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Publications (43)
Blog
Discrimination against women and girls is a pervasive and long-running phenomenon that characterises Indian society at every level. India’s progress towards gender equality, measured by its position on rankings such as the Gender Development Index has been disappointing, despite fairly rapid rates...
Blog
Helsinki: symbol of peace in Aceh On the 15 August 2005, a government banquet hall in Helsinki became the centre point for international media. It was a day when the peace settlement between the Indonesian government and Aceh Independence Movement (Gereka Aceh Merdeka, GAM) known as the Helsinki...
Public sector schools operate within the broader context of political systems and the management of school systems can be influenced by political factors. Yet, there is a lack of quantitative or causal evidence on how political factors shape education systems and outcomes in developing countries...
Blog
When elephants fight, the grass suffers. According to an African proverb, when elephants fight, the grass suffers. In other words, when the big and powerful fight, it is the small who suffer. At UNU-WIDER’s recent conference, Responding to Crises, the focus of the debate was primarily on the grass —...
Rising powers have had a profound impact on the WTO. For over half a century the trading system was dominated by the US and other advanced industrialized states, with developing countries and their interests severely marginalized. However, over the course of the Doha Round of trade negotiations...
– Concepts and Policies
The concepts of formal and informal remain central to the theory and practice of development more than half a century after they were introduced into the debate. They help structure the way that statistical services collect data on the economies of developing countries, the development of...
This book presents significant new research on the informal labour markets of developing countries. Examining the critical role of informal labour markets in allowing countries to adjust successfully to the forces of globalization, this volume also brings to the fore a number of problems associated...
Working Paper
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– a Case Study of the Mekong Lowlands
In river basins around the world, formal agreements based on international watercourse law are seen as important mechanisms for promoting sustainability and cooperation. While such agreements have been effective in avoiding conflict between states in the short-term, success at the international...
Working Paper
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– Some Evidence from Indonesian Posyandus
This study attempts to determine the extent to which human potential may be unlocked by government or other formal sector actions that induce voluntary contributions by individuals to the activities of Indonesia’s posyandus or village health posts. Posyandus have been an important feature of...
Working Paper
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One of the most notable phenomena during economic transition is the shrinkage of the public sector and expansion of the not working population, simultaneously with the expansion of both the formal and informal private sectors. We address the related labour dynamics of the pre and post 1996 crisis in...
Working Paper
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– The Mexican Agenda
Public policy aimed at building capacity among the extremely poor (support for food and nutrition; health; education and, more recently, financial services), combined with a stable macroeconomic environment, has proved to be successful for poverty alleviation in Mexico. Even though overall poverty...
Working Paper
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– the Origins and Consequences of Policy Incoherence Toward Informal Traders
Almost twenty years have passed since researchers from the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru showed how ‘bad laws’ impose disproportionate costs on those who choose formality. Although a multitude of conflicting regulations still precludes effective governance of informal trade in Lima...
Working Paper
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This paper investigates how people created, adapted and used social capital and conflict resolution during more than a decade of violent conflict in Liberia, and the potential of such capital to contribute to post-conflict peacebuilding and self-governance.
Working Paper
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– a Case Study for Urban Burkina Faso
Given the current focus of international development policy on pro-poor growth and poverty reduction, the role of the informal sector in the process of economic development is again at the top of the research and policy agenda. A key question is if pro-poor growth policies have to address the...
Working Paper
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– the Case of Cross-Border Commerce in the Horn of Africa
This paper addresses informal cross-border trade in the Horn of Africa, with an emphasis on the Somalia borderlands. It will be shown that despite the collapse of a government in 1991, Somalia’s unofficial exports of cattle to Kenya have grown considerably during the past 13 years. It will be argued...
Working Paper
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The objective of the paper is to understand the transforming relationship between the formal and informal sector in a liberalizing open developing economy. There are various facets in this relationship, and we focus on three essential aspects. First, we look at the impact of deregulatory policies in...
Displaying 16 of 43 results