Journal of Development Policy and Practice最新文献

{"title":"Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Sub-regional Analysis of Socio-economic and Agriculture Sectors in Karnataka, India","authors":"K. Raju, R. Deshpande, Satyasiba Bedamatta","doi":"10.1177/2455133316676402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133316676402","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Vulnerability assessments can play a vital role in the designing of appropriate adaptation and mitigation policies targeted towards climate change and its impacts on ecosystems, and for those who depend upon the sensitive resources for their livelihoods and well-being. Vulnerability is often reflected in the economic system as well as the socio-economic features of the population living in that system. This article attempts to build a picture of the socio-economic context of vulnerability by focusing on indicators that measure both the state of socio-economic development of the people as well as their capacity to progress further. The result of agricultural vulnerability index suggests indicators such as cropping intensity, gross irrigated area and commercial crop area are the major drivers in determining the vulnerability of the districts of Karnataka. The socio-economic and livelihood index depicts indicators like per capita income, population density and percentage of literacy rate are the major drivers and contribute to the overall livelihood vulnerability of districts.","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128950552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trends in Public Debt in India: Lessons from Greek Crisis?","authors":"S. Bhattacharjee, Dakshita Das","doi":"10.1177/2455133316676418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133316676418","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract There is not much new in the divide in economic literature between fiscal and monetary policy; what is new post-2008 is the emergence of the role of money supply and that of public debt to prominence as the instrument of choice for central banks and the government treasury. To a large degree, money supply and public debt now eclipsed the central role variables such as tax and interest rates had played in the setting of economic policies in countries both developed and developing. While literature is evaluating how the change in the role of these stock parameters to that of policy variables will play out, this article takes up the more mundane task of examining only one of them, which is public debt in the context of India. We believe that there is a key reason to do so. The Indian government has not used public debt as an active policy tool, so far, even as several countries have begun to do so (Mohanty, 2012). Instead, it has held on to a general desideratum of the need to reduce it; borne out of the scare of the balance of payments crisis of 1991. But 25 years after the crisis, it is important to examine if there is a conscious understanding within the government for the need to measure and deploy public debt especially as the room for active deployment of other fiscal tools, namely taxation is circumscribed. By FY14 India’s public debt (centre and states combined), as percentage of GDP, stood at 66.7 per cent; it was 70.6 per cent in FY09. For the sake of comparison, the world’s most indebted countries include Greece, of course, with its general government net debt at 173 per cent of its GDP. Others in the top 20 include Italy, Egypt, Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States of America. By current estimates, India does not rank amongst the most indebted countries of the world. But is the position, one of strength or of a passive arrival that offers little or no policy direction to the government? Moreover, this article also argues that in the absence of such direction, there has been a build-up of debt in the economy instead of a reduction. Most of that build-up has been sought to be balanced by recourse to non-tax revenue. As fresh options to tap non-tax revenue dry up, public debt could emerge as the new pressure point for the economy.","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129565035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"District Development and Diversity Index: A Methodology That Promotes Evaluation and Assessment of Development and Welfare Programmes in India","authors":"A. Shariff","doi":"10.1177/2455133316676415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133316676415","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A common concern in the inclusive development discourses across India has been the lack of civil society and community level activities in the spheres of governance and participation in public spaces amongst the deprived and excluded communities. To address this issue, the author has first computed the ‘district development index’ for all districts of India, as well as ‘diversity’ (of the components of development) indices according to socio-religious community (SRC) groups, especially created from the raw data drawn from Government of India sources. Using these indices, a methodology is developed that supports a ȁresearch-cum-action’ programme that enables better implementation of a number of components of the government’s poverty alleviation initiatives and allows their monitoring and evaluation. The budgetary allocation flows down from the national level to the states and then to the districts; and the districts are the grassroots level budgetary depositories. Through them, funds are carried forward to urban municipalities, village panchayats and to the doorsteps of the communities living in them. Policy engagements of trained civil society and community groups have high potential to be heard, so as to address the issues of social, economic and educational entitlements. This article reports experiences from recent field visits and interactions with selected civil society and community organisations from the states of Rajasthan, Haryana, Assam, West Bengal and Karnataka.","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131038906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Aligning Skills with Jobs","authors":"Dilip Chenoy","doi":"10.1177/2455133316677662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133316677662","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract India has a young population; 47 per cent of the population is below the age of 24. Over 12.8 million people enter the workforce every year. Only about 10 per cent of the workforce has received some form of either formal or informal training. The training capacity in 2008 was 3.1 million per year. Despite the training capacity and the number of entrants to the workforce, a large number of employers faced difficulty while filling entry-level vacancies. Studies brought out the fact that only about one-third of those completing courses from a variety of educational and training institutes were employable. To address various issues in the skill development space and to involve the employers in the skill sector, in 2008, the Government of India announced the setting up of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) as a public–private partnership (PPP). This article brings out the impact of the efforts made by the NSDC to project skill gaps, identify job roles and get employers to lead the process of identifying skill gaps, creating standards for job roles, increasing the skill training capacity and aligning trainings with jobs. The article highlights the work done by Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) and the roll-out of the National Skill Certification and Monetary Reward Scheme (known as STAR), as well as the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), with a view to encourage youth to take up skill programmes that are aligned to specific job roles. This article also reviews the recent initiatives and some of the challenges, and the way forward to aligning skills with jobs.","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125792291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Complex Nature of Policy Research Today","authors":"Bobby John, Amir Ullah Khan","doi":"10.1177/2455929616684432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455929616684432","url":null,"abstract":"This time, the Journal of Development Policy and Practice (JDPP) brings together a combination of issues that cover a broad spectrum of contemporary challenges faced by public policy and the development sector. Climate change and public debt are concerns that are transnational. A globalised world has a large crisis on its hands, with climate change in the recent past impacting the weather, cropping patterns, disease outbreaks, unpredictable droughts and surprising floods. At the same time, monetary policy in the United States impacts, almost in real time, capital markets in faraway lands. Interest rates in Japan hold the key to money supply across several borders, and profligate governments in continental Europe brought not only the continent but also all of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of powerful nations to near shutdown. This issue’s articles bring out the diversity of development concerns that occupy public policy across the globe today. Abusaleh Shariff’s article on the District Diversity Index—A Methodology That Promotes Evaluation and Assessment of Development and Welfare Programmes in India—makes a case for linking of communities with governance at the local level to achieve inclusive development. By highlighting Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), the bureaucracy and the community as stakeholders in the process, the article draws attention to the need to better equip existing institutions or create new ones to take on a more proactive role to bring about economic and social development. During the course of his field research, the author also finds essential programmatic items which would address improvements in education, health and material well-being. The article also discusses some disturbing issues that concern the marginalised and vulnerable minorities and their space in the policymaking dialogue. With people all over the world being confronted with the reality of climate change, a detailed sub-regional analysis of socio-economic and agriculture sectors in Karnataka by K. V. Raju, R. S. Deshpande and Satyasiba Bedamatta attempts an understanding of the socio-economic context of climate change. The study focuses on indicators that measure both the state of socio-economic development of people as well as their capacity to progress. By using an approach different Editorial","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"115 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132544605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing the Poverty Impact of India’s Largest Livelihood Security Programme: A Study Based on 68th Round of NSSO","authors":"S. Dey","doi":"10.1177/2455133316671801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133316671801","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The enactment of India’s historic livelihood guarantee programme in the form of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has been coterminous with a phase of rapid decline in India’s rural poverty rates. This naturally motivates the question as to whether the observed decline in rural poverty can be attributed, at least partly, to efficient targeting and implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS). This study underscores the fact that the welfare impact of anti-poverty programmes such as the MNREGS is critically dependent on whether these programmes actually reach the intended beneficiaries. Using the unit-level data from the 68th round of the NSSO survey on Employment and Unemployment, the article first investigates the possible ‘capture’ of the MNREGS at the national and also at the state levels and the consequent ‘crowding out’ of asset poor rural households. Statistical analysis of household data reveals that although at the national level, the scheme seems to be predominantly directed towards the poor, considerable variations exist among states. After correcting for confounders in treatment and control groups, the study finds that access to MNREGS employment significantly lowers the probability of a rural household of falling in the poverty trap. The article, therefore, concludes that the scheme has the potential of favourably impacting and protecting consumption standards among rural poor. Maximisation of this potential, however, would depend upon proper identification of needy households and rooting out of the pseudo-poor from the ambit of the programme.","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131752594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Analysis and Evaluation of Public Policy: Some Reflections","authors":"A. S. Kumar","doi":"10.1177/2455133316650543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133316650543","url":null,"abstract":"Engaging with senior policymakers can be an unsettling experience anywhere in the world. The more effective among them tend to be extremely well informed and knowledgeable. They understand people’s problems, they are aware of constraints faced by governments and they seem to know the solutions. They appear to have internalised what works, and what does not. An astute political instinct guides them smoothly through the maze of public decision-making. They are able to figure out when to act and when not to. They know that for public policy to be effective and efficient, goal setting should be guided by a long-term vision. They know that the impact is maximised when the focus is on well-defined outcomes, attention is paid to process, and experts and citizens outside the government are widely consulted. And yet, we find that many policy decisions fall short of yielding the best outcomes for people. There are several reasons why this happens. One, public policy has to do with statecraft. Central to statecraft are both policy analysis and political analysis. Public administrators typically find themselves operating in highly complex and fluid, if not volatile, environments. And this makes it extremely difficult for them to separate evidence from speculation, balance economics and emotion and reconcile policy and politics. Two, policymakers are often required to take decisions with very little reliable information, let alone evidence. To illustrate, take the case of violence against children which adversely affects the lives of millions of children across the world (see, for instance, UNICEF, 2014). Violence experienced or even witnessed by children adversely affects the formation of capabilities through both life-course consequences (which include poor educational outcomes, depression, trauma and other behavioural problems) as well as intergenerational impacts. However, the Know Violence in Childhood global learning initiative which is synthesising Article","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"341 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115893407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Socio-economic Well-being—Impact of Wider Highways on the Rural Poor Living in Proximity","authors":"R. Sengupta, D. Coondoo, B. Rout","doi":"10.1177/2455133316650103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133316650103","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article investigates the effect that a highway and its widening would have on the socio-economic lives of the poorer people living in its proximity. Such impact is positive at the micro-level because closer a household is to the highway, greater would be its connectivity. Increased mobility provides access to various economic opportunities and amenities of life. One would expect these positive welfare effects to decline as the approach distance of the highway from the household increases and ultimately to disappear beyond a threshold distance. This premise has been empirically verified here using a household-level baseline survey data pertaining to the project of widening of a stretch of the National Highway 2 (NH2), one of India’s oldest national highways. The article further examines how the widening of the highway enhances the benefit of proximity to the highway by comparing the baseline survey data and the resurvey data, the latter pertaining to a period after the completion of the project. It estimates the partial effect of widening of the highway on the socio-economic well-being of the household of the economies through which it passes using the methodology of non-parametric regression analysis (NRA) and propensity score matching technique (PSMT) cum single/double differencing technique.","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125044856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding ‘Empowerment’","authors":"Ajit Chaudhuri","doi":"10.1177/2455133315612298","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133315612298","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The term ‘empower’ has become ubiquitous within the social development sector. Empowerment has become the answer to most problems, and it is a rare development initiative that does not overtly seek to empower somebody. And yet, the term is used loosely, without regard to the variety of meanings and flavours of power that make it up, rendering it as a standardised and meaningless jargon instead of a subtle and nuanced word with deep implications for development policy and practice. This article looks to understand empowerment in the social development context by exploring its roots in the term ‘power’. It delves into power in its abstract form, in its relationship with structure and agency, in its role in participatory processes and in its function in governance and development. It also goes into the multiple ways by which communities resist power and its imposition upon them. In the process, it explores the thinking of intellectuals such as Riker, Dahl, Lukes, Foucault, Giddens, Olson, de Certeau, Scott and Havel on power and brings these multiple understandings and meanings into a single narrative. It concludes that a single universal definition of power may not be possible given the multiplicity of contexts within which it is used, and that each of these contexts and their underlying assumptions has implications on the usage of the term ‘empower’. It goes on to suggest that those using the term ‘empower’ would be well advised to state their own assumptions on power and the context within which they use it such as, inter alia, is it transferrable via empowerment. Does it exist in an act, or is it universal and always there? Does the empowerment of one necessarily mean the disempowerment of another so that the sum total of power in a community is constant? In the process, the article looks to provide development practitioners with a broad perspective on power so that they use the term ‘empower’ with specificity and precision.","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131303535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Estimates of Poverty and Inequality in the Districts of India, 2011–2012","authors":"S. Mohanty, D. Govil, R. Chauhan, Rockli Kim, S. Subramanian","doi":"10.1177/2455133316642338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2455133316642338","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Though the Census of India and large-scale demographic surveys have bridged the data gap on key demographic and health parameters, estimates on poverty and inequality remain deficient for the districts of India. The estimates on poverty and inequality indices across the states of India conceal large variations among districts. We use an innovative approach to provide consumption-based estimates of poverty and inequality indices in the districts of India by pooling the 66th and 68th rounds of consumption expenditure carried out by the National Sample Survey. The new official poverty line of 2009–2010 and 2011–2012 as recommended by the Rangarajan Committee and adopted by the Government of India is used in the estimation of poverty. A set of poverty and inequality indices, the poverty head count ratio, poverty gap square, the Gini index, Theil index and mean log deviation (MLD) are used to estimate poverty and inequality indices for 623 of the 640 districts in India. Estimates of poverty are obtained by pooling the estimates of 2009-10 and 2011-12. Results suggest wide variations in the level, depth and incidence of poverty among the districts of India irrespective of size, stage and governance in the states. The pattern of inequality is different from that of poverty; it is higher in districts with a higher level of development. Estimates of poverty are consistently correlated with wealth index, agricultural labour and female literacy. Among various factors, the fertility level, wealth index and the proportion of agricultural worker are significant predictors of poverty. Based on the findings, we suggest to increase the sample size to estimate consumption poverty in every alternate quinquennial survey and undertake a special round of survey in multidimensional poverty. Districts ranked low in poverty head count ratio should be accorded high priority in planning and program implementation.","PeriodicalId":243965,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Development Policy and Practice","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121015672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}