National Human Rights Action Plans (NHRAPs) turn state commitments to human rights into policy. Despite their widespread implementation internationally, they remain little studied and there is limited consensus as to their effectiveness.
This article addresses this by using a political economy model to develop a framework to evaluate the success of NHRAPs. Within this framework it is argued that capacity, political structure, and political consensus are key drivers in the design and implementation of NHRAPs. We hypothesize that a country is likely to design and effectively use an NHRAP in policy-making if at least these three requirements are met: (1) they are built on political consensus; (2) their perceived political benefits exceed their costs; and (3) governments have adequate resources to design and implement them.
We evaluate this hypothesis using Chile as a case study. In 2016, Chile enacted a national law mandating NHRAPs. Since then, the country has adopted two NHRAPs: one spanning 2018–2021 and another covering 2022–2025.
None of the three stipulated requirements were met in Chile. There was deep polarization rather than consensus building; the political costs of implementing an NHRAP exceeded the benefits; and key government bodies in Chile lacked the personnel and mandate to implement NHRAPs.
This study advances our understanding of the nuances of designing public policies for human rights, and the complex political costs associated with them. Unless political actors are committed to investing political capital and resources, it is unlikely that these plans will succeed. Our political economy framework can be replicated across multiple national action plans, countries, and contexts. Future studies can identify contributing conditions that can mitigate political costs, increasing the likelihood of the success of these plans.
Improved seed adoption can increase yield, enhance food security, improve livelihoods, and reduce poverty. Although many governments in the global South use seed subsidies to achieve these outcomes, the success and efficiency of input subsidies is subject to debate.
Most smallholders in Nepal lack information and finance to access improved technologies, including improved seeds. To address this, Nepal's universal seed subsidy programme (SSP) began in 2012. SSP offers participants up to 50% off the price of rice seed from improved varieties.
We evaluate the impact of SSP on farmer participants five years after its inception. Until now, the programme had not been evaluated.
We compare rice-growing households receiving subsidized seeds (treatment group) with those that do not (control group). We match the two groups using propensity scoring. We compare rice yield per hectare for the two groups, looking at aggregate and heterogeneous treatment effects. Primary data come from a 2019 survey of 157 treated and 173 control farm households in the Terai lowlands.
We find no evidence of SSP impact on rice yield in the aggregate. One potential explanation is that the programme tended to promote seed of a long-standing open-pollinated variety (OPV), rather than newer, higher-yielding OPVs and hybrids. Examination of heterogenous impacts, however, shows higher yields among treated households who were either on low incomes or remote from agro-dealers and agricultural extension offices.
Given the lack of impact on yields of SSP, sustaining the programme in the same form is neither advisable nor justified. We suggest targeting households on low incomes and in remote areas; subsidizing only the more recent high-yielding varieties; and considering cost-effective approaches to administer the programme, such as seed vouchers. To improve last-mile seed delivery, SSP needs to engage more with private seed providers and be more transparent in its operations. Results from this study may have broader implications for other long-standing agricultural subsidies in Nepal and other developing countries with universal subsidy programmes.
Since 2017, more than a million forcibly displaced Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have been heavily reliant on humanitarian assistance in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. The donors and humanitarian stakeholders involved, often drawing on OECD recommendations, are calling for a triple nexus design linking humanitarian, development, and peace pillars to increase effectiveness.
To further understanding of the issues involved and to provide recommendations for the implementation of a triple-nexus programme, the article explores the main challenges relating to triple-nexus implementation in Bangladesh.
Thematic analysis is conducted on 25 qualitative key informant interviews with selected government officials and international and national NGOs involved in the Rohingya humanitarian response in Cox's Bazar.
The study identifies five main challenges to triple-nexus implementation, foregrounding the OECD guiding principles: (1) the “peace” component remains unaddressed and undefined; (2) the capacity of local organizations is undermined in the Rohingya response due to the dominance of international organizations; (3) the shrinkage of overall funding leads to ambiguities in multi-year funding commitments and modalities; (4) there is a co-ordination gap between the three nexus pillars; and (5) the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) is reluctant to design long-term refugee policies for Rohingyas.
The study suggests that adopting the triple nexus in the Rohingya response requires stronger political commitment on the part of the GoB and goal-oriented national policy in accordance with OECD principles. The inclusion of a “peace” element is indispensable to enable the balance between humanitarian and development components, but requires a clearly defined conflict context to be entwined with the nexus programming. The findings also contribute to reappraising the impediments to operationalizing the nexus programme and refurbishing policy discussions in other major cases in forced migration, IDP, or refugee crises globally.
As a leading European funding programme aimed at enhancing the cohesion of cross-border regions and countries, Interreg plays a significant role in fostering regional development. Sustainability, as one of the programme's central themes, covers a large portion of the objective focus, aiming for sustainable development. Although the guidelines contain implications for social sustainability, the programme demonstrates that the concept is poorly understood, which can be seen in project implementation.
The purpose of this research is to investigate the conceptual framework and development of the discourse on social sustainability in the context of tourism and cohesion strategy, specifically within the Interreg programme. Thus, this article examines the social sustainability discourse within Interreg Europe's implications for cross-border tourism development.
The study is concerned with the construction of the social sustainability discourse within cohesion policy in the broader European region. In particular, this study seeks to answer the question “how does Interreg structure the discourse on social sustainability in relation to tourism?” Our research is based on a critical review of the literature, followed by a discourse analysis of the core documents of Interreg Europe 2021–2027: the Programme Manual and the Cooperation Programme document.
In conclusion, three key themes emerge from the discourse on social sustainability in tourism: (1) Interreg's recognition of tourism-dependent regions; (2) a dominant presence of the economic and environmental pillars of sustainability; and (3) an ambiguous characterization of the social pillar and its objectives. As a result, we confirm the significance of social sustainability and clear policy formulation for the development of sustainable tourism.
This article warns against imprecise project objectives and the use of overly simplified and ambiguous terminology, while emphasizing the importance of social sustainability in the context of sustainable tourism development.
Men farmers typically achieve higher productivity than women farmers, a gender gap that reflects women's disadvantages in farming. Sri Lanka seems an exception, because women farmers achieve higher land productivity (gross value of output per hectare) than men farmers. That said, despite women's productivity advantage, men earn higher agricultural incomes.
We investigate the factors contributing to the unconditional agricultural productivity advantage of women farmers and the gender gap in agricultural earnings in favour of men in Sri Lanka.
Using data from the nationally representative 2016 Sri Lanka Household Income and Expenditure Survey, we employ Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to analyse factors behind the gender disparities in agricultural productivity and earnings.
The leading factor contributing to higher female land productivity is the smaller plot size cultivated by women, reflecting an inverse relation between cultivated area and yield. The next most important factor is the gendered pattern of crop mix: women tend to cultivate high-value export crops such as tea, while men are more likely to grow paddy — a less productive crop. When plot size and crop mix are controlled, men farmers achieve a conditional productivity advantage over women farmers. For crop earnings, men have both unconditional and conditional advantages, mainly due to their greater access to land and other inputs. While women's small plots have high yields, their size limits women's farm incomes.
Policies to improve women's lagging access to land, inputs and other agricultural resources — often due to inherent gender bias — are needed to close the gender gap in agricultural income. Government policies favouring import-competing commodities such as paddy, mainly through fertilizer subsidies, tend to benefit disproportionately men who are more likely to engage in paddy farming. Reallocating public spending on agriculture could enhance both efficiency and gender equality.
Despite efforts to reduce poverty, both income and multidimensional poverty continue to be high in Mexico, especially in rural areas. Most studies concerned with the effect of credit use on poverty analyse formal credit, but little is known about the impacts of different types of credit on poverty.
We investigate the impacts of the use of formal credit and informal loans obtained (primarily) for productive and investment purposes on multidimensional and income poverty of rural households in Mexico.
We use data from the 2013 and 2015 CONEVAL Surveys of Rural Households in Mexico, representative of rural communities with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants, to investigate the impact of credit on poverty. We apply inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to account for differences between users of formal credit, users of informal loans, and non-users of credit.
Both formal and informal credit usage reduce poverty in rural Mexico, generally with clearer impacts on moderate rather than extreme poverty. Informal credit appears to have largely reached households that could most benefit from it. Broader access to formal credit would potentially further reduce poverty.
Public policies to reduce rural poverty should promote a greater access to the formal financial sector. Including vulnerable low-income rural households in formal finance should be accompanied by financial education.
“Localization”—direct donor support for national organizations in aid recipient countries—has become a top priority for international development. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) pledged to raise the proportion of direct funding to national organizations to 25% and for 50% of funding to involve “locally led” input. Independently, USAID commits to proactive disclosure of project information. This study analyses sectoral priorities, access to project data, and localization trends to inform policy discussion about how USAID can reach its twin localization goals, with a focus on Colombia, the largest US aid recipient in Latin America.
An open government perspective can shed light on whether and how development agencies are making progress towards localization. Moreover, user-centred information disclosure by donors is necessary to inform locally led development. The goals of this study are to document USAID's sectoral funding priorities, gaps in data disclosure, implementation actions, and direct local funding percentages to make patterns more visible to stakeholders. We ask: What are the strengths and limitations of public disclosure of data concerning US aid in Colombia?
This analysis uses open-source data review methods to bring together different sources of publicly available data. These methods include triangulating government data disbursed across multiple sites, recoding government data to make trends visible, and identifying barriers to data access.
Public data indicate that US funding for peace-related projects increased in the years following Colombia's 2016 Peace Accord, though the security share of total US aid remains high. Funding trends demonstrate that USAID is far behind its localization goals in Colombia, though absolute funding totals to local organizations are increasing. Finally, publicly available project data are not user-centred, require technical acumen to access, and are fragmented across multiple sites.
User-centred disclosures are key to locally led development to ensure informed participation and accountability to stakeholders.
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