Journal of International Development最新文献

Youth empowerment has become a growing concern for achieving sustainable development worldwide. Yet, there is limited evidence on which domains of empowerment are important for youth and how they can be operationalized with indicators for measurement. We propose four domains of youth empowerment with corresponding indicators and use a well-established methodology for constructing a composite index. Using data from a household survey in Tunisia, we assess youth empowerment in the proposed domains and explore their relation to youth well-being. The proposed approach can help monitor youth empowerment in various contexts and evaluate the effectiveness of youth interventions.

This paper examines spatial heterogeneity in the impacts of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban household incomes in Ethiopia and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Combining new panel household surveys with spatial data, the fixed-effects regression analysis for Ethiopia finds that households in large and densely populated towns were more likely to lose their labour incomes in the early phase of the pandemic and afterwards than other households. Disadvantaged groups, such as females, low-skilled, self-employed and poor, particularly suffered in those towns. In Kinshasa, labour income-mobility elasticities are higher among workers—particularly female and low-skilled workers—who live in areas that are located farther from the city core area. The between- and within-city evidence from two Sub-Saharan African countries points to the spatial heterogeneity of COVID-19 impacts, implying the critical role of mobility and accessibility in urban agglomerations.

This paper investigates the effect of financial inclusion on inclusive human development in a panel of 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the years 2011, 2014 and 2017 from a gender perspective. Different methods, including fixed effect and random effect models, Tobit and quantile regressions, are used for the estimates. We find that financial inclusion improves inclusive human development. In addition, the effect of women's financial empowerment is stronger than that of men. Moreover, we find a complementary effect of financial account ownership and mobile money usage in the achievement of inclusive human development. Furthermore, the increasing effects of financial inclusion are greater in countries with lower inclusive human development than those with higher inclusive human development. African governments should therefore improve financial inclusion, particularly female financial inclusion, to achieve higher inclusive human development.

ASEAN organizations play a vital role in sustaining bilateral trade between China and ASEAN countries. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced disruptions to global bilateral trade. Therefore, research should investigate the impact of ASEAN organizations on the trade between China and ASEAN nations, particularly during the pandemic. This study aims to address the effectiveness of ASEAN organizations in managing bilateral trade during the pandemic and gauging their influence. The study's sample includes nine ASEAN countries, and the data span from 2016 to 2021. The analysis uses the difference-in-differences model, with the parallel trend test verifying the differences between investigated variables. The results demonstrate that the influence of the ASEAN organization is significant on trade activities between China and the ASEAN member countries, positively impacting bilateral trade during the COVID-19 period. These findings not only contribute to our understanding of bilateral trade during a special period but also offer insights for enhancing the efficacy of the ASEAN organization and governments to promote bilateral trade.

This paper evaluates the impact of a rural community-driven development programme in Myanmar, which promoted village-level microfinance for income generation. Utilizing a three-round household survey consisting of 100 treatment and 50 comparison villages with approximately 8500 households per round, we employ difference-in-differences and two-stage least squares estimations. Our analysis shows three key findings. First, the programme significantly increased access to microfinance, primarily for production. Second, formal and informal finance were substituted in part with village-level microfinance. As a result, treated households were less likely to borrow money from formal banks or informal lenders such as their relatives, friends or neighbours. Third, the village-level microfinance nudged rural households to harvest, yield and sell their products more, which led to increase in seasonal income. Our study suggests that microfinance targeted for productive investment can significantly improve income of rural households in developing economies.

This study theoretically evaluated and empirically tested the peer effect of residents' volunteering behaviour in a Chinese scenario using data from the 2019 China Comprehensive Social Situation Survey (CSS). The study found that residents' volunteering behaviour had significant peer effect, with every unit increase in volunteering activities of other residents in the community enhancing the probability of residents' participation in volunteering by 21.0% to 30.0%. The results were still valid even after using community location, province dummy variables, and instrumental variables to determine reflexivity and correlation. By contrast, urban community residents were more affected by peer effect. Internet access attenuated the peer influence. Interpersonal trust and trust in charitable organizations reinforced the peer effect, whereas trust in dysfunctional government inhibited the peer influence. The study findings provide a theoretical and empirical standard for improving volunteer incentives and mechanisms as well as enhancing policy effectiveness.

This study assessed an array of indicators for rural poverty assessments and evaluated use of the Multidimensional Poverty Assessment Tool (MPAT) as a proxy for commonly used indicators, such as the Human Development Index, Gross National Income, Global Hunger Index, and the Gender Inequality Index. MPAT data from 5322 rural households across five countries in Africa were analyzed. While MPAT aligned well with development indicators for Kenya, Lesotho, and Tanzania, this was not the case for Eswatini and Zimbabwe. Overall, MPAT-based rankings correlated well with hunger, food security, and gender equality indicators. Our findings highlight the use of MPAT-derived indices as valuable supplements for commonly used development indicators.

Industrial fisheries targeting small pelagic fish have significant socio-economic implications for North West African countries. This study examines the economic performance of fleets operating in Mauritania's exclusive economic zone under the free license and chartering systems. Using national production data from 1989 to 2010 and economic indicator ratios from European pelagic fishing vessels, we assess the economic performance of pelagic fisheries over one decade. Our findings show that vessel characteristics have rapidly evolved, with free-licenced vessels having a higher average fishing capacity than chartered vessels. The nominal number of free licenses increased from under 8% in 1995; the year of free licencing began in Mauritania, to over 80% in 2010. The estimated average economic output for 2000–2010 was US$ 231 million, with free licenses contributing over 80% of the total turnover (US$ 187 million). Vessels operating under free licenses made a greater contribution to wealth creation than the chartering regime. Foreign ship owners generated US$ 40.7 million (22%) in income, while chartering yielded US$ 3.6 million (8%). However, the chartering regime was more fiscally advantageous, contributing over 68% of pelagic fisheries tax revenues (estimated at over US$ 29 million). The small pelagic fishery has been subject to a system of total allowable catches and fishing quotas since 2015. This study provides insights into the economic dynamics of the small pelagic fishery, informing decision-making and potential strategies to enhance the sector's performance and overall economic impact.

Social sustainability is poorly understood and vaguely defined, despite growing appreciation for its relevance as a concept. This article advances our empirical understanding of social sustainability by constructing a global database of 71 indicators across 193 countries and 37 territories between 2016 and 2020. Indicators are flexibly clustered around four dimensions—social inclusion, resilience, social cohesion and process legitimacy—for which we construct measurement indices. A simple empirical analysis—based on correlations and scatterplots—using our database confirms that social sustainability is positively and strongly associated with per capita income; negatively and strongly associated with poverty; and negatively but weakly associated with income inequality. The interactions between dimensions merit further analysis, but our results underscore that social sustainability matters not only in itself but also to reduce poverty. Furthermore, extending access to markets, basic public services and social assistance needs to be complemented with strengthening process legitimacy and social cohesion if inequality is to be reduced.

The global north is garnering multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) for circular textiles. Past MSIs however have yielded less-than-satisfactory social sustainability outcomes in Bangladesh. So this article asks, what impact has textiles MSIs have had on the sustainability transformation of the textiles chain in Bangladesh? And how can policymakers accelerate this transition to a circular economy? Fieldwork finds circularity issues are advancing at different rates because the industry transformation is suffering from lack of attention, motivation, knowledge, relationships, and resources at the micro-level, and a lack of strategic alignment, structural flexibility, and routine rigidity, between MSI stakeholders, at the meso and macro levels. The article then discusses the role of MSIs in restructuring the global textiles industry and offers a five-pronged approach to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.