Year: 2019

Migration

Five Takeaways on Migration and Development

By Jason Gagnon, Development economist, OECD Development Centre

Migration can lead to important gains for migrants, for their countries of origin and their destination. But this can only happen if migration happens under the right conditions. Destination and origin countries increasingly face common global challenges such as climate change, new technologies and long term changes in social behaviour. Furthermore, developing countries often have to manage and integrate migrant influxes themselves. All of this in a current state of an increasingly negative narrative surrounding migration. So how can migration be better managed? And what is the state of migration governance today? In between the first ever annual UN migration network meeting, and the first Global Refugee Forum (GRF), the OECD Development Centre held a debate – the Policy Dialogue on Migration and Development (PDMD) – with major players, governments, experts and policy-makers looking at the links between migration and development across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Continue reading “Five Takeaways on Migration and Development”
Development Matters
Development in Transition, Latin America and the Caribbean, New social contract, Reviving multilateralism

Social discontent in Latin America through the lens of development traps

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By Sebastián Nieto-Parra, Mario Pezzini and Juan Vázquez, OECD Development Centre

This blog is part of an ongoing series evaluating various facets of Development in Transition

Until recently, rising levels of citizen dissatisfaction with public services and institutions in Latin America might have merely been pictured as an upward line in a graph. However, it seems to have reached a breaking point. Growing social discontent has boiled over into protests across several Latin American countries over the past weeks. While these protests are complex and multifaceted, understanding the underlying causes is essential to defining policy priorities that may help address the structural sources of discontent.

GDP growth is not alone in driving social unrest, as protests have not necessarily taken place in countries with the lowest growth rates or at times of lower economic dynamism, like the 2008 crisis.  Furthermore, income gradually ‘delinks’ from well-being outcomes, as countries move up the income ladder. This has clearly been the case for most Latin American countries since the 2000s (OECD et al., 2019a). Continue reading “Social discontent in Latin America through the lens of development traps”

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Policy, SDGs

Helping Cities and Regions achieve the SDGs: Partnering for Decentralised Development Co-operation

By Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate and Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE)

 

UrbanisationAll too often international aid is viewed through the traditional lens of nation states. A rich-poor relationship of a developed country providing a one-way flow of financial assistance to a developing country to address crucial development issues, whether they are societal, economic or environmental in nature. However, the impact of these problems is acutely felt at the local level and requires global collaborative responses at the subnational level. Decentralised development co-operation (DDC) – the exchange of resources between subnational governments in developed and developing countries – offers a pragmatic and effective approach to addressing the most critical issues and to achieving the sustainable development goals.

Following the onset of the Syrian crisis, Lebanon has had to provide adequate housing and basic services to over one million refugees, or nearly 20% of the world’s total Syrian refugee population.[1] At the forefront of this daunting task are municipalities, which in most instances critically lack the resources and funding to deliver. Continue reading “Helping Cities and Regions achieve the SDGs: Partnering for Decentralised Development Co-operation”

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Data, SDGs

Counting the invisible: Three priorities for strengthening statistical capacities in the SDG era

By Johannes Jütting, Executive Head PARIS21, Rolando Avendano, Economist, Asian Development Bank and Manuel Kuhm, Research Support Officer (PARIS21)

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Better policies need better data. High-quality data and official statistics are vital for governments, civil society, the private sector and the public to make informed decisions, create effective polices, and establish good governance. Under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, data-driven policy making takes on even greater significance. For if we are to “leave no one behind”, we must first ensure that everyone is counted.

Yet today, more than 110 low and middle-income countries lack functional civil registration and vital statistics systems and under-record or omit vital events of specific populations. Those living in poverty are most likely to be excluded—the poorest 20% of the global population account for 55% of unregistered births. Only 37 countries have statistical legislation that complies with the United Nations (UN) Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.

If we don’t even know who the poorest are, how can we ensure that they aren’t left behind?

At the same time, while a global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator framework is an essential part of Agenda 2030, it is putting pressure on national statistical systems. In addition to the demand of compiling 232 national-level indicators, the Agenda requires that data are disaggregated by income, sex and gender, geography, age and disability, far beyond current capacity in many developing countries. Continue reading “Counting the invisible: Three priorities for strengthening statistical capacities in the SDG era”

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Green transition

Forging a new way forward for development co-operation in the face of the climate crisis

By Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate

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Time is running out. The climate crisis is rapidly altering the systems that underpin life on Earth, multiplying existing threats to development while creating new obstacles. It will influence how countries develop for the rest of this century and beyond. As we head into 2020 — when countries will prepare and submit their next round of commitments under the Paris Agreement to commence its implementation — it is timely to check in on progress so far. Specifically, how donor countries and providers of development co-operation are accounting for climate change and aligning their activities with the objectives of the Agreement to ensure they are not supporting unsustainable development.

The climate crisis is affecting communities across the globe, most recently contributing to catastrophic bushfires in multiple states of Australia.  At the same time in the central and southern parts of Mozambique, at least 1.6 million people are in need of assistance due to the devastating effects of the ongoing drought and increasingly severe weather events linked to climate change. These event have been unfolding just months after disastrous fires in the Amazon, underscoring that we are indeed living in a new normal. Amid these events, at the 2019 United Nations (UN) Climate Action Summit in New York this past September, the OECD brought together over 30 climate and development leaders to urgently discuss the imperative to align the development and climate agendas, reflecting on key messages and priorities for the institutions that provide development co-operation. Continue reading “Forging a new way forward for development co-operation in the face of the climate crisis”

Development Matters
Green transition

Can local and sustainable agriculture save biodiversity?

By Marco Maria Cerbo, Chargé d’Affaires a.i. at the Permanent Delegation of Italy to the international organisations in Paris, and Rebecca Graziosi, development co-operation intern

sustainable-agriculture.jpgDuring his speech at the Nobel Banquet, the newly-awarded laureate in Economic Sciences, William D. Nordhaus, declared: “Over the last half-century, the full implications of climate change and its impacts have been illuminated by the intensive research of scientists in different fields. These studies depict an increasingly dire picture of our future under uncontrolled climate change. […] Now, it is up to those who represent us, our elected leaders, to act responsibly to implement durable and effective solutions.”

Data can hardly deny this statement and our planet is now facing an unprecedented emergency. Globally, there is widely-cited evidence that the extinction rate of animal and plant species, as high as 1 000 times the background rate, is increasing rapidly as a result of human activities. In particular, biodiversity in farmland is diminishing, with effects on all of the ecosystem services that are essential to agriculture, including pest control, pollination and climate regulation. Pollution, climate change, over-exploitation of natural resources and changes in land use are the main drivers of biodiversity loss and are clearly related to human activities. Biodiversity is one of the most important legacies we can leave to future generations and its anthropogenic destruction requires urgent action by policy makers and a re-thinking of economic activities. Continue reading “Can local and sustainable agriculture save biodiversity?”

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Africa, Français

Transformation productive en Afrique : l’heure des choix

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Par Arthur Minsat, Chef d’Unité, Europe, Moyen-Orient & Afrique, Centre de développement de l’OCDE

Ce blog fait partie d’une série marquant
le 19e Forum économique international sur l’Afrique

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Photo by Patrick Sun on Unsplash

Croissance mondiale en baisse, guerre commerciale, automatisation, robotisation … : le commerce international a-t-il encore un rôle positif à jouer dans la transformation des économies de l’Union africaine ?

Si l’on regarde du côté des marchés africains, la réponse est oui : la demande interne a contribué à 69% de la croissance du continent depuis 2000, la maintenant à une moyenne de 4.6% par an, soit la plus rapide au monde après l’Asie (7,4%). Or, cette demande dynamique, portée par une croissance démographique forte, l’urbanisation et l’émergence de « classes moyennes » s’oriente de plus en plus vers des produits transformés comme l’alimentation, les boissons, la viande ou les machines génératrices d’électricité : l’un des principaux obstacles à l’émergence d’un secteur manufacturier africain riche en emplois—la faiblesse de la demande domestique—est ainsi en passe d’être levé !  Or non seulement cette « mégatendance » s’installe pour plusieurs décennies, mais elle prend de l’ampleur au moment où la perspective d’une Zone de Libre-échange Continentale Africaine (ZLECA) rend possible un bond du commerce intra-africain. Continue reading “Transformation productive en Afrique : l’heure des choix”

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Africa

Urban Management in Africa Observed

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By Naison Mutizwa-Mangiza, Director, Regional Office for Africa, UN-Habitat; and
Marco Kamiya, Head, Urban Economy and Finance Branch, UN-Habitat, Global Headquarters in Keny

This blog is part of a series marking the 
19th International Economic Forum on Africa 

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Downtown Nairobi, Kenya. Photo: unhabitat.org

Africa is at a defining moment in its developmental journey. After experiencing 5% growth from 2001 to 2014, and a slowdown in between, the continent is projected to grow by over 3.5% in 2020 (UN, 2019). Continued economic progress presents opportunities for further accelerated, sustained, and inclusive growth provided that the right policies are put in place.

However, low productivity levels in manufacturing, services and the agricultural sector pose a major threat of economic stagnation with effects on African cities. Africa’s Development Dynamics 2019 by the OECD and the African Union Commission shows that Africa has a labour productivity ratio that is 50% lower than Asia’s and only 12% that of the United States. We believe that low productivity correlates with the quality of urbanisation. We define the quality of urbanisation as human settlements and communities that are able to capture the benefits of urban growth and expansion, quantified by more local and foreign investment, increased regional and international trade, enhanced revenues for local governments, better services for citizens and the activation of a virtuous circle where economic growth and welfare become self-reinforcing (UN-Habitat, 2017).

So, what are the most pressing needs of African cities to improve their quality of urbanisation? Below, we would like to share some general observations from our field projects that could serve to support policy design.[i] Continue reading “Urban Management in Africa Observed”

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Africa, Building resilience, Human Development, Policy

How do Nations Learn? Why Development is First and Foremost About Learning

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By Dr Arkebe Oqubay, Senior Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia 

This blog is part of a series marking the upcoming 
19th International Economic Forum on Africa 

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Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Policy makers and academics alike puzzle over why some countries achieve economic ‘growth miracles’ while others lag behind. Of the 100 middle-income economies in 1960, fewer than a dozen transitioned into high-income economies. Economic history and empirical observations show that progress is linked to how nations learn and more specifically to the processes of technological learning, industrial policy, and catch-up. By looking at the cases of Japan, the United States, China and Ethiopia, I argue that commitment to learning by governments and dynamic technological learning by firms are key to economic catch-up. How these and other nations learn can provide valuable insight for African countries.

How did Japan overtake Europe in the mid-20th century?

The key driver of catch-up in Japan was technological learning and an active industrial policy. Japan’s learning experience involved the transfer of skills and knowledge, the importation of equipment and the acquisition of turnkey projects to develop technological capability. Japan also developed industrial infrastructure, including railways and the telegraph, by deploying state-owned enterprises. Continue reading “How do Nations Learn? Why Development is First and Foremost About Learning”

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Africa, Trade

A Sceptics Guide to the African Continental Free Trade Area – and Why the Sceptics are Wrong…

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By Andrew Mold, Acting Director, Office for Eastern Africa, Economic Commission for Africa, Kigali, Rwanda

This blog is part of a series marking the upcoming 
19th International Economic Forum on Africa 

Photo by Frans Van Heerden from Pexels
Photo by Frans Van Heerden from Pexels

Scepticism is never in short supply, generally speaking, and particularly in the era we are currently living through. This is often true when it comes to bold policy initiatives on the African continent. Yet I would argue that a lack of faith is certainly not warranted in the case of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

Objections to the AfCFTA follow familiar lines. There are a series of misconceptions which underpin these objections:

“African countries all trade the same things”

Despite evidence of some diversification of exports occurring over recent decades, this is largely true; Africa is still heavily dependent on traditional export crops and commodities, reducing the scope for mutually beneficial trade. Yet this paints an excessively simplified view of trends in regional trade. Patterns of trade are changing rapidly. The traditional export market outside the continent of Africa (Europe, the United States and, increasingly, India and China) are of primary commodities, but the intra-regional component of trade is much more diversified, with high shares of non-traditional exports and manufactured goods, as illustrated by the case of the East African Community (EAC). Continue reading “A Sceptics Guide to the African Continental Free Trade Area – and Why the Sceptics are Wrong…”

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