ideology on culture, the arts, and development (Garner, 2016; Stupples, 2014). This “ideology” is mediated by global or UN-level policy and indeed specific to an age in which the neoliberal global economy has established an unprecedented degree of certitude and political consensus across the world on how we develop a prosperous society. Creativity has become a powerful signifier around which a rhetoric of dynamic trade, growth, and opportunity has evolved, and is subject to a broad assessment in this chapter

Reducing Inequality – The Missing MDG: A Content Review of PRSPs and Bilateral Donor Policy Statements

Although important gains have been made in reducing global poverty, the pace of progress across the world is not on track to achieve the 2015 MDG targets. Is this due to lack of ownership on the part of national governments and the international community? This article examines whether the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and donor policy statements are aligned with MDG priorities and targets. The analysis found a high degree of commitment to MDGs as a whole but both PRSPs and donor statements are selective, consistently emphasising income poverty and social investments for education, health and water but not other targets concerned with empowerment and inclusion of the most vulnerable such as gender violence or women's political representation. The article concludes that a new, ninth Goal needs to be added – to reduce inequality – to make the MDGs aligned to the original purpose of the Millennium Declaration

Social protection and socioeconomic security in Nepal

Nepal, with a population of 27.6 million people, is a ‘least developed country’ in many ways. The country is characterised by significant socioeconomic insecurity, comprising structurallygenerated income poverty, a politically and socially fragile post-conflict situation, threats to the environment, and deeply entrenched forms of social exclusion. At the same time, it is a country characterised by interesting socio-political policy innovations, triggered by the end of a ten-year violent conflict. Building on a discussion of the country’s challenges, the paper explores the policy responses in the domain of social protection devised by the interim government to address the various dimensions of insecurity, and to show their novelty as well as their limitations. The final section offers some ideas on policy areas which would be needed to improve socioeconomic security. Keywords: socioeconomic security; social protection; social policy; poverty; social exclusion; Nepa

A comparative assessment of the information technology services sector in India and China

The purpose of this paper is to assess the nature of competition in the information technology (IT) services sector between India and China. Using primary and secondary data sources, we compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the IT services sector in the two countries along the main dimensions of Porter&rsquo;s competitive advantage model. The principal findings indicate that the IT services sectors in the two countries are distinctively different, have developed along different paths and are highly complementary to each other. China has a well established hardware sector and its IT services sector focuses mostly on servicing its domestic market. India&rsquo;s IT services sector is predominantly export orientated with focus on the US and Western European markets. Contrary to popular beliefs, given the complementary characteristics of the IT services sectors in India and China, it is unlikely for the two countries to compete against each other in the near future and greater strategic co-operation between IT service providers in the two countries is a more likely outcome.<br /

Left to other peoples’ devices? A political economy perspective on the big data revolution in development

This article brings a political economy perspective to the field of Data for Development (D4D). It highlights the fact that many projects involve extracting data from African-based organizations for expert analysis in advanced economies. This extraction is justified on the basis that it is being used for humanitarian purposes. Key actors including the UN Global Pulse and World Economic Forum have lobbied for a governance framework emphasizing greater emission, personalization and centralization of data. The article shows how this approach enables the strategies of multinational corporations which are aiming to become data custodians of Africa’s emerging economies. Little attention has been paid to the geographical distribution of capacity building nor to the ways in which data-driven restructuring may alter existing livelihoods. As African economies become increasingly ‘digital’, data will become a source of power in economic governance. Current frameworks amount to a kind of industrial policy that supports the learning and innovation of foreign firms. The article aims to move D4D away from the focus on humanitarianism towards economic development, considering the opportunities for African citizens to benefit from their data as a source of revenue, knowledge and power. The conclusion suggests lines of inquiry for taking research further

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