What Do We Know About the Effects of Private Sector Engagement?

Development cooperation has created a range of instruments to support private companies wishing to invest in partner countries whilst also pursuing development goals. These instruments are primarily expected to mobilise the additional funding needed to finance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But as to how far private sector engagement is achieving this and other objectives, until now the only research has taken the form of evaluations and academic studies on individual projects and instruments. In the evaluation synthesis by DEval (Habbel et al., 2021) the available evidence on private sector engagement is analysed systematically for the first time. This policy brief summarises the most important findings and recommendations from the evaluation synthesis by DEval

Results-Based Bilateral Development Cooperation: The triad of country strategy - (development cooperation) programme - module

In recent years, Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has launched fundamental reforms. These are designed to enable bilateral official development cooperation to make a more targeted and effective contribution towards implementing the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement. Reform processes such as 'BMZ 2030' and the joint procedural reform are important steps in this regard. In its report on the results orientation and evaluability of development cooperation programmes, DEval delivers initial findings on the application of the new procedures and requirements under the joint procedural reform, and their effects. This policy brief summarises the key findings of this evaluation

Delineating neural responses and functional connectivity changes during vestibular and nociceptive stimulation reveal the uniqueness of cortical vestibular processing

Vestibular information is ubiquitous and often processed jointly with visual, somatosensory and proprioceptive information. Among the cortical brain regions associated with human vestibular processing, area OP2 in the parietal operculum has been proposed as vestibular core region. However, delineating responses uniquely to vestibular stimulation in this region using neuroimaging is challenging for several reasons: First, the parietal operculum is a cytoarchitectonically heterogeneous region responding to multisensory stimulation. Second, artificial vestibular stimulation evokes confounding somatosensory and nociceptive responses blurring responses contributing to vestibular perception. Furthermore, immediate effects of vestibular stimulation on the organization of functional networks have not been investigated in detail yet. Using high resolution neuroimaging in a task-based and functional connectivity approach, we compared two equally salient stimuli-unilateral galvanic vestibular (GVS) and galvanic nociceptive stimulation (GNS)-to disentangle the processing of both modalities in the parietal operculum and characterize their effects on functional network architecture. GNS and GVS gave joint responses in area OP1, 3, 4, and the anterior and middle insula, but not in area OP2. GVS gave stronger responses in the parietal operculum just adjacent to OP3 and OP4, whereas GNS evoked stronger responses in area OP1, 3 and 4. Our results underline the importance of considering this common pathway when interpreting vestibular neuroimaging experiments and underpin the role of area OP2 in central vestibular processing. Global network changes were found during GNS, but not during GVS. This lack of network reconfiguration despite the saliency of GVS may reflect the continuous processing of vestibular information in the awake human

Prediction contribution of the cranial collateral circulation to the clinical and radiological outcome of ischemic stroke

Background and Aim: The extent of penumbra tissue and outcome in stroke patients depend on the collateral cranial vasculature. To provide optimal individualized care for stroke patients in the emergency room setting we investigated the predictive capability of a stringent evaluation of the collateral vessels in ischemic stroke on clinical outcome and infarct size. Methods: We retrospectively studied uniform clinical and radiological data of 686 consecutive patients admitted to the emergency department with suspected acute ischemic stroke. Cranial collateral vasculature status was graded using the initial CT-angiography. Outcome was measured by mRS, NIHSS and final infarct size at hospital discharge. All data were used to build a linear regression model to predict the patients´ outcome. Results: Univariate and multivariate analyses showed significant effects of the whole brain collateral vessel score on all outcome variables. Atherosclerosis and piale collateral status were associated with the final infarct volume (FIV). Atherosclerosis and age were associated with the NIHSS at discharge. The presence of atherosclerosis, glucose level on admission and age were associated with the mRS at discharge. The multivariate models were able to predict 29% of the variance of the mRS at discharge, 24% of the variance in FIV and 17% of the variance of the NIHSS at discharge. The whole brain collateral status and the presence of atherosclerosis were the most relevant predictors for the clinical and radiological outcome. Conclusion: The whole brain collateral vasculature status is clearly associated with clinical and radiological outcome but in a multivariate model seems not sufficiently predictive for FIV, mRS and NIHSS outcome at discharge in non-preselected patients admitted to the emergency department with ischemic stroke

The Promotion of Sustainable Supply Chains Based on the Example of the Textile Sector: The Mix of Instruments in German Development Cooperation

Global supply chains - especially in the textile sector - face many social and environmental challenges to sustainability. The public has become increasingly aware of these challenges in the wake of disasters such as the fire in the Ali Enterprises textile factory in Pakistan in 2012 and the collapse of the Rana Plaza textile factory in Bangladesh in 2013. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has stated its intention to promote fair and sustainable global textile supply chains. For this reason, the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval) examined the interaction between the instruments and measures deployed in German development cooperation (DC) to promote sustainable global supply chains in the textile sector. This policy brief presents key findings and recommendations of the evaluation

Wirkungsorientierte bilaterale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit? Der Dreiklang aus Länderstrategie, EZ-Programm und Modul

Das Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) hat in den letzten Jahren grundlegende Reformen angestoßen, damit die staatliche bilaterale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (EZ) gezielter und wirksamer zur Umsetzung der Agenda 2030 und des Pariser Klimaabkommens beitragen kann. Dazu zählen Reformprozesse wie "BMZ 2030", die Gemeinsame Verfahrensreform und ein neues Steuerungsmodell - der Dreiklang - das ein Zielsystem auf drei Ebenen umfasst. In seinem Evaluierungsbericht zur Wirkungsorientierung und Evaluierbarkeit von EZ-Programmen stellt das DEval erste Erkenntnisse zur Anwendung und zu den Auswirkungen der neuen Verfahren und Vorgaben vor und analysiert deren Wirkungsorientierung. Dieser Policy Brief fasst die zentralen Ergebnisse aus dieser Evaluierung zusammen

In Vivo Localization of the Human Velocity Storage Mechanism and Its Core Cerebellar Networks by Means of Galvanic-Vestibular Afternystagmus and fMRI.

Humans are able to estimate head movements accurately despite the short half-life of information coming from our inner ear motion sensors. The observation that the central angular velocity estimate outlives the decaying signal of the semicircular canal afferents led to the concept of a velocity storage mechanism (VSM). The VSM can be activated via visual and vestibular modalities and becomes manifest in ocular motor responses after sustained stimulation like whole-body rotations, optokinetic or galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS). The VSM has been the focus of many computational modelling approaches; little attention though has been paid to discover its actual structural correlates. Animal studies localized the VSM in the medial and superior vestibular nuclei. A significant modulation by cerebellar circuitries including the uvula and nodulus has been proposed. Nevertheless, the corresponding neuroanatomical structures in humans have not been identified so far. The aim of the present study was to delineate the neural substrates of the VSM using high-resolution infratentorial fMRI with a fast T2* sequence optimized for infratentorial neuroimaging and via video-oculography (VOG). The neuroimaging experiment (n=20) gave first in vivo evidence for an involvement of the vestibular nuclei in the VSM and substantiate a crucial role for cerebellar circuitries. Our results emphasize the importance of cerebellar feedback loops in VSM most likely represented by signal increases in vestibulo-cerebellar hubs like the uvula and nodulus and lobule VIIIA. The delineated activation maps give new insights regarding the function and embedment of Crus I, Crus II, and lobule VII and VIII in the human vestibular system

Functional hierarchy of oculomotor and visual motion subnetworks within the human cortical optokinetic system

© 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. Optokinetic look nystagmus (look OKN) is known to engage cortical visual motion and oculomotor hubs. Their functional network hierarchy, however, and the role of the cingulate eye field (CEF) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in particular have not been investigated. We used look OKN in fMRI to identify all cortical visual motion and oculomotor hubs involved. Using these activations as seed regions, we employed hierarchical clustering in two differing resting state conditions from a separate public data set. Robust activations in the CEF highlight its functional role in OKN and involvement in higher order oculomotor control. Deactivation patterns indicate a decreased modulatory involvement of the DLPFC. The hierarchical clustering revealed a changeable organization of the eye fields, hMT, V3A, and V6 depending on the resting state condition, segregating executive from higher order visual subnetworks. Overall, hierarchical clustering seems to allow for a robust delineation of physiological cortical networks

Ausgewählte Erkenntnisse zu methodischen Qualitätsstandards in Projektevaluierungen: Anwendungsbeispiele aus der Evaluierungspraxis von elf Organisationen der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit

Die Anwendung von Qualitätsstandards ist von großer Bedeutung für Evaluierungen in der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (EZ), damit sie ihren drei Funktionen gerecht werden können: praxisrelevante Erkenntnisse zu generieren, Lernen zu fördern und die Rechenschaftslegung zu stärken. Die Leitlinien des Bundesministeriums für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) zu Evaluierungen betrachten dabei die Qualitätsstandards des Entwicklungsausschusses der Organisation für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (OECD­DAC) und der Gesellschaft für Evaluation (DeGEval) als wesentlich für die Güte von Evaluierungen in der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (BMZ, 2021)