In the context of security issues, growing violence and conflicts, the World Bank has released its flagship report – World Development Report (WDR) 2011: Conflict, Security and Development.

According to the World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick, “If we are to break the cycles of violence and lessen the stresses that drive them, countries must develop more legitimate, accountable and capable national institutions that provide for citizen security, justice and jobs”, He further adds, “Children living in fragile states are twice as likely to be undernourished and three times as likely to be out of school.  And the effects of violence in one area can spread to neighboring states and to other parts of the world, hurting development prospects of others and impeding economic prospects for entire regions.”

In collaboration with number of international organizations, including the United Nations, the report is based on the analysis of researchers and policy makers  in the development community, the UN system and the world’s regional institutions, adds Nigel Roberts, WDR co-Director and Special Representative.

The report is divided into 3 parts as following:

1) the Challenge

includes 2 following chapters:

Chapter 1: Repeated violence threatens development, explores the challenge: repeated cycles of organized criminal violence and civil conflict that threaten development locally and regionally and are responsible for much of the global deficit in meeting the Millennium Development Goals

Chapter 2:  Vulnerability to violence, reviews the combination of internal and external stresses and institutional factors that lead to violence.  It argues that capable, accountable, and legitimate institutions are the common “missing factor” explaining why some societies are more resilient to violence than others.  Without attention to institutional transformation, countries are susceptible to a vicious cycle of repeated violence.

2) Lessons from National and International Responses

includes 5 following chapters:

Chapter 3: From violence to resilience: Restoring confidence and transforming institutions, presents the WDR framework, or “virtuous cycle.” It compiles research and case study experience to show how countries have successfully moved away from fragility and violence: by mobilizing coalitions in support of citizen security, justice, and jobs to restore confidence in the short term and by transforming national institutions over time. This is a repeated process that seizes multiple transition moments and builds cumulative progress. It takes a generation.

Chapter 4: Restoring confidence: Moving away from the brink, reviews lessons from national experience in restoring confidence by mobilizing ‘inclusive-enough’ coalitions of stakeholders and by delivering results. Collaborative coalitions often combine government and nongovernmental leadership to build national support for change and signal an irreversible break with the past. Restoring confidence in situations of low trust means delivering some fast results, since government announcements of change will not be credible without tangible action.

Chapter 5: Transforming institutions to deliver security, justice, and jobs, reviews national experience in prioritizing foundational reforms that provide citizen security, justice, and jobs—and stem the illegal financing of armed groups.  In moving forward institutional transformation in complex conflict settings, case studies emphasize that perfection should not be the enemy of progress—pragmatic, “best-fit” approaches should be used to address immediate challenges.

Chapter 6: International support to building confidence and transforming institutions, turns to lessons from international support to national processes. While registering some notable successes, it argues that international interventions are often fragmented, slow to enter, quick to exit, reliant on international technical assistance, and delivered through parallel systems. The chapter considers why international action has been slow to change. International actors have to respond to their own domestic pressures to avoid risk and deliver fast results. Different parts of the international system—middle-income versus OECD actors, for example—face different domestic pressures, undermining cohesive support.

Chapter 7: International action to mitigate external stresses, provides lessons from international action to combat external security, economic, and resource stresses that increase conflict risk.  The stresses range from trafficking in drugs and natural resources to food insecurity and other economic shocks.  The chapter also addresses lessons from regional and cross-border initiatives to manage these threats.

3) Practical Options and Recommendation

includes 5 following chapters:

Chapter 8: Practical country directions and options, provides practical options for national and international reformers to take advantage of multiple transition opportunities, restore confidence, and transform institutions in countries facing a range of institutional challenges, stresses, and forms of violence.

Chapter 9: New directions for international support, identifies four tracks for international action.  First, to invest in prevention through citizen security, justice and jobs.  Second, internal agency reforms to provide faster assistance for confidence-building and longer term institutional engagement.  Third, acting at the regional level on external stresses.  Fourth, marshalling the knowledge and resources of low, middle, and high-income countries.

The full text of the latest WDR 2011 is available at the World Bank website (here).

Don’t forget to share your views and comments about the latest WDR on comments section below.

 

In the latest report released by the United Nations Group of Eminent Persons, appointed by the UN Secretary General, Ban-Ki Moon, the international organization has expressed its optimism towards poverty eradication in Least Developed Countries (LDCs). According to the report, 48 LDCs can reduce the poverty by half within 10 years, provided if they meet the targeted access to development aid, duty and quota free access for exports and double farm productivity and school enrolment. This can be considered as a bold objective, given that altogether there have been 51 LDCs since the category was created by the UN in 1970, and only three have graduated since then – Botswana in 1994, Cape Verde in 2007, and Maldives earlier this year.

The growth in most of the LDCs has been sluggish during the period of 2000-2009, most of which range between 0-2% and negative growth rate (see table below). In such circumstances, the report not only provides an optimistically achievable target of poverty reduction by half, but also provides guidelines to achieve sub-targets for each objective.

 

Issued ahead of the conference on LDCs to be held in Istanbul from 9 to 13 May, which will seek to promote a 10-year programme for food security, decent work, disaster risk reduction, climate resilience and clean energy growth in the LDCs, The Report of Eminent Persons 2011 stresses that these countries can break out of a decades-long poverty trap, depending on determined national action and international support.

The Panel is chaired by Alpha Oumar Konaré, former President of Mali and former Chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission, and James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank, and includes Kemal Dervis, now the Director of Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution and a former Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The report by the Group of Eminent Persons is available on the following link: Group of Eminent Persons.

What do you think about it ? is the claim made by the Group of Eminent Persons is achievable in 10 years, provided the sub-objectives are set accordingly? Let me know what do you think about it in the comments section below.

Greg Kaufmann posted an extremely interesting story at the Nation (US newspaper – see link below), highlighting the key facts of US poverty. According to Kaufmann, an astonishing number of 47 million people live below poverty line in the United States.

An interesting part of the post is the interview between him and Peter Edelman – A Georgetown University professor who is writing a book on poverty in the US. In his interview, Prof. Edelman compared the poverty alleviation strategies during 1960s and now, ‘we now have this tidal wave of low wage jobs which is different from where we were in the 1960s. The other thing is we have so many more families that are headed by a single parent, usually a mom. The poverty of households headed by a single woman is over 30 percent’, said Prof. Edelman.

we now have this tidal wave of low wage jobs which is different from where we were in the 1960s. The other thing is we have so many more families that are headed by a single parent, usually a mom. The poverty of households headed by a single woman is over 30 percent, says Prof. Edelman (Georgetown University)

When asked what needs to be done to tackle poverty in the US, “Very fundamentally you need two things: one, you need wage supplements—that’s the earned-income tax credit. The other is you need all the social investments that are necessary and that are the obligation of the society to provide. They’re not a wage supplement, but they have an income affect, and that’s health coverage, and childcare, strong K-12 and pre-K, access to higher education and help with housing. But the federal childcare only reaches about one in seven who qualify for it; and federally-funded housing help reaches about one in four who qualify for it. So, all of those things cost money. And we’re not ready to admit that we have this structurally broken economy. The fundamental question about poverty in this country—putting aside those who need the safety net—is facing up to the fact that the economy is broken. It has a structural flaw for millions and millions of people: low-wage work”.

On asking about the child poverty, Prof. Edelman stressed the importance of family situation where households with single mothers have high effect on the degree of child poverty, and child education. An important aspect in child poverty is of race and ethnicity of family that contributes to child poverty. ‘We still have poverty rates for African-Americans that are close to three times the white rate. Same for Latinos. But the African-American poverty rate tends to be more intergenerational, more persistent; Same for Native Americans’, says Prof. Elderman.

Do you have your views on poverty in the US? Do not forget to leave your comments below.

(To read the full article, please visit the following link:

http://www.thenation.com/article/159381/us-poverty-past-present-and-future?page=0,1 )

Another disaster, another tragedy and another Tsunami jolts Japan, killing more than 1000 people, with death toll expecting to rise further. The pictures popping up on facebook and videos uploaded on Youtube are really heart-touching for all of us and shows that how human beings with all their technological and economic advancement are just incapable of predicting and managing disasters of such scale and damage. Even though Japanese have adopted to earthquakes through technological advancements in construction and building, but yet such natural disasters are not completely ‘under-control’ (i believe they shall never be!) !

According to the Guardian, more than 88000 people are missing until now and more than 3000 people are evacuated from the nuclear plant emergency site. For more information and latest updates, check out the Youtube link below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4lIFEDFYIw

The disaster will certainly leave its psychological, social and economical effects for long time for Japanese as well as for rest of the world. To overcome this, there is a dire need of humanitarian aid for safe evacuation of the effectees to secure places, necessary preparations for aftershocks as well as to meet an emergency situation for health, food and safety. For sure, Japan is not in such a position to tackle all this alone. Apart from US and Europe, developing countries should also come forward and help Japan in their own capacities, so that this great nation and its people can stand up again -- with more strength.

All my best wishes to Japan and its great people.

World Bank, Senior Vice President, Otaviano Canuto in his blog at the Huffington Post reveals that the recent hikes in food prices have forced an additional 44 million people into extreme poverty (earning less than $1.25 per day). However on the other side, the data from the World Bank also shows that poverty reduction measures taken by countries across the globe has also reduced the overall poverty.

According to Mr. Canuto, there might be a link between the climate change and poverty as it might effect the agricultural productivity and might also effect poor people’s health, access to water and natural resources, homes and infrastructure.

In my opinion, this is very true. As for instance, the recent (2010) floods in Pakistan has effected 70 million acres (69,000 km^2) fertile land, killed nearly quarter a million of livestock and washed away thousands of tons of grain stock. Studies have already shown that the floods were one of the most devastating aftermath of climate change which is gradually happening with severe potential to limit the ability of developing countries to meet developmental goals. As a result of the floods, the food supplies in the country hit severely, which further resulted in food price hike. Until now, the country has not yet managed to recover due to reliance on foreign and local aid, cut on national and provincial developmental budgets, and high rehabilitation and reconstruction costs in flood affected areas.

On the worse side, it is also expected that such natural catastrophes in the form of earthquakes and floods might be witnessed in the region in near future as well, which certainly will make the picture further grim, from poverty and development perspective.