Development Policy Review最新文献

Motivation

The transition from adolescence to adulthood encompasses key social changes. NEET status (Not in Education, Employment or Training) during this period disrupts this transition and alters an adolescent's life course. This is of particular concern in South Africa, a middle-income country with one of the world's highest rates of youth unemployment.

Purpose

The pathway to becoming NEET emerges over time by accumulating risks in early life and adolescence. Early-life adversities can increase the probability of events associated with becoming NEET. We aim to identify early-life and adolescent predictors of events associated with becoming NEET, as well as predictors of NEET status itself.

Methods and approach

We analyse four rounds of longitudinal data from a sample of 1,174 adolescents growing up in peri-urban KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Using a socioecological life-course model, we create two overlapping analytic cohorts and two NEET vulnerability indices to evaluate whether risks for vulnerability in schooling (early outcomes) are similar to those affecting post-schooling education and labour-market outcomes (later outcomes). We use a linear probability model to analyse the relationship between the vulnerability indices and the range of risk factors in the socioecological life-course model.

Findings

A strong predictor of both NEET vulnerability indices includes reporting feeling hopeless about the future. Other significant predictors include behavioural factors (getting pregnant or impregnating someone during adolescence, and drinking alcohol before age 16), family structure (residing with one's biological mother in early adolescence was protective) and demographics (age).

Policy implications

By deepening our understanding of how individual and contextual characteristics shape the transition into productive adulthood through a life-course approach, we can identify possible early intervention points lost once young people become NEET.

Motivation

The proxy means test (PMT) has become the predominant targeting mechanism for social assistance schemes in many low- and lower-middle income countries, including Jamaica. It has many powerful advocates amid claims that it can accurately and cost-effectively target the poor. However, recently, there have been concerns expressed by beneficiary groups, government stakeholders, and civil society on the selection of households for benefits under Jamaica's Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH).

Purpose

An evaluation of PATH suggests that it covers only about 71% of households ranked in the poorest quintiles, while 23% of programme beneficiaries are from households considered to be non-poor (ranked in the top two quintiles). This study introduces innovations to the current PMT model with the objective of improving targeting of the poor for social protection benefits.

Approach and methods

We draw on data collected by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) regarding the PATH programme to show that an application of the poverty-weighted least squares regression estimation method improves coverage of households ranked in the poorest quintiles. Poverty-weighted least squares places higher weights on the squared errors of poor households, which avoids the tendency of least squares regression to increase the predicted consumption of the poor.

Findings

Using data compiled by the STATIN through the annual Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions, we showed that the construction of a national model estimated using poverty-weighted least squares, and adjusting predicted consumption to the lower limit of the 95% confidence interval, improves coverage of the poorest households from 71% to over 85%. Achieving this high rate of coverage among the poor came at a cost, in the form of high coverage among the non-poor and, particularly, an increase in inclusion errors.

Policy implications

We believe these results demonstrate that in certain contexts it is possible to improve upon the Basic PMT model and meet the goals the PMT was intended to achieve, efficiently directing social assistance to the poor, minimizing leakage to the non-poor, and maintaining integrity in the overall social assistance mechanism.

Motivation

Contract farming plays a significant role in the growth of agriculture in many countries. Contracting poses substantial challenges when courts and companies are insufficiently developed, constraining the fulfilment of contracts. Exploring innovative contract enforcement mechanisms could yield valuable insights.

Purpose

We evaluate the effectiveness of state subsidies as a hybrid enforcement mechanism of the marketing contract developed by the Algerian government for tomato processors and their farmer suppliers.

Approach and methods

We examine the delivery decisions of Algerian tomato farmers to honour contracts or to deliver to the spot market. From the findings we evaluated the direct and indirect effects of subsidies on expanding the self-enforcing range of contracts and on encouraging firms to establish private contract enforcement mechanisms. Propensity scoring was used to match farmers. The data come from a comprehensive database of contracted tomato producers and surveys of all tomato canneries in 2021.

Findings

Subsidies, by reducing processor costs and raising famer prices, help to make contracts self-enforcing. Subsidies, moreover, encouraged half of the processors to adopt private contract enforcement mechanisms, above all loans to their supplier farmers. These mechanisms have had a positive, albeit moderate, effect on farmer deliveries.

Farmers still deliver only half of their contracts owing to weakening self-enforcement as the subsidy can be accessed in the spot market.

Policy implications

Public subsidies can help enforce contracts in agricultural value chains, especially where legal systems are fragile. Strict control of access to subsidies and incentives is crucial to ensure that the contract price provides sufficient incentive to farmers and to encourage processors to provide additional incentives.

Motivation

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) have a significant role to play at a time of environmental upheavals, but their ability to mobilize climate funds in sub-Saharan Africa, especially Ghana, remains under question.

Purpose

The study asked three questions: (1) What spectrum of climate change investment opportunities are FBOs seeking? (2) What are the untapped climate change investment opportunities that FBOs can pursue? (3) What are the constraints that hinder FBOs in mobilizing funds to finance these opportunities?

Approach and methods

A qualitative research approach was adopted for the study and 18 FBOs in Ghana were purposively selected as a sample for the study.

Findings

The study uncovered the spectrum of climate change investment opportunities pursued by FBOs in the areas of agriculture and waste. However, there are untapped climate change investment opportunities in the energy and transport sectors. The constraints associated with mobilizing climate finance are ideological differences, knowledge gaps, limited institutional capacity, and bureaucratic bottlenecks.

Policy implications

Climate action funders need to reduce complications surrounding the means of obtaining funding and streamline their funding requirements to suit FBOs. They should also reassess their credibility evaluation standards to help FBOs from being sidestepped due to limited funding track records, despite the promising adaptation and mitigation initiatives they may have to offer. FBOs must upgrade their skills in the climate finance landscape by taking advantage of capacity-building programmes and training that seek to increase their understanding of the climate finance opportunities and requirements of climate funders.

Motivation

The Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus (HDPN) approach emphasizes the importance of collaboration. However, there is little exploration of HDPN from a collaborative governance perspective.

Purpose

This study aims to analyse how the HDPN approach is applied in settings of forced migration and evaluate the application of Emerson et al.'s (2012) Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance in these contexts. The focus is on how the four components of collaborative governance are covered in HDPN settings.

Approaches and Methods

The study examines 12 empirical HDPN studies in situations of forced migration. It uses the Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance to evaluate the components of principled engagement, shared motivation, capacity for joint action and impact/adaptation.

Findings

The findings indicate that the framework is suitable for and relevant to the HDPN approach. Collaborative governance is shown to be necessary to improve cross-sectoral co-ordination, deal with complex and protracted crises, and achieve collective outcomes. The study also identified knowledge gaps and difficulties in implementing collaborative governance within HDPN.

Policy Implications

The study sets the groundwork for future research to develop comprehensive guidelines and best practices to implement the HDPN approach. It highlights the need for collaborative governance to improve the effectiveness of the HDPN approach in addressing the challenges of forced migration.

Motivation

Despite increases in school enrolment, the world is facing a global learning crisis that suggests a trade-off between the quantity and quality of education.

Purpose

This case study from Ghana examines whether there has been a long-term change in educational outcomes, measured by population literacy and numeracy rates, in the decades following the implementation of a national free compulsory basic education policy. It further determines whether there are variations by level of education in the changes over time.

Approach and methods

This study used nationally representative repeated cross-sectional data from two Ghana Living Standards Surveys (2006 and 2017) to estimate basic literacy and numeracy.

Findings

At the same level of education for the primary and lower secondary school levels, literacy and numeracy were lower in the latter period than a decade previously. These findings suggest that the expansion in gross enrolment at the primary and lower secondary school levels has been associated with a long-term decline in the quality of education.

Policy implications

Considering these findings, it is crucial to consider the long-term implications of expanding access to education on the quality of the education provided. These findings highlight the need for increased investment in quality education to complement the increase in access. This would ensure that children acquire foundational skills at the basic education level. Failure to maintain quality alongside expanded access could negatively impact workforce productivity, economic growth, and social equality.

Motivation

What explains the fact that the humanitarian response in some crises is well funded, while other humanitarian emergencies are largely neglected? The literature identifies three groups of factors that influence aid allocations: needs in recipient countries, donor countries' interests, and agenda setting driven by media coverage; although there is debate over how relatively important these are.

Purpose

This study tests existing theory by adding three novel aspects.

Approach and Methods

First, rather than just measuring the amount of money available, we consider the share of funding that is provided against the stated requirements. Second, we measure humanitarian needs in a more detailed way than has typically been the case. Third, we use datasets that have been underutilized in the academic literature.

Findings

By using these three novel approaches, we confirm that all three factors—humanitarian needs, strategic interests, agenda setting—play a role. However, the most consistent factor is media coverage. We are also able to distinguish between different dimensions of need: the number of hosted refugees makes a difference, but the number of displaced people does not. We find that countries with the worst human rights situations attract lower funding levels and more democratic countries attract more funding.

Policy Implications

Donors should consider how the factors identified in this study influence their funding decisions in the aggregate. They should be aware of how media coverage may influence their allocations of humanitarian funding. Journalists should be aware of potential biases in their reporting on humanitarian emergencies. Aid agencies should consider counteracting the factors that are associated with underfunded emergencies.