Community targeting for povery reduction: lessons from developing countries

This repository item contains a single issue of The Pardee Papers, a series papers that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The Pardee Papers series features working papers by Pardee Center Fellows and other invited authors. Papers in this series explore current and future challenges by anticipating the pathways to human progress, human development, and human well-being. This series includes papers on a wide range of topics, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives and a development orientation.This paper analyzes the efficacy of the community-based targeting approach as a means of identifying the poor in anti-poverty programs. It examines the performance of 30 community-targeted programs in developing countries, both in terms of the technique used to identify beneficiaries as well as broader targeting “design” issues such as targeting criteria, monitoring, transparency, accountability, elite capture, and corruption. This paper is intended to be a timely contribution to ongoing policy debate on poverty targeting in which community-based approaches are enjoying growing support. Community-targeted interventions have tremendous potential to benefit the poor; the technique is undoubtedly preferable to universal poverty programs whose benefits are thinly spread across the entire population. Moreover, robust, program-specific design protocols are seen as critical success-inducing factors; monitoring, transparency, and accountability have a strong positive correlation with targeting performance, while elite capture – defined as the ability of a handful of individuals to hijack the beneficiary selection or benefit transfer process – and corruption are negatively correlated. Further, community targeting is better attuned to communities where societal tensions and extreme disparity are not a preexisting concern and where there is no known tendency towards cultural exclusion based on criteria not linked to poverty levels. On the other hand, the technique is not suited to situations where poverty reduction impacts are strictly dependent on following stipulated criteria. Communities inevitably digress from the criteria, and any efforts to check this tendency offsets the potential benefit from allowing them to use local knowledge. Community targeting is also no recommended for programs where aggregation of poverty data is a high priority, such as programs that seek to create national or regional poverty rankings

Does nuclear energy have a future?

This repository item contains a single issue of The Pardee Papers, a series papers that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The Pardee Papers series features working papers by Pardee Center Fellows and other invited authors. Papers in this series explore current and future challenges by anticipating the pathways to human progress, human development, and human well-being. This series includes papers on a wide range of topics, with a special emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives and a development orientation.Nuclear energy optimists suggest that a nuclear renaissance is under way. However, beyond such claims there is little objective analysis that corroborates the positive outlook. In fact, literature on nuclear energy is highly polarized, with much of the debate being situated within the ideological and normative realms. This paper moves away from the what we should to the what is likely in order to present a realistic projection of the potential for the increased development of nuclear energy over the next two to three decades. It examines the relative importance of the key determinant factors likely to affect the future of nuclear power in a cost-benefit framework. The factors examined include economic competitiveness, concern for climate change, safety and security issues related to nuclear technology, public perception about the energy source, and the quest for energy security. This analysis suggests that nuclear energy is likely to remain economically uncompetitive and investment-starved over the projected period. Public perceptions, both in the developed and developing world, are also likely to become increasingly wary. Measures required to improve the popular sentiment–better safety and security–would increase costs substantially without guaranteeing positive transformation in the outlook. This is especially true as the proliferation risks present a virtually insurmountable barrier. These impediments would overshadow nuclear power’s merit in terms of carbon emission reductions as well as its partial attractiveness in terms of reducing energy vulnerability of countries. Moeed Yusuf is a Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University and a doctoral candidate and Teaching Fellow in the BU Political Science Department. He is also a Research Fellow at Strategic and Economic Policy Research, Pakistan. His research interests focus on strategic and development issues related to South Asia. This paper was inspired by his recent research (for the Brookings Institution) that documented the trend in projections about nuclear proliferation since the beginning of the Cold War

Brokered bargaining: nuclear crises between middle powers

This dissertation studies nuclear crisis behavior. Specifically, it theorizes behavior between middle powers with nuclear weapons that are nested within a world with larger hegemonic states. The situation represents a paradigm shift from the bipolar context of the Cold War where all nuclear crises involved one or both superpowers, thereby implying an absence of stronger third parties that could fundamentally alter their crisis behavior. We have focused on the India-Pakistan rivalry, and specifically on their three nuclear crises since South Asia's overt nuclearization: the 1999 Kargil crisis; the 2001-02 standoff; and the 2008 Mumbai crisis. These three case studies form the universe of crises between two middle power nuclear states with stronger third parties present to influence their behavior. Using the structured focused comparison method and relying on existing empirical analyses of these crises, interviews with relevant officials and experts, and newspaper archival research, we have process-traced the key developments in each crisis to identify the processes and mechanisms underpinning behavior. The dissertation argues that middle power nuclear crises ought to be seen as trilateral engagements that accord a key crisis management role to stronger third parties. Crisis behavior can be best understood through "brokered bargaining" - defined as a three-cornered bargaining exercise between the two principal antagonists and a third party which is primarily seeking crisis de-escalation. Brokered bargaining theory predicts that this three-cornered engagement will play out in the expected manner each time a middle power nuclear crisis occurs as long as the outside actors do not intervene as competitor third parties. We reject theories that posit the dynamics of bilateral nuclear deterrence as the principal drivers of de-escalation, and equally, analyses that see third parties as standalone explanations for peaceful outcomes. We contend that it is the process of trilateral interaction encompassed by the brokered bargaining model and marked by a recursive interplay of perceptions, expectations, incentives, and strategies of the three actors that shapes crisis behavior, and in turn, trajectories and outcomes. The research is generalizable to potential nuclear rivalries in the Middle East and remains relevant to the Sino-Indian dyad and rivalries on the Korean peninsula.2019-05-3

Between war and peace : the Afghanistan essays

“This 2018 short-essay series by the Jinnah Institute (JI) reflects a range of Pakistani thought leadership on Afghanistan and it’s complex history with Islamabad. With the region in the current crosshairs of a seemingly intractable conflict, these essays attempt to spur old and new thinking on the history of Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan and existing challenges. The essays cover a range of subject matter on Afghanistan-Pakistan including efforts for peace and reconciliation, threats to security, the broader geopolitical dynamic, and the role of civil society and economy. This essay titled ‘Conflict in Afghanistan: Behind the Pak-US Disconnect’ examines the widening disconnect between Washington and Islamabad on the conflict in Afghanistan. It delves into emerging strategic divergences and explores possible albeit narrow pathways for cooperation on reconciliation”

Jinnah Institute Policy Brief; November 25, 2010

“India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, declaring their respective capabilities to the world for the first time. With the tests came tremendous global attention which required a responsible and mature response from both sides. Twelve years on, one is compelled to accept significant progress in terms of ensuring stable deterrence. Much of this however is attributable to individual actions by both sides. Mutual cooperation has been sluggish; this, by itself, implies a suboptimal state as far as strategic stability is concerned. It is a misnomer for geographically contiguous nuclear powers to believe that the nuclear environment can be truly stable without active collaboration with the adversary aimed at minimizing risks. Indeed, as many continue to highlight, the stakes are simply too high for the nuclear aspect to be held hostage to the overall state of the Pakistan-India relationship. Yet, this is precisely what these two South Asian powers are guilty of. This security brief analyzes the state of strategic stability in South Asia. The ingredients of stable deterrence are highlighted and Pakistan and India’s progress towards this ideal is evaluated. Practical recommendations for enhancing stability are presented subsequently. These can be taken up in future track-I or track-II deliberations.

Decoding Pakistan's 'strategic shift' in Afghanistan

Moeed Yusu

Jinnah Institute Policy brief; July 25, 2011.

“This Policy Brief summarizes the perceptions of Pakistani foreign policy elite about Pakistan’s strategy and interests in Afghanistan, its view of the impending “end game”, and the implications of its policies at better understanding Pakistan’s outlook towards the evolving situation in Afghanistan.” " Pakistani policy faces a dilemma vis-à- vis the U.S. On the one hand, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan are believed to be causing an internal backlash in terms of militancy and deepening the state-society rift within Pakistan. On the other hand, Pakistani policy elite appreciate that a premature U.S. troop withdrawal would lead to added instability in Afghanistan.” "This Report is the joint product of the Jinnah Institute and United States Institute of Peace”