World Development Perspectives最新文献

{"title":"Using evidence to improve and scale up development program in education: A case study from India","authors":"Takao Maruyama","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100542","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While the number of impact evaluations has increased in international development, the use of evidence has remained an issue. This study investigates and conceptualizes how a development agency can use evidence to improve and expand its development programs, taking the case of the Indian NGO “Pratham.” In a series of experiments with researchers, Pratham developed and refined their learning agenda to search for a better strategy to improve children’s foundational learning. Pratham has also regularly conducted a nationwide survey on children’s foundational learning. Data from the nationwide survey demonstrated the problem in children’s foundational learning, and evidence from experiments showed an option for an effective strategy to address it. The search, learning, and communication cycle using data and evidence, conceptualized from the case of Pratham, would enhance the effectiveness of development agencies to better support educational development.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"92073838","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 labour market dilemma of young urban women in India: An outcome of family welfare optimization","authors":"Jajati Keshari Parida,&nbsp;Niharika Bhagavatula","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100540","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper uses a theoretical model to explain the patterns and determinants of labour market participation behaviour of young urban women in India. Based on the National Sample Survey (NSS) data and through probit regression results, it argues that the labour market participation decision of young women is an outcome of the joint utility maximization behaviour of their family. The standard of living of the family, market wage, other family characteristics, including the number of children, adult women in the family, elderly members, and occupation, and gender of the head, etc., are significantly determining their labour market participation; apart from women’s individual characteristics like age (experience) and level of education and training. The empirical result also reflects that the “discouraged worker effect” is stronger than the “added worker phenomenon”. Hence, measures to create jobs in modern services could help boost the stagnant female labour force participation in urban India.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"92073836","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":"Differences in peri-urban and rural farm production decisions amid policy change in Nigeria","authors":"Patrick L. Hatzenbuehler ,&nbsp;George Mavrotas ,&nbsp;Mulubrhan Amare","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100541","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Enhancing productivity and profitability of farm households were key focuses among Nigerian agricultural policymakers in their design of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) of 2011–2015. There were several prominent policy initiatives and market development activities included in the ATA. The main direct effects of implementing them were increased public expenditures on subsidized fertilizer and seeds and increased average productivity among subsidy recipients. There were also indirect effects pertaining to greater awareness of agricultural development initiatives among the public and increased farm input availability. However, due to relatively greater physical and transportation infrastructure in urban relative to rural areas, we hypothesized that farm households in peri-urban regions nearest to markets were better positioned to benefit from such initiatives as compared to rural farm households. In this context, the empirical analysis in this article estimates differences among peri-urban versus rural farm households regarding their crop produce marketing and farm input purchase decisions during the period of ATA policy implementation. The results support the hypothesis that peri-urban farm households increased purchases of farm inputs to a greater degree than did rural farm households as well as had higher crop sales values. Data limitations do not allow for determining the causal reason for relatively higher crop sales values. Overall, the policy and market development activities appear to have achieved some intended outcomes among farm households in both peri-urban and rural areas, but the impacts were most pronounced among households nearest to markets.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"92073837","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":"A critical analysis of selected global sustainability assessment frameworks: Toward integrated approaches to peace and sustainability","authors":"John Lee Candelaria ,&nbsp;Ayyoob Sharifi ,&nbsp;Dahlia Simangan ,&nbsp;Rebeca Maria Ramos Tabosa","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100539","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Achieving sustainable development requires peaceful conditions. However, current sustainability impact assessment tools tend to overlook aspects of positive peace, particularly in societies transitioning from conflict. Recent efforts attempt to address this gap, but the examination of how positive peace indicators integrate into major global sustainability assessment (GSA) frameworks remains underexplored. This study evaluates whether GSA frameworks consider positive peace or the elimination of structural violence and enabling societal conditions that sustain peace. We selected eight GSA frameworks for the analysis: Environmental Performance Index, Global Green Economy Index, Green Growth Index, Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index, Happy Planet Index, Planetary Adjusted Human Development Index, Sustainable Development Goals Index, and Sustainable Society Index. We first evaluated the eight GSA frameworks using the Bellagio Sustainability Assessment and Measurement Principles (BellagioSTAMP) covering guiding vision, essential considerations, adequate scope, framework and indicators, transparency, effective communication, broad participation, and continuity and capacity. Then we analyzed consolidated indicators from the frameworks to determine if they pay balanced attention to different sustainability dimensions and integrate positive peace. While evaluation using BellagioSTAMP is generally satisfactory, positive peace is inadequately addressed in some frameworks, despite peace being a prerequisite for sustainable development. The study results can inform the development of assessment frameworks that better integrate the components of peace and sustainability. The study also highlights the importance of positive peace in achieving sustainable development and the need to ensure assessment frameworks inform actions toward building peaceful communities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49710481","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":"Beyond the numbers: Group formation in the artisanal and small-scale mining in Ghana","authors":"Richard Oppong Ntiri,&nbsp;Sabina Appiah-Boateng,&nbsp;Frederick Koomson","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100538","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The dramatic increase in Artisanal and Small-scale gold mining (ASM) in the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, is not a happenstance. This has been due to the steady decline in livelihoods based on agriculture and the increasing destitution of many households in these areas. In Ghana, the ASM sector is ever-expanding, providing direct employment for many individuals. The nature of the activity, however, is labour-intensive and thus requires the miners to collaborate and work in groups. Even though traditionally, numbers have mattered in group formation, this paper argues that size is not a critical consideration in forming mining groups. Based on fieldwork in the Birim North District of Ghana using focus group discussions and interviews, the paper found that issues of leadership, reciprocity, trust, and mutual respect are instrumental in forming ASM groups. Not discounting the strengthening of their bonds through multiple locations, the respondents are empathic that rather than size, issues of leadership qualities and conformity to rules and arrangements are vital considerations for group formation. It is recommended that stakeholders take a critical look at ASM to sanitise and improve the perception of the ASM miners as they are well-organised. Still, if they have internal structures which are well organised, they can be relied upon in a comprehensive sanitization.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49732636","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":"Is the problem driven iterative adaptation approach (PDIA) a panacea for public financial management reform? Evidence from six African countries","authors":"Andrew Lawson ,&nbsp;Jamelia Harris","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100526","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100526","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article assesses the application of the problem driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) approach to public financial management reform in six African countries. It draws on primary data collected using a mix of interviews, overt participation observations and a short survey. PDIA responds to shortcomings in orthodox approaches to reform and technical assistance in developing countries. It stresses local solutions to local problems, achieved through experimentation and adaptation. The principles of PDIA are appealing, but its empirical assessment is in its infancy. This study aims to fill part of this gap. Findings show that PDIA delivers results in the short-term, particularly in cases where there is an influential authorising agent and dedicated team. Progress was less forthcoming for reforms that required high level political buy-in from senior officials. The approach does exceptionally well to develop staff capability, transferable skills, and local empowerment to solve local problems, thus potentially benefitting future reforms.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48721594","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":"What drives activity of banking agents? Evidence from Rural India","authors":"Sanal Gupta,&nbsp;Puran Singh","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100522","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100522","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article investigates previously unexplored predictors of banking agents’ activity using a primary dataset of agents operational in a rural setting in India. We measure banking agents’ activity using their monthly transaction count and regress it on seven predictor categories. We provide evidence of the role of operational practices, agents’ commitment, resources, support, and market characteristics, in agents’ banking activity. We also identify specific factors that drive superior performance by the agents. The findings inform policy-making groups and implementing agencies of agent banking on agent selection criteria, best practices, and supervision mechanisms to ensure the agent banking model’s effectiveness.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46919323","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":"Bottom-up and bottom-top institutional changes in environmental management in the Niger Delta","authors":"Olalekan Adekola ,&nbsp;Alan Grainger","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100491","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100491","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span><span>Research into how changes occur in repeated human practices, or ‘institutions’, is expanding rapidly. Yet there is still only limited understanding of how institutional change involves social networks. To address this gap this paper proposes a new Network Communication Framework, which predicts how ‘bottom-up’ and ‘bottom-top’ institutional changes can arise through interplays between state and civil society networks. While ‘top-down’ institutional change requires perfect compliance with state policies by a civil society network in a ‘strong state’, bottom-up institutional change can occur in a ‘weak state’ when a civil society network has high autonomy and adapts to a vacuum in state institutions at local scale by devising new informal institutions itself. Bottom-top institutional change, proposed here for the first time, can occur when a state network has a moderate ability to enforce its formal institutions throughout a country and a civil society network has moderate autonomy, and members of the two networks jointly negotiate new hybrid informal institutions. This paper reports evidence from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria for: (a) a bottom-up change by a clan network in its traditional </span>land rights institutions which enabled it to sell communal land to an oil company; and (b) a bottom-top change in timber harvesting institutions, negotiated between members of a logging network and an informal government network (comprising staff of the state forestry department), which allowed loggers to extract more timber than permitted under formal state institutions. The example of bottom-up institutional change reported here leads to higher </span>environmental impacts than under the original informal traditional institutions, showing that autonomous bottom-up change is not always as environmentally benevolent as previously assumed, though environmental impacts will vary according to circumstances. The example of bottom-top institutional change has higher environmental impacts than under perfectly implemented formal state institutions. This is likely to be typical of bottom-top changes generally, and shows that it is difficult to treat overlogging as ‘illegal logging’ if state personnel are complicit in its operation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46574969","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":"Ecological shocks and children’s school attendance and farm work in Ghana","authors":"Edward Martey ,&nbsp;Prince M. Etwire ,&nbsp;Jonathan Mockshell ,&nbsp;Ralph Armah ,&nbsp;Eli Akorsikumah","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100529","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100529","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Accelerating the education of children and reducing child labor in agriculture remains an important development pathway to preventing intergenerational poverty and achieving the sustainable development goals. While several studies have analyzed the impact of ecological stressors on yield, income, and food security, there is limited understanding of the linkages of prevailing ecological shocks to child education and farm work. In this paper, we examine the effect of ecological shocks of pest and weed invasion on children’s school attendance and working hours on the farm using the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS). We employ a multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) model that corrects for selection bias and endogeneity originating from both observed and unobserved heterogeneity. The results show that double shocks (pests and weeds) reduced the number of children attending school by 11% and increased children’s on-farm working hours by 0.75 h. Comparatively, the decline in the number of children attending school due to weed invasion (0.88) is higher than the decline due to pest invasion (0.43). Furthermore, weed invasion increases children’s on-farm working hours by 0.05 h while pest invasion reduces children’s on-farm working hours by 0.08 h. Increasing access to improved agricultural technologies bundled with credit and policies are critical to reducing the threats from ecological shocks and improving farmers’ welfare. To avert the decline in school attendance and children’s working hours requires training farmers to reduce the practice of continuous cropping and to embrace crop rotation and fallow to reduce the spread of pests and weeds.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48903705","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":"Community forest legislation in India: Rights-based polycentrism or responsibilization?","authors":"Aabha Ballal ,&nbsp;Asi Guha ,&nbsp;Sandeep Tambe ,&nbsp;Suprava Patnaik ,&nbsp;Elphin Tom Joe","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100525","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100525","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In India, forest rights of forest-dependent communities are democratized and decentralized under the Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA). This paper attempts to explain the weak performance of the community forest resource rights recognized under this legislation. We begin by discerning the enabling and impeding factors that have influenced the operationalization of the community forest resource rights. We found that support from civil society has been crucial in building collective action and social capital. Technical, financial and bureaucratic hindrances in addition to a conflicting regulatory framework were the major barriers. We conceptualized the framework of rights-based polycentrism by combining the rights-based approach and polycentrism, and using this lens analyzed the design of the community forest resource rights. We found that the legislation falls short of making the state accountable and repositioning the role of the forest department as a duty bearer. The Act assigns responsibilities of biodiversity conservation, protection of catchments, sustainable resource use and preservation from destructive practices to the local communities, without provisioning additional funds or functionaries. Also, the state has not played an enabling role by building agency, capacity and institutions, and continues to be substantially invested in local forest management decisions. We opine that unless these design gaps in the legislation are plugged, it will result in rights-based responsibilization and adversely impact the scaling up of decentralized forest governance. Other developing nations can also benefit from using the rights-based polycentrism lens to strengthen the design of their sustainable forest management policy.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49632795","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}