World Development Perspectives最新文献

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have been the most used tool to reduce poverty and inequality in developing countries in the last decades. In addition to the objectives pursued by these programs, it has been shown that they can have unintended effects on different dimensions. Particularly, they can have an impact on fertility due to an increase in the household's income. This paper examines the relationship between non-labor income and women's childbearing behavior in a developing country. The assignment mechanism of the Uruguayan cash transfer program Asignaciones Familiares – Plan de Equidad (AFAM-PE) alters non-labor incomes across the applicant’s households. I estimate the impact of this program on women's fertility and teenage pregnancy. The identification strategy exploits the discontinuity present in the program eligibility criteria. I combined longitudinal vital statistics provided by the Ministry of Public Health and administrative data to assemble a panel of AFAM-PE applicants aged between 15 and 49 (in 2008 and 2009). The study finds no statistically significant impact of AFAM-PE on fertility rates or teenage pregnancy. These results are robust to different specifications and women samples. This provides evidence against the idea that transfer programs targeting disadvantaged individuals generate a direct effect on fertility.

Government ministers can play such a significant role in the implementation of development projects under their portfolio that a high turnover of ministers may have implications for aid effectiveness. This paper examines the link between ministerial continuity in borrower governments and the performance of World Bank education projects implemented between 2000 and 2017 in 114 countries. I use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to trace the link between number of ministers during project implementation and project outcome ratings. There is a statistically significant and qualitatively meaningful negative correlation between ministerial turnover and project performance. Delays caused by transition and reshuffling of senior managers by new education ministers are shown to constitute possible causal mechanisms. There is some evidence that strong supervision by World Bank staff could mitigate the negative implications of ministerial turnover on project outcome.

Globally, girl’s education is seen as a human right and means through which to achieve gender equality and is frequently championed by the international development community as the ultimate empowerment of girls (Desai, 2016; Khoja-Moolji, 2018; Robinson, 2021; Tarabini, 2011). Along the same lines, girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is also presented in international development discourse as a fundamental right and precondition for achieving gender equality (UNFPA, 2021). However, the relationship between girls’ right to education and girls’ right to sexual and reproductive health has not been adequately explored. In the context of Tanzania, the prevalence of teenage pregnancies is high and one of the leading causes of girls' attrition from school (Centre for Reproductive Rights, 2013). Therefore, pregnancy in school has been prohibited by the Tanzanian government, and as a response many schools have practised a number of regulations aimed at preventing girls from becoming pregnant in the first place (ibid.). While many studies³ have focused on the different factors leading to teenage pregnancy in Tanzania and how education serves as an antidote to it, this paper explores the relationship between girls’ right to education and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights by specifically looking at how girls’ bodies and sexuality are regulated through secondary school in Tanzania. Based on semi-structured online interviews with Tanzanian women, I argue that girls’ secondary education in Tanzania is gained at the expense of their sexual and reproductive rights. In doing so, this paper sheds light on girls’ education and the “trade-off” that emerges between, on the one hand, girls’ right to education, and on the other hand, girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights.

This paper utilizes household level panel data from Zambia to analyze the impact of a LSLA on small holder farmers’ productivity, differentiated by male and female-owned farms. Our results suggest that while LSLA is not a significant determinant of smallholder agricultural productivity overall, female-headed households seem to gain a moderate productivity increase. There is also evidence of beneficial spillover effects in terms of technology use, with increase in modern seed use as a result of LSLA (but not on fertilizer use or crop diversification). However, the results do not show significant gender-differentiated impacts of LSLA neither on technological spillover, nor on tenure security. In sum, while LSLA seems to benefit women overall, the two potential avenues through which LSLA affects men and women differently-technological spillover and tenure insecurity, do not seem to have gender-based impacts.

This study assesses the impact of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) on poverty and social cohesion in conflict-affected areas of ex-FATA, Pakistan. Using multidimensional analysis and data from 600 households, we employ propensity score matching (PSM) to examine BISP's effects. Results reveal significant reductions in poverty measures, including livestock ownership, living standards, and economic well-being. Cash transfer recipients strategically invested in livestock and agricultural tools, boosting daily income and resilience. However, BISP cash transfers have negatively affected social cohesion within the study areas. This outcome suggests the potential for alienation among non-beneficiaries. The study contributes to policy formulation by navigating the complex interplay between cash transfers, poverty, and social dynamics in conflict-affected settings.

Poor educational outcomes for women can adversely impact economic and social outcomes. Gender-based education disparity, often attributed to social norms, led to the development of a unique program, the Mahila Samakhya (MS), in India. This program aimed to develop women’s agency and voice to help them negotiate unequal gender norms. We explore the long-term impacts of MS on educational outcomes in India using the program’s phased rollout to address potential endogeneity concerns in several ways. We use the program’s implementation design to control for the pattern of expansion, district and birth year fixed effects to account for unobserved heterogeneity, and a triple difference estimator to capture the faster rise in educational outcomes of women than men on account of the MS program. Our estimates suggest that women who were 0–6 years of age at the time of MS rollout saw the largest gains over men of similar ages by 1.18 additional years. An important policy implication from our work is that broad-based empowerment programs can address gender disparities even within the context of large national programs with decentralized governance and implementation.

Dynamics of resource redistribution, local entanglement, and processes of dis/empowerment are crucial elements in the development effects of corporate resource extraction. This article critically speaks to these debates by examining the entanglements of a global mining company in Sierra Leone and its effects on local patronage and dependency networks. Crucially, rather than foregrounding processes of detachment and the reproduction of inequality, the analysis brings home forms of corporate attachment and quests for local empowerment. Three domains of resource redistribution are placed centre stage: 1) the co-production of contemporary corporate patronage by corporations and communities; 2) the politics and practices of competing elites in channelling resource flows between corporations and communities; and 3) employees’ engagement in the informal redistribution of resources. The practices of demanding, accessing, controlling, and distributing resources in these three domains not only create forms of corporate attachment, but also enable different actors to (attempt to) strengthen their positions within their multilayered dependency networks, and to pursue empowerment. Such processes and practices are key to understanding how development and change are imagined, pursued, and negotiated in the context of corporate resource extraction in Sierra Leone and elsewhere.

Community-based adaptation to climate change seeks to build the adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable people in developing countries. Primarily implemented by non-governmental organisations, these initiatives are often operationalised by organising ‘poor women’ in order to empower them to address community risks associated with climate change. Yet, there is little known about how women experience these adaptation initiatives and whether such interventions empower them. Drawing on a qualitative case study, this article reports on the experiences of poor women in Bangladesh who participated in group-based adaptation interventions designed to enhance both individual and collective agency to respond to climate change. We found that women faced constraints from their own families and communities, which undermined their potential to be empowered and to exercise agency in both private and public spheres. Gender norms intersected with social class, age and marital status to impede women who remained bound by societal norms and undermined their adaptive capacity. We argue that the trend to feminise adaptation interventions is not a panacea for addressing societal barriers to climate adaptation; in fact, it can exacerbate local vulnerabilities. We suggest that future adaptation interventions must adopt cultural pathways aligned with societal norms to effectively build local capacities to address climate change.

This research article uses a multidisciplinary view to address the issue of public and common interest in contract farming schemes. Humanity is at a crucial point where food systems and institutions must offer a radical change to guarantee people's right to food. Contract farming today, influenced by the commodification of food, nature and the land, and neoliberal ideology, must be restructured into a more sustainable model. In a sustainable vision, redesigned contract farming can be a factor of change, particularly in the agricultural sector development, and therefore positively impact the general welfare of farmers. This article addresses the role of contract farming within the process of neoliberal globalisation and commodification of food, as well as ways to reformulate these contracting schemes based on the public and common interest. It reviews the use of this legal tool from its beginnings in the US South to the current ideological battles. This essay addresses the conceptual elements of contract farming, as can be seen in its definition, based on a comparison between English and Spanish literature. The research employs legal and social methods such as the legal-doctrinal, comparative legal, document analysis, historical and, in a certain way, some legal-empirical approaches. We show the importance of reconfiguring contract farming based on sustainable schemes under public and common interest principles. Thus, the results show an updated and multidisciplinary view of contract farming and some ways to reformulate it, considering the general guidelines of the common and public interests. This article, therefore, provides a comparative, historical and current analysis of the components underlying contract farming and how to move towards a more sustainable variant based on a more humanistic and balanced approach for farmers and agribusiness.

Agriculture is one of the most critical sectors of the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Therefore, the development of its innovativeness in the formation of public policy needs new methods of its formation is one of the most discussed issues among scientists and politicians. Thus, it is relevant to consider methods of management of innovation processes in agriculture as an integral part of the effectiveness of innovation in enterprises and the industry as a whole and to determine which of them can be used most effectively in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The primary method of the study was modelling, given the number of built and analysed models shown in the work; other methods worth mentioning are analysis, formalisation, forecasting, the historical method, and others. Thus, the research considered some basic models describing the management of innovation processes in agriculture. It was highlighted that they all have their strengths and weaknesses in one way or another. Nevertheless, there are universal principles for building models of innovation process management that should be followed. For example, the interaction between the subjects of the model should be effortless and transparent. At the same time, they should receive sufficient amounts of qualitative information from the external environment. Considering them, as well as addressing the general features of the development of the Republic of Kazakhstan and its agricultural sector, it is possible to achieve significant success in solving the described problems. The research also analyses some methods of building management models of innovation processes. The work brings new knowledge to the theory of management as well as provides an opportunity to find methods to improve the management of innovation processes in agriculture.