Does Governance Matter? Yes, No or Maybe - Some Evidence from Developing Asia

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between economic growth and governance performance in Asian developing economies. This exploration yields some interesting conclusions. First, notwithstanding its tremendous economic achievements, the state of governance in Asia is not stellar by international comparison. Indeed, a majority of these countries seem to suffer from a governance deficit. Second, contrary to our expectation, data do not suggest any strong positive link between governance and growth: paradoxically, countries that exhibit surpluses in governance on average grew much slower than those with deficits. The paper ends with some conjecture about this apparent paradox.Governance, Institutions, Growth and Asia

Measuring Global Poverty Right Mission Impossible?

The international community is committed to millennium development goals which postulate a vision of global development that makes eliminating poverty and sustaining development the overriding objective of global development efforts. In the hierarchy of the MDGs, the first and foremost goal is to reduce by half, between 19902015, the proportion of people whose income is less than a dollar a day (a widely used yardstick to measure extreme poverty). However, estimating such poverty across developing countries and globally is by no means a simple exercise nor has it yielded unambiguous results. This article provides a brief summary of the state of the art in global poverty estimates, including the problems as well as the possible solutions.Poverty Right, international community, global development, poverty

Measuring Global Poverty Right - Mission Impossible?

The international community is committed to millennium development goals which postulate a vision of global development that makes eliminating poverty and sustaining development the overriding objective of global development efforts. In the hierarchy of the MDGs, the first and foremost goal is to reduce by half, between 1990–2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than a dollar a day (a widely used yardstick to measure extreme poverty). However, estimating such poverty across developing countries and globally is by no means a simple exercise nor has it yielded unambiguous results. This article provides a brief summary of the state of the art in global poverty estimates, including the problems as well as the possible solutions.

Entrepreneurship and mutuality: social capital in processes and practices.

Social capital, which offers the broader theoretical construct to which networks and networking relate, is now recognized as an important influence in entrepreneurship. Broadly understood as resources embedded in networks and accessed through social connections, research has mainly focused on measuring structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of the concept. While useful, these measurements tell us little about how social capital, as a relational artefact and connecting mechanism, actually works in practice. As a social phenomenon which exists between individuals and contextualized through social networks and groups, we draw upon established social theory to offer an enhanced practical understanding of social capital - what it does and how it operates. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Robert Putnam, we contribute to understanding entrepreneurship as a socially situated and influenced practice. From this perspective, our unit of analysis is the context within which entrepreneurs are embedded. We explored the situated narratives and practices of a group of 15 entrepreneurs from 'Inisgrianan', a small town in the northwest of Ireland. We adopted a qualitative approach, utilizing an interpretive naturalistic philosophy. Findings show how social capital can enable, and how the mutuality of shared interests allows, encourages and engages entrepreneurs in sharing entrepreneurial expertise

E-health: Determinants, opportunities, challenges and the way forward for countries in the WHO African Region

BACKGROUND: The implementation of the 58(th )World Health Assembly resolution on e-health will pose a major challenge for the Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region due to lack of information and communications technology (ICT) and mass Internet connectivity, compounded by a paucity of ICT-related knowledge and skills. The key objectives of this article are to: (i) explore the key determinants of personal computers (PCs), telephone mainline and cellular and Internet penetration/connectivity in the African Region; and (ii) to propose actions needed to create an enabling environment for e-health services growth and utilization in the Region. METHODS: The effects of school enrolment, per capita income and governance variables on the number of PCs, telephone mainlines, cellular phone subscribers and Internet users were estimated using a double-log regression model and cross-sectional data on various Member States in the African Region. The analysis was based on 45 of the 46 countries that comprise the Region. The data were obtained from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) sources. RESULTS: There were a number of main findings: (i) the adult literacy and total number of Internet users had a statistically significant (at 5% level in a t-distribution test) positive effect on the number of PCs in a country; (ii) the combined school enrolment rate and per capita income had a statistically significant direct effect on the number of telephone mainlines and cellular telephone subscribers; (iii) the regulatory quality had statistically significant negative effect on the number of telephone mainlines; (iv) similarly, the combined school enrolment ratio and the number of telephone mainlines had a statistically significant positive relationship with Internet usage; and (v) there were major inequalities in ICT connectivity between upper-middle, lower-middle and low income countries in the Region. By focusing on the adoption of specific technologies we attempted to interpret correlates in terms of relationships instead of absolute "causals". CONCLUSION: In order to improve access to health care, especially for the majority of Africans living in remote rural areas, there is need to boost the availability and utilization of e-health services. Thus, universal access to e-health ought to be a vision for all countries in the African Region. Each country ought to develop a road map in a strategic e-health plan that will, over time, enable its citizens to realize that vision

Poverty and Wellbeing Impacts of Microfinance : What Do We Know?

Over the last 35 years, microfinance has been generally regarded as an effective policy tool in the fight against poverty. Yet, the question of whether access to credit leads to poverty reduction and improved wellbeing remains open. To address this question, we conduct a systematic review of the quantitative literature of microfinance’s impacts in the developing world, and develop a theory of change that links inputs to impacts on several welfare outcomes. Overall, we find that the limited comparability of outcomes and the heterogeneity of microfinance-lending technologies, together with a considerable variation in socio-economic conditions and contexts in which impact studies have been conducted, render the interpretation and generalization of findings intricate. Our results indicate that, at best, microfinance induces short-term dynamism in the financial life of the poor; however, we do not find compelling evidence that this dynamism leads to increases in income, consumption, human capital and assets, and, ultimately, a reduction in poverty