Hussein, H., & Ezbakhe, F. (2023). The Water–Employment–Migration nexus: Buzzword or useful framework? Development Policy Review, 41, e126376
The corresponding author for this paper is Hussam Hussein (email [email protected]), not Fatine Ezbakhe as previously shown.
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India has seen severe economic and social impacts from COVID-19, with the most vulnerable people having suffered most. Mumbai's response has been multi-faceted, drawing on numerous actors such as local and state government, but also businesses and citizens. Disaster management is increasingly necessary and Mumbai's policy response during wave two of COVID-19 provides relevant lessons.
We explain Mumbai's policy response to wave two of COVID-19, termed the Mumbai model, applying a systems-thinking approach.
We adopt a systems-thinking approach, applying a framework developed in Duvendack and Sonne (2021) to analyse a case study based on secondary data and information on the policy response to COVID-19 in Mumbai.
The Mumbai model emerged as a pragmatic policy response. Key actors changed between waves one and two, from a broad set of actors to a narrower set focused on the unfolding healthcare crisis. This resulted in a reconfiguration of networks and partnerships. Decentralized decision-making further changed the structure of the networks to a hub-and-spoke model. Communication and feedback loops shifted from primarily top-down to two-way information flows to support decision-making and resource allocation driven by data. This was enabled by clear leadership and political support.
To tackle a crisis of this magnitude, having diverse actors collaborating effectively through networks that enable knowledge and information flows is crucial. Governments can use the systems approach for crisis management in large cities which require swift action and efficient flow of information to assess a situation and to prioritize response efforts. Further research is required to better understand how governments can build capacity and policy structures to enable systemic approaches to crisis management in varied contexts.
International donors commit around USD 2 billion every year to Pacific Island Countries (PICs). While the donors intend to help develop the Pacific, few of the projects they fund involve any more local involvement in their selection and planning beyond consultation with selected, often elite, or small groups of locals. It is even rarer to find projects that are localized or locally-led.
We ask whether it is possible to do more to localize donor-funded development in the Pacific. We ask if co-design between foreign and local specialists can localize development, by giving locals more agency, and by prioritizing indigenous knowledge.
Specifically, we review the Pacific eLearning Programme (PeP), funded by New Zealand and implemented in the Cook Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The programme works with Ministries of Education to design science content that reflects the country context for some ten or so schools in each nation. Co-design includes use of indigenous dialogue [talanoa / tok stori / storian] to share, debate and learn between foreign and local specialists, and between specialists across the four countries.
Evidence was gathered from pre- and post-programme surveys. Further data was collected from comments written by the local co-designers.
We found that kinship formed between locals and foreigners, based on mutual respect for the knowledge each group brought. This process empowered locals, valued their expertize and knowledge, and reduced dependency by prioritizing indigenous and local knowledge. Localization led to mutually beneficial outcomes.
Creation and implementation of policies that mandate localization through recruitment, use of indigenous methodologies, co-design and recognition of local skills, knowledge and culture will help create trust with development partners, empower locals, exchange skills and knowledge between locals and foreigners, and reduce dependency.
Despite an increased focus on inclusive development, we know little about the extent to which development aid reaches politically excluded groups or how this varies across different donors.
Addressing this knowledge gap, we develop and test a framework arguing that (1) areas where politically excluded groups live are less likely to receive development aid, and (2) there are differences between donor countries and organizations in how they instrumentally address inclusive development.
Using a geographically disaggregated panel dataset of aid projects covering sub-Saharan African countries from 1996 to 2013, we combine sub-national data on the location of aid by donor and type, and data on politically excluded ethnic groups.
For World Bank aid projects, we do not find evidence that areas with excluded groups are generally prioritized. However, when disaggregating by sector, we find that aid projects related to health and water access are significantly more likely to be allocated to areas with excluded groups. Furthermore, we see little indication that Chinese aid is targeted towards areas of political exclusion. Conversely, aid allocations made by donor countries whose development strategies emphasize inclusive and needs-based approaches are more likely to be established in areas with politically excluded groups.
We argue that these results indicate diverse underlying political motivations behind the provision of development aid by various donors. These motivations become evident when examining aid allocation by sector and type of donor.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that local non-farm opportunities slow down rural–urban migration. However, there is hardly any empirical evidence on the relation between household non-farm income and migration. Understanding this relation is essential for rural development strategies, sustainable urban development, and policies that influence domestic migrations.
We examine whether households' decision to send a member to urban areas for employment depends on the extent of their non-farm income and, in turn, on local non-farm opportunities. We also study how this impact is dependent on household income, education of the household head, and land holdings.
Households' decision to migrate or to choose non-farm employment is endogenous, likely to be influenced by unobserved characteristics. We construct local measures of non-farm opportunities at the Union (lowest administrative) level using Economic Census data. Local opportunities are exogenous to household decisions and are used to instrument household-level non-farm income.
Regression results using instrumental variables show that a greater share of non-farm income reduces the probability that members of the household will migrate to other districts. This effect is most pronounced for semi-rural areas such as municipalities. We find similar results when we use areas with small and medium enterprise (SME) clusters to instrument household-level non-farm income. We also observe substantial heterogeneity of impact: a higher share of non-farm income deters migration more for income-rich, land-poor and educated households.
Our results suggest that creating non-farm opportunities curbs migration to urban areas. Developing rural growth centres, secondary towns, may reduce migration to larger cities and reduce poverty.
In European policy debate, conflict, economic crisis, lack of development, population growth, and climate change are often seen as the root causes of migration from Africa. To deter irregular migration to Europe, aid has thus been directed towards these perceived causes. This seems, however, not to deter irregular migration.
We explore the discrepancy between the official discourse of root causes and insights from research on migration decisions; and how discourse and evidence relate to aid. We ask what kind of policy change is needed if aid is possibly used to influence irregular migration. We focus on the motivations and drivers of migration and how development co-operation may influence these.
Considering African migration to Europe, we examine the official European discourse on root causes of irregular migration, highlight recent developments in the academic understanding of migration aspirations and drivers, and investigate various attempts to analyse the impact of foreign aid on assumed “root causes” and migration.
Migration is influenced by drivers that differ according to the specific context in which potential migrants decide to migrate or not. Aid to influence migration must be thoroughly adapted to the circumstances of potential migrants. Addressing so-called root causes may be irrelevant to many potential migrants and will require long-term change to have any impact. It may even increase migration in the short term. Foreign aid that adopts a blueprint regardless of context is unlikely to deter irregular migration in the short or medium term.
If irregular African migration to Europe is to be deterred through development co-operation, European policy-makers and development practitioners need to elaborate and differentiate between aid-supported activities through careful understanding of the migration dynamics specific to individual localities and societies.
Initiatives to promote sustainable practices in agriculture in China have been little documented in the literature. Preliminary investigations suggested that the way agricultural certification schemes worked in China differed considerably from such schemes in Europe and the United States.
We investigated how sustainability certification schemes (SCSs) were perceived by farmers, processors, government staff, and other stakeholders in Chinese agriculture.
We examine three types of certification: sustainability standards for agricultural exports; organic labelling for the domestic market; and certification of ecological practices.
We interviewed 16 stakeholders in 2013–2014 about their experiences and perceptions of certification. The interviews were transcribed and coded to derive themes and interpretations.
Certification was rigorous for agricultural exports because importers, mainly in high-income countries, demanded high standards—and were prepared to pay a premium for those standards. It was in the best interests of Chinese exporters to certify their produce. Some farming companies had specific farms that were run to make sure the standards were upheld, whereas their farms producing for the domestic market operated differently.
Organic certification of produce was less systematic, with proliferation of labels used to try to convince domestic consumers that the food so labelled was safe. No single standard was used. Farmers were concerned that organic production was costly but that they would not get a price to reflect those costs. Most actors expected the state to set standards and police them.
A public scheme intended as payment for environmental services also certified land managers; but the scheme as applied operated to pay farmers on low incomes often in marginal lands an income supplement—payments were not necessarily linked to environmental objectives.
In China, the perception of stakeholders was that the central government should establish and monitor standards. Certification was not seen as something that private enterprise could or even should establish. This appreciation translated into dependence on central government to co-ordinate and regulate all collective action for pursuing social and e
Pacific aid research has largely focused on national issues and social justice, rather than spatial justice and the development of remote outer islands. In particular, the perspectives of remote outer island populations on aid have not previously been assessed.
This study explores the experiences and views of the population of a remote Pacific outer island, Mauke in the Cook Islands, on the foreign aid they receive. By listening to and learning from local people living with aid on a remote outer island, this article seeks to address spatially insensitive Pacific aid research and policy. Based on these insights, the article derives policy implications for aid and development actors working on Mauke and other remote outer islands in the Pacific.
Employing a mixed-methods approach, this article draws on field research conducted on Mauke, involving in-depth semi-structured interviews and a quantitative survey.
The people of Mauke are divided about whether the island should receive more or less aid. Those calling for more aid tend to be younger; they stress the need for infrastructure development. Those advocating for less aid tend to be older; they argue that aid has harmed Mauke by decreasing endogenous initiatives and creating social tensions, both of which reduce social cohesion among the remote island population.
Rather than investing in “community-based/−led development”—doing development with the community, aid to remote Pacific outer islands should focus more on “community development”—with the aim of enhancing social cohesion among peripheral islands. Donors, governments, and development partners must carefully reflect on the degree to which their interventions may harm social cohesion and the endogenous development potential of remote outer island populations. These implications matter given the persistence of uncritical (mis)representations and (mis)conceptions of remote Pacific outer island populations as harmonious and mutually supportive.
In rural sub-Saharan Africa, patriarchal social norms and customs often lead to unequal resource access, decision-making power, and intra-household power relations between women and men co-heads of smallholder farm households. Household methodologies are gender-transformative approaches that aim to achieve gender equality and empower women by improving intra-household gender relations. Evidence of the impact of such approaches on women's empowerment is still scarce.
We assess the effects of a programme that introduces participatory intra-household decision-making to challenge gender relations within households on women's empowerment. The programme was delivered to monogamous couples who head smallholder coffee-farming households in rural south-west Tanzania.
We combine (quasi-)experimental quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the programme's impact on women's empowerment and how that impact fits with women's valued domains of empowerment and individual pathways to empowerment.
Awareness-raising couple seminars, the programme's least intensive intervention, increased women's access to livestock. Intensive coaching in participatory decision-making increased women's control over household coffee income—a priority for women. Couple seminars increased women's highly valued involvement in strategic farm decisions—intensive coaching increased it further. Access to personal income, however, valued by women for independent decision-making for their households' wellbeing, did not change.
Gender-transformative approaches that challenge domestic gender relations can increase women's access to household income and resources, and increase their participation in farming decisions. Such approaches need to be complemented by interventions to increase women's human capital, knowledge of enterprises, and personal resources. Catering for women's diverse pathways towards empowerment may increase their effectiveness. Challenging deep gender norms requires long-term engagement and trust between change agents and communities.
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