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Motivation: The Panama Papers scandal highlighted the scale of financial secrecy, anonymous ownership and shell companies and their role in profit shifting and tax avoidance. We show the importance of international tax planning within the structure of corporate entities owned by shareholder‐individuals through Panama Papers destinations. Purpose: To identify profit‐shifting channels and to estimate related government revenue losses to European Union Member States. Methods: Using company data from the Amadeus/Orbis database (Bureau Van Dijk, n.d.a, n.d.b), we applied micro‐data analysis to the financial statements of multinational companies (MNEs) owned by shareholder‐individuals. Two groups—one with and the other without links to Panama Papers tax havens—alongside an analysis of profit‐shifting indicators. Findings: Profit is generally shifted by moving operating revenues or costs, though the use of debt channels is also important. Also, groups linked to tax havens pay significantly less tax per unit of profit before tax, and require less operating revenue to achieve higher profits. Finally, related government revenue losses were assessed at EUR 8.67 billion. Policy implication: Our results are relevant to the European Commission's Comprehensive Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCCTB) as it aims to counter profit shifting out of the European Union (EU) into tax havens. Further, our research highlights the importance of setting up registries of ultimate beneficiary owners in EU Member States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shifts in thinking and practice concerning aid have posed serious challenges in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for both donors and recipients, but progress in reform remains slow. An important first step in any initiative involving M&E capacity development is the diagnosis of the systems' current status. This article presents a diagnostic checklist that captures issues of M&E policy: indicators, data collection and methodology; organisation; capacity-building; participation of nongovernmental actors; and use. It applies it to a review of the PRSP M&E arrangements of 20 aid-dependent countries in sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate comparative strengths and weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Books reviewed in this article: Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor – A White Paper on International Development. By the Secretary of State for International Development [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) expand the development agenda. While all major development actors support policy coherence for development (PCD), analysis has been lacking on how this can be achieved as the development agenda expands. We discuss the relationship between SDGs and PCD through a comprehensive case study from Finland. Purpose: To examine the coherence of Finland's foreign and development policy for achieving the SDGs, while leaving no one behind. Particular focus is given to policies related to the private sector's role in development, and attention is also paid to ministries other than the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Approach and methods: We carried out interviews with policy‐makers and other stakeholders, and analysed relevant documents. We reviewed governmental high‐level policy statements, sectoral alignments, and development aid documents. We also reviewed the position papers that the Finnish Government had issued on European Union (EU) processes, particularly regarding development relating to the private sector. Findings: Finland has been uniquely positioned to advance PCD in its foreign policy, thanks to co‐ordination structures across government. Nonetheless, mainstreaming of the expanded development agenda has been largely limited to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and its development policy department. The breadth of the SDG agenda has enabled individual targets to be cherry‐picked, with less attention paid to advancing the Agenda 2030 as a whole and to implementing its Leave No One Behind (LNOB) principle. Despite an institutional framework seemingly ideal for policy coherence, traditional sectoral divisions between development policy as a separate field and sustainability as an environmental issue, remain. Five factors in particular hindered policy coherence: (a) Finland's position papers to the EU on taxes and migration all but ignored Agenda 2030 commitments; (b) the Finnish emphasis on the private sector in development narrowed the considerations of development to economic growth; (c) sustainability was seen as green technology, with scant regard to social sustainability; (d) private firms interpreted the SDGs to mean that environmental sustainability could address human rights‐related concerns with corporate social responsibility initiatives; and (e) cuts to staffing in the Finnish Government stymied innovative thinking and working across departmental boundaries. Policy Implications: Finland is generally seen as a front‐runner in mainstreaming development issues, which makes it an interesting case. We outline the key challenges that Finland has faced in tackling PCD, which should be relevant for other Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries as well. Many challenges related to PCD are political and organizational. As such, they are highly dependent on the particular institutional settings in each country. Our methodological approach could be replicated in other similar countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: It is increasingly common for international development actors to work in difficult and fragile settings, yet much of our understanding of accountability through social and political action comes from more stable settings. As an increasing percentage of the world's population live in places characterized by fragility, it is essential to understand the context for accountability in these settings. Purpose: This article proposes a framework based on three domains of contestation: natural resources, identity, and legitimacy. Based on this framework, it unpacks the constraints towards progress on accountability in difficult settings, and the challenges in creating an environment for citizen claim‐making. Methods and approach: The article draws on research from a five‐year Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) programme which focused on examining social and political action in Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Research papers from the programme were analysed together with a close reading of existing literature to decipher the common traits hampering citizen action and state response in difficult settings. Findings The core argument is that a weak state and the prevalence of non‐state groups vying for power are fundamental to difficult contexts in three different domains: natural resources, legitimacy, and identity, in which underlying contestation generates conflict, violence, and fragility. The three domains are set within two structural factors: historical legacies and social norms. The article traces how contestation in these domains within structural factors influences the behaviour of powerholders as well as the outlook of citizens who could make accountability claims. Policy implications: The article concludes by suggesting that lessons for development actors attempting to promote accountability in these settings are: to "work with the grain", e.g. recognize the context and work with it; explore possibilities for change at the local level, e.g. where alliance building and networking might be more feasible; and look for the small wins—because in a context fraught with difficulties, small achievements such as overcoming fear should be counted as a success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to government‐sponsored health insurance schemes (GSHIS), many microfinance institutions (MFIs) and community‐based organizations (CBOs) in India have started microinsurance health insurance schemes. These include health mutuals for the benefit of their members. This article explores these as an alternative health‐financing model in India. A literature search produced 926 relevant publications. After applying advanced search options and removing duplicates, abstracts of 324 papers were read and then 47 papers reviewed, and finally 29 were included in this review. Five key themes emerged: (1) "Health for all" arguments and opportunities in favour of micro health insurance schemes; (2) micro health insurance products; (3) impact of micro health insurance schemes; (4) systematic irregularities and regulatory framework; and (5) innovation. We also look at the emerging market patterns that will define micro health insurance products. Health mutuals can effectively provide mass health protection to the poor and not so poor through efficient business models, bespoke benefit packages and multiple payment plans. They can reduce financial vulnerability and improve health outcomes. While GSHIS can cover a substantial tranche of expected health‐related costs, the balance can be supplemented through innovative financial products that reduce financial risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: The development of human capital is a priority for most nation states, accelerated by the COVID‐19 global pandemic. In the context of reimagining a "new normal" post‐COVID, we reconsider the concept of human capital, and focus on knowledge, skills, and training of individuals in order to capture aspects of inclusive development. Purpose: This paper shows how the perspective of women, informal sector workers, representing some of the most marginalized workers in society, informs and improves our understanding of human capital and its development and utilization. Methods and approach: Our findings are derived from field‐based research conducted over the summer of 2021 in which multiple (virtual) focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with selected members of the Self‐Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India. Findings: Through our FGDs, the participants provided new perspectives and insights into our knowledge of human capital, emphasizing the importance of social protection programmes, gender equity, ongoing training opportunities, decentralized supply chains, and income security. Perhaps most significantly, the benefits accrued to women through being organized have been key to unlocking their human capital potential. Policy implications: Our research highlights themes that are often overlooked in the literature or are beyond the scope of more narrow conceptualizations of human capital. We show that human capital is tightly interwoven with other forms of capital (community assets), and hence efforts to build the former cannot be achieved in isolation from attending to the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-Saharan African cities have been growing at historically unprecedented rates. Since the early 1970s, they have received considerable international assistance, involving a succession of major thematic objectives. The main agency involved in urban assistance has been the World Bank. But as its goals have changed, it has been obliged to operate increasingly through a decentralised, more democratically structured local-government system. Overall, the success of this international-assistance regime has been positive but modest, given the overwhelming needs of African cities. Still, African cities are increasingly finding solutions both co-operatively and on their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: Latin America has witnessed massive increases in production and consumption of chicken meat over the last 60 years and well beyond its share of the developing world's population. Chicken is now a major source of livestock protein in regional diets; leads livestock production in 25 out of the region's 33 countries; production, slaughtering, and sales provide millions of jobs. Purpose: To analyse growth rates for chicken meat in Latin America, why they have differed, how the role of innovation and development policies contributed to bringing about this growth, in turn leading to the patterns of governance of these activities today. Methods and approach: This study used a modified value chain framework along with FAO statistics, national data, published and unpublished studies to analyse macro‐level developments and their linkages to shifts in the organization of activities in the value chain for chicken from pre‐production through to consumption and trade from past to present. Findings Different natural resource endowments, demographics, and dietary preferences combined with frequent innovations and an array of policy measures led to a spectacular surge in output and productivity, lower costs, and facilitated a steady rise in consumption. As part of that growth, these activities became increasingly concentrated in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru and within those countries in a few very large firms. Their operations expanded in the value chain beyond the farm gate, across the region, and in some cases around the world. Policy implications: This paper has implications for greater transparency in grower contracts, better working conditions for slaughterhouse workers and bird catchers, more environmentally and bird‐friendly chicken production, accelerated adoption of practices as per Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems in the value chain for broilers in Latin America and the Caribbean, and improved enforcement of laws and regulations governing the technical and financial operations of value chains for chicken, along with renewed collaboration among government authorities to that effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, democratisation, which has proceeded unevenly across Africa during the past two decades, should encourage pro-poor agricultural policy, as the majority of voters in many countries remain rural and poor. This article draws on case studies of recent policy change in six African countries, plus a review of the literature on political competition and voting behaviour, to explore the evolving role of competitive electoral politics in agricultural policy-making. It finds that democratic pressures for pro-poor agricultural policy remain weak, which may help explain the limited delivery thus far on commitments to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). However, exogenous factors - most strikingly, sustained threats to regime survival - can create positive incentives for agricultural investment. The implications for participants in agricultural policy processes are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: As governments move in earnest toward a green economy, few countries are considering education policy that can facilitate the development of green skills for such transitions. Where policy discussions are happening, green skills are often conflated with science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) skills, with little attention to the breadth of green skills needed to achieve climate justice. Purpose: We present a green skills framework to help support policy stakeholders imagine a continuum of green skills for a just transition. Methods and approach: This article applies a critical feminist lens to understand how green skills have been conceptualized across the gender and adolescence, greening and sustainability, and education fields. It also integrates the perspectives of stakeholders from climate, education, and gender‐focused multilateral, government, and non‐governmental organizations working on green skills. Findings The analysis finds that green skills coalesce around three distinct but overlapping paradigms. The first understands green skills through a technical lens as the specific capacities needed for green jobs. The second and third paradigms understand green skills through a sociological lens, seeking to tackle the behaviours and social structures driving the climate crisis. As such, they centre on cross‐cutting generic capacities and transformative capacities, respectively. Taken together, the article offers a new definition of green skills for policy stakeholders. Policy implications: The three approaches to green skills outlined in this paper constitute the pillars of a new green learning agenda for climate action, climate empowerment, and climate justice. This green learning agenda fills a significant void in both climate policy and education policy, and could help governments address current capacity building needs while setting their populations up for the long‐term social transformations required to achieve a just transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nature and origins of state-society relations in sub-Saharan Africa ( SSA). It traces the region's predatory state-society relations to slavery and colonialism and the concomitant extractive institutions, which are not conducive to sustainable economic development. Consequently, attempts to achieve sustainable development have been largely futile. The paper proposes a strategy for transforming the region's economic and governance institutions for inclusive and enduring growth and development. This strategy includes the promulgation and enforcement of coherent international codes and guidelines for state-society relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: The Government of Ethiopia has a long‐standing commitment to improving the quality of education. In recent years, this has shifted to include a more explicit focus on equity in learning outcomes. In this paper, we examine the education reform design process in the context of Ethiopia's political environment which is widely recognised as a strong developmental state. Purpose: The article examines how federal, regional, and international donor actors negotiate their interests in relation to Ethiopia's national quality education reform programme, the General Education Quality Improvement Programme for Equity (GEQIP‐E). Methods and approach: We conducted 81 semi‐structured, key informant interviews with federal and regional government officials and international donors who were involved in the design of GEQIP‐E. Findings We find that federal government was able to leverage considerable political influence over high‐level priorities and the framing of GEQIP‐E. Large donors leveraged financial influence to exclude some specific priorities, while smaller donors were able to draw on social influence and technical expertise to include priorities aligned with their interests. Regional governments—which are responsible for policy implementation—were largely excluded from the reform design process. Policy implications: Our analysis highlights the importance of recognizing and understanding different forms of influence in the dynamic process of negotiating reform between government and donors. It identifies that both government and donor voices counted in the process of negotiations, but in different ways and to varying degrees. Understanding how different actors draw on their relative political, financial, and social influence is vital for ensuring successful implementation and sustainability. Importantly, we identify that voices of local actors are left out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between January 2006 and April 2008, the prices of most agricultural products rose considerably in international markets. Empirical studies show that this spike in world food prices increased the number of poor households in developing countries, but the extent was not the same in all countries. This article assesses the impact of rising rice prices on poverty and income inequality in Burkina Faso, using a methodology based on the concept of compensating variation combined with the net benefit ratio (NBR) developed by Deaton (1989) and a living standard survey (QUIBB, 2003). The results show that higher prices have a negative impact on income and poverty in the regions with a large proportion of households that are net buyers of rice. The poverty rate increases by 2.2 to 2.9 percentage points depending on the assumptions, the increase being higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Rising rice prices also increase income inequality, which increases particularly in urban areas and in relatively rich regions, but decreases in poor regions with a large proportion of rice producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Malawi FISP resurrected debates about the role of subsidies in African agricultural policy. Recent literature has highlighted the social and political interests that influence the distribution of input-subsidy vouchers, often tending to reduce the efficiency with which such programmes contribute to poverty reduction. Taking the FISP as a case study, this article examines the political incentives that have driven programme implementation. Two streams of rents associated with the FISP were used to generate support for the first-term government of President Mutharika (2005-9), with very different implications for programme efficiency. One then stopped abruptly in 2009. The Malawi case demonstrates both the importance of political incentives in determining subsidy outcomes and how they can change dramatically over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile phones are spreading rapidly in developing countries, but research conceptualisations have been lagging behind practice, particularly those that link mobile phones to livelihoods. This article seeks to fill this gap in two ways. First, by means of a literature review which analyses how they impact upon assets - through facilitating asset substitution, enhancement, combination, exchange and forms of disembodiment. On this basis key roles for mobile phones are defined within livelihood strategies. Secondly, the analysis demonstrates the shortcomings of the livelihoods framework for understanding technological innovation; its agriculture-oriented understanding of assets; its silence on the developmental role of information and on user appropriation of technology; and its narrow categorisation of impact. Ways of addressing these shortcomings are suggested, pointing towards areas of future research and application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: The growth diagnostics methodology was developed to encourage context‐specific problem‐solving and priority‐setting as a substitute for the universal prescriptions that characterized the Washington Consensus era. While growth diagnostics have been praised and become popular in development planning, little is known about what they do in practice. Purpose: The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a new aid agency, adopted growth diagnostics in 2007 to guide decision‐making for bilateral development assistance after forging nearly 20 agreements informed by existing Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. This study examines how the MCC's adoption of growth diagnostics affected its development investments. Approach and methods: The study used a mixed‐methods approach with primary and secondary data and an interrupted time‐series research design that compares MCC agreements designed with and without growth diagnostics. Findings: The study found that growth diagnostics helped move the MCC's investment portfolio away from multi‐sector integrated rural development programmes aimed at high‐poverty regions towards programmes in fewer sectors concentrated in urban areas with large policy and institutional reform components reminiscent of earlier structural adjustment programmes. The article explains how features of the growth diagnostic methodology largely contributed to these changes. Policy implications: Development planners committed to using diagnostics should employ inclusive growth diagnostics, which modify the original diagnostic in ways that identify and target constraints to achieve pro‐poor growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 15 years, a set of ideas now referred to as "thinking and working politically" (TWP) has coalesced into a "second orthodoxy" about how to take context into account when implementing development interventions. This approach stresses the importance of obtaining a better understanding of the local context ("thinking politically") in order to support local actors to bring about sustainable developmental change ("working politically"). However, the evidence base to justify this new approach remains thin, despite a growing number of programmes which purport to be implementing it. Officials in development agencies struggle with putting it into practice and it is unclear how TWP differs—or not—from similar approaches, such as Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) and Doing Development Differently (DDD). This Special Issue sheds light on what TWP means in practice by examining a set of initiatives undertaken by both development partners and government departments in Nigeria, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, China and India. This overview article outlines, in brief, each of the Special Issue's four papers and then draws out five lessons—for funders and for practitioners—from across all the papers. Our five lessons are: (1) the fundamental importance of undertaking political economy analysis (PEA) to adapt programmes to their contexts; (2) the importance of having a realistic level of ambition for interventions; (3) the need to support local ownership—not just "agreement ownership" (between a donor agency and government) or local "management ownership" of the programme, but critically "driver ownership" by generating trust with the key local actors driving change; (4) the need for a more effective set of tools for measuring results in complex programmes that attempt to achieve improvements in long‐run governance; and, (5) that although the political economy of donors is often seen as a barrier to applying TWP, the articles show how much can be done with a TWP approach if the analysis takes into account the political economy of donors as well as that of the local context. We conclude with a set of operational recommendations for donors and implementors, as well as suggestions of avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliminating World Poverty: Building Our Common Future. By the UK Department for International Development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of macro-poverty linkages has emerged as an important but contentious area of national and international policy-making. Over the last few years, considerable progress has been made in understanding the linkages between macroeconomic policies and poverty reduction, as well as in developing evaluation tools and methodologies useful in conductingex-antePSIAs of macro policies. Nevertheless, while there are some reasons for optimism about the future, the potential contribution of these insights and tools to poverty reduction is largely unfulfilled. This article provides an introduction to this theme issue on‘Analysing Macro-Poverty Linkages’ by reviewing (i) macroeconomic policy debates and (ii) methods and tools for evaluating the impact of macro policies on poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The above article from Development Policy Review, published as Accepted Article online on 12 June 2019 in Wiley Online Library (http://wileyonlinelibrary.com) has been withdrawn by agreement among the authors, the Journal Editor‐in‐Chief Annalisa Prizzon and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. on behalf of Overseas Development Institute. The withdrawal has been agreed because the paper was published inadvertently as the result of an administrative error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: Paid work is key for women's empowerment, but many women work in precarious employment where they experience workplace sexual harassment. Articles in this special section explore how social norms and job informality influence women's perceptions about—and their voice and agency to counter—workplace sexual harassment. Purpose: This introductory article highlights the academic and policy contribution of the special section by establishing how the articles collectively explore the relationship between social norms, job informality, and women's agency with respect to workplace sexual harassment, and the kinds of policies that may strengthen women's agency. Methods and approach: Research in two countries explored how gender norms and informality in work arrangements influence young women's voice and agency in response to sexual harassment at work. This article introduces four articles based on the research findings and presents the themes that are explored in case studies with domestic workers and workers in agro‐processing factories in Bangladesh and Uganda. Findings: The findings show that gender norms regarding sexuality and notions of family honour and shame constrain young women's ability to voice incidents of sexual harassment and their agency in seeking support from family and other actors; normalize male aggression; and sustain the perpetrators' impunity. These norms, alongside class and power hierarchies, affect the responses of the actors and institutions both within and outside their workplace. Given the precarious nature of their work, most workers avoid lodging formal complaints and rely on informal mechanisms for self‐protection. Policy implications: The policy implications of the research include the importance of developing common language that will allow women to speak openly about their experiences; increasing access to and confidence in formal complaints mechanisms; developing young women's political capacities to challenge harassment; and address social and gender norms that constrain women and normalize harassment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing disparities in development outcomes are storing up trouble for current and future generations. In addition to the moral issues raised and the intrinsic welfare effects for those experiencing relative deprivation, this article argues that recent research supports a stronger public-policy focus on equity. Increasing inequity blunts both growth and the ability of growth to translate into human-development outcomes, and puts institutions, social cohesion and the productivity of future generations at risk. The article highlights new micro evidence suggesting that a focus on the most marginal might well lead to higher benefit:cost ratios, and outlines the choices that need to be made to generate a more equity-focused policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007, the Uruguayan government implemented a tax reform which introduced a new progressive labour income tax and a flat capital income tax, and reduced some indirect taxes, with the objective of improving fiscal balance, income distribution and economic growth. This article evaluates the impact of such tax reform on equity and efficiency on the basis of data derived from the Encuesta Continua de Hogares (ECH) for 2006 and 2009. Using a Difference-in-Differences technique, it shows that the new system reduced inequality by 2 Gini points without producing any discernible disincentive effect, suggesting that suitably designed reforms of direct taxation can simultaneously promote equity and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the impact of intellectual property laws on development in small island developing states. Much of the literature on intellectual property and development proceeds on the basis that there is only one model of each, namely the global model of intellectual property underpinned by the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and a neoliberal development framework. This paper argues, conversely, that there are multiple models of both. Exposing this plurality should enable a far more creative approach to intellectual property policy, particularly in countries whose levels of technological development and social structures are very different to those in the global North. This argument is explored through focusing on the example of sea transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2004 the Kenyan government set out its Strategy for Revitalising Agriculture (SRA). Eight years later, almost no progress had been made. The SRA experience highlights both the potential and the limitations of competitive politics in promoting reform and the collective-action challenge that can confront reform of agriculture-sector institutions. The December 2002 election had created a window of opportunity for issue- and performance-based politics in Kenya. However, the new government coalition began to unravel soon after attaining power, and the return to ethnically-based patronage politics - illustrated here in relation to agriculture - undermined the SRA's chances of success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has the past decade of sustained economic growth and political transformations reversed Latin America's historical failure to secure market and social incorporation? To address this question this article draws on the experiences of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay by distinguishing between short-term outcomes - which may depend on benign international conditions - and policy changes, which are more important for long-term performance. It highlights the overall success of both Brazil and Uruguay and shows that the other countries have made more progress in terms of social than market incorporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: Attempting to increase authorities' accountability for their actions has become a mainstay of development practice in recent decades. Yet commentators suggest that these efforts have reached an impasse, in part because of conceptual fuzziness regarding the core ideas of public accountability. Purpose: This article explores what we can learn about accountability processes and practices from recent multi‐country research into citizen–state relations. I explore three concepts that emerge as important from this material and which might also be useful in broader thinking and development practice: obligations, scrutiny, and consequences. Methods and approach: The empirical material analysed comes from the five‐year Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) research programme, which focused on Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Pakistan, and explored a range of experiences of people interacting with public authorities, and the efforts of international donors and activists to improve these interactions. Findings The analysis suggests the advantage of paying more attention to (1) the range of obligations from which accountability emerges; (2) what enables citizens to engage in active scrutiny of authorities; and (3) a broad set of consequences of accountability claims. Within this framing, the A4EA material highlights the relative importance of felt obligations and the social contract over formalized entitlements, development of capacities and spaces for informed citizens to actively question authorities, and of outcomes where authorities accept responsibility for their actions or the status quo as well as experience direct sanctions. Policy implications: Efforts for greater public accountability might be sharpened by identifying what would represent effective scrutiny against felt accountability obligations, and what spaces, capacities, and opportunities are required for that. Incorporating a better understanding of the consequences that come about from accountability claims could help create better measures and understandings of success, and what generates it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: In recent years, a growing literature has emerged analysing how organized citizen action can achieve more accountable and inclusive governance. While this literature is mostly focused on relatively open, democratic, or more stable contexts, often in western democracies, only a small proportion of the world's population lives in such settings. Rather, authoritarianism is growing and democratic spaces are closing globally. Purpose: This article explores how hybrid political settings—those which have both democratic and non‐democratic features, fragmented authority, and closing civic space—affect strategies of citizen action. Methods and approach: Drawing from a large number of single and comparative case studies of citizen action, mainly from Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Pakistan, the article builds on work by Tilly and Tarrow on repertoires of contention. Based on these, the article develops a typology of eight repertoires of citizen action through which citizens may express their grievances and attempt to hold authorities to account. Findings The literature suggests that there may be little space for contentious social and political action in closed or authoritarian settings. This article finds, however, that a rich and diverse tapestry of citizen action may be seen in the "hybrid" settings (those which have both democratic and non‐democratic features). Shaped by political opportunities as well as by key trigger events, these repertoires will vary according to their visibility and their level of "ruliness" and may shift or re‐enforce one another over time, contributing to building blocks for broader accountability and democratic governance. Policy implications: Policy and donor interventions aimed at supporting citizen‐led action for accountability have often focused on the most visible and ruly of these strategies. However, we find that the more hidden or more unruly forms of action are important in and of themselves and help to create building blocks for broader changes. For those who are interested in supporting citizen‐led accountability, mapping these broader repertoires will be important to understand the full range of accountability strategies available, going beyond more commonly understood approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: There are three puzzling features of sub‐Saharan African tax systems: tax administrations maintain records on vast numbers of small enterprises that actually provide no revenue; they continually invest resources into registering even more of these "unproductive taxpayers"; and discussions about taxing small enterprises are framed by the ambiguous, misleading concept of the "informal sector." Purpose: To make sense of these separate puzzling practices and narratives by exploring the synergies between them, and the broader organizational and political interests that they serve. Methods and approach: There is little statistical or sociological information on the functioning of national tax administrations in sub‐Saharan Africa. The analysis is based on the results of recent research; along with a thorough search for useful data; my own extensive interactions with African tax administrators and relevant international organizations; and a sensitivity to the political dimensions of taxation. Findings The three features of tax systems that are individually puzzling make sense when examined holistically. The continual drive to register more taxpayers provides an unduly favourable impression of the extent of policy and managerial efforts to collect more revenue. The informal sector narrative locates the apparent cause of revenue scarcity in the alleged undertaxation of small enterprises and poorer people, and thus helps divert attention from failures adequately to tax more privileged Africans and larger enterprises. Policy implications: Be very wary of claims that it would be a good idea to invest resources in registering large numbers of new taxpayers in sub‐Saharan Africa. Try to avoid using the term "informal sector" when discussing issues of tax policy and administration—it is confusing and diversionary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: How is research on social issues shaped in Latin America? How much attention do researchers give to poverty and inequality? What is the focus of research on these issues? Purpose: The paper aims to analyse the main patterns of academic publications on poverty and inequality in Latin America. Approach and methods: A bibliometric analysis based on different sources is used to review the main trends of publications on poverty and inequality in the region between 1990 and 2014. Findings: We find that although Latin America is widely recognized as one of the most unequal regions worldwide, poverty—not inequality—has been at the centre of the region's research agendas for many years. We detect a gradual shift in research from poverty to inequality, both in the academic literature and in the publications of international organizations. Policy implications: These findings provide new elements to better understand how and why researchers choose certain topics over others. This understanding is important both to gain knowledge on what researchers are prioritizing, and to shed light on the relationship between those priorities and public policies to combat poverty and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: This article provides the first comprehensive evidence on the relationship between skills and labour productivity among manufacturing firms across Africa. It makes two contributions. First, we re‐examine the relationship between skills and labour productivity using nuanced firm‐level data. Second, we examine whether the relationship between employee skills and firm productivity varies by size and age of the firm. Purpose: This paper poses two questions. What is the relationship between skills and labour productivity using nuanced firm‐level data? Is the relationship between employee skills and firm productivity mediated by firm size and age? Approach and Methods: We used the World Bank's Enterprise Survey data and employed the pooled Ordinary Least Squares estimation. Owing to endogeneity concerns, we used Instrumental Variables, where country‐sector‐size averages instrument for high school and university education. Propensity Score Matching was used to estimate the effects of training. Findings: We find that the effects of high school and university education are higher among small and young firms respectively. Training is positively associated with labour productivity, particularly among older and large firms. Policy implications: Overall this article highlights the importance of skills development in Africa's aspiration to boost manufacturing. Key to this is encouraging schoolchildren to complete the education cycle. It helps too if employers can identify the level of education that suits their needs for skills, given firm size and age. They need to identify skill gaps, then match training to the skills employees require. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: Youth employment has risen to the top of Africa's development agenda. But there is an often‐ignored tension between the current focus of policy and implementation on self‐employment and entrepreneurship, and the ability of employment in the informal economy to meet the commitment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to "decent work for all". Formal‐sector employment is more likely to offer decent work, but a policy focus on it can be dismissed as unrealistic, if not elitist. Purpose: This paper aims to review and synthesize evidence about formal‐sector employment in countries in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) and young people's engagement with it, for the purpose of bringing such employment more centrally into policy and interventions to address the continent's youth employment crisis. Approach and methods: The article reviews evidence provided by selected labour‐market surveys and recent research studies from SSA on formal‐sector employment and informal employment within the formal sector. Findings: Formal‐sector employment is concentrated in urban areas, as are the vast majority of young Africans who have completed secondary school, and it is more likely to provide decent work than other forms of employment. These facts make it a serious mistake to underestimate the role of employment in the formal sector in addressing Africa's youth employment challenge. Policy implication: A long‐term commitment to (a) the creation of new employment opportunities within the formal sector and (b) improving the governance of labour markets should be central to the co‐ordinated response to Africa's youth employment crisis. Building on the existing base of educated young people and formal‐sector employment in urban areas is likely to be the most effective way of creating a "decent work economy". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commitment or political will is often notable by its absence. While lack of commitment is a key factor in policy failure, it has been challenging to identify and operationalize how commitment can shape successful implementation. This article applies Brinkerhoff's (2000) framework of expressions of commitment to explain how commitment of policy elites shape policy implementation processes. Evidence for five characteristics of commitment traces these expressions from two types of policy elites — politicians and bureaucrats. Primary data from four Indian states were used—Chhatisgarh, Assam, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh—to examine the case of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA). The data were collected through interviews with state‐level elites, supplemented by secondary data on the political economy of these states. In explaining how successes and failures of the MGNREGA are attributable to the commitment of these actors, the article considers the politics of policy implementation. It argues that commitment is critical at the sub‐national level in India, and explains the different outcomes of MGNREGA in the four states. The article considers how to strengthen policy implementation, and demonstrates that this can be done through capitalizing on positive feedback loops between different strands of commitment, as well as between commitment of administrative elites and political party leaders. The paper concludes that commitment and capacity feed off each other, improving implementation of social policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an interesting and continuing debate on the nature and role of social protection in poverty reduction. Within the health sector, discussion has focussed on the drawbacks associated with fee exemption schemes and community-based health insurance, with much less attention paid to the policy option of abolishing user fees. This paper reviews empirical evidence on the impact of the Government of Uganda's decision in 2001 to abolish user fees for health services. The paper finds that this policy intervention has had a significant positive impact on health-seeking behaviour in Uganda and concludes that this policy measure can make an important contribution towards a more ‘promotional’ policy approach to social protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: Given the changing nature of work and recent shocks to environmental, health, and economic systems, secondary education in sub‐Saharan Africa must prepare youth to be adaptive and resilient as they transition into challenging labour markets. Access to opportunities to develop relevant skills and knowledge through secondary education is critical to ensure girls and other marginalized young people can secure work or create their own entrepreneurial ventures to improve their livelihoods. Yet many girls and marginalized youth either drop out of school or progress through the education system without developing the skills needed to effectively transition into labour markets. Purpose: This article aims to synthesize insights from Mastercard Foundation's portfolio of programming in secondary education and situate these findings in the broader literature on equitable secondary education and preparing youth for the transition to work in sub‐Saharan Africa. Methods and approach: This article draws on Mastercard Foundation's portfolio of work in secondary education in sub‐Saharan Africa, including its flagship report Secondary education in Africa: Preparing youth for the future of work, the donor collaborative Partnership to Strengthen Innovation and Practice in Secondary Education (PSIPSE), and the Scholars Program in addition to a wider literature and evidence base. It synthesizes key findings from research and programmes focusing on equitable access to and relevant skills development in secondary education. Findings Three key insights are explored: the importance of targeted financing to expand access, flexible approaches to improve completion, and entrepreneurship programming to develop relevant skills—each critical for promoting secondary education that prepares young women and men for work. Policy implications: A systems‐based approach is critical to improving the access and relevance of secondary education. Gender‐equitable approaches that account for intersecting barriers are necessary to improve inclusion of disadvantaged youth in education systems and prepare them for work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: Social assistance, humanitarian relief, and disaster response increasingly overlap, especially where recurrent crises and persistent conflicts prevail. In such situations, distinctions between risk and uncertainty become especially important. It is critical for policy and practice to shift from focusing on risk assessment and management to embracing uncertainty. Purpose: The article assesses the appropriateness of two approaches to social assistance and humanitarian relief where crises recur and conflicts persist: risk assessment and management; and embracing uncertainty and ignorance. Methods and approach: The article reviews different approaches to social assistance, humanitarian relief, and disaster response, and asks how they are framed. It draws on experiences from programmes offering social assistance, humanitarian relief, and disaster response, highlighting the professional, bureaucratic, and institutional features that influence programme design and functioning. These are compared with "high‐reliability" approaches deployed in other critical infrastructure—such as water and energy supply. Findings Mainstream approaches focus on risk assessment and management, assuming predictability and stability. This is problematic, especially in settings of crisis and conflict where there may be no functioning delivery system for social assistance and relief. The article highlights alternatives to the mainstream risk‐focused approaches, which emphasize learning, collaboration, adaptation, and flexibility. Such approaches must build on embedded practices of moral economy, collective action, and mutual care and be supported through professional and institutional capacities that generate reliability. Policy implications: The article suggests a new agenda for the intersection of social assistance, humanitarian relief, and disaster response, which makes uncertainty the focus for rethinking responses at scale, especially in settings affected by crisis and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies a global value-chain framework to the tobacco industry in Malawi, showing how cigarette manufacturers govern the chain and control first-tier suppliers, the leaf merchants. Contract farming offers smallholders the ability to meet manufacturers' compliance and traceability requirements and an opportunity for process and product upgrading, but threatens to exclude poorer growers. The article concludes by highlighting the role leaf merchants can play in diversifying Malawi's economic base and suggests research avenues to understand this rapid institutional evolution better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Allowing provinces to find their own way forward was central to Vietnam's progress in institutional and economic development. This article examines who drives this process of economic reform and finds that, in those provinces making the most progress, the private sector played an important role, not against, but with government. Both national and foreign enterprises played a role, but small enterprises tended to be marginalised. Some of the best insights come from comparing provinces and observing how different alignments of interest influenced the reform process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the livestock sector can contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction, but there is inadequate understanding of livestock-livelihoods linkages. This article draws on household-level data from 12 developing countries to investigate the livestock-asset position of rural households and its contribution to their income. The majority keep livestock; the less well-off are more likely to keep livestock than the better-off, but the very poor often lack the resources to invest in small animals. The key policy conclusion is that, contrary to common belief, there are no universal messages about livestock: policy needs to be tailored to farming systems, species, uses of livestock and different wealth groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the historical development of land tenure in South Africa, the aim of this article is to examine the best routes to alleviate poverty and retain sustainable agriculture in the country. First, a theoretical framework is presented that relates land tenure to sustainability, and three historical periods (pre-colonial, colonial, and apartheid) are then considered to explain the changes in land tenure and their consequences. The progress and main limitations of post-apartheid land reform to approach agricultural sustainability and alleviate poverty are discussed. Based on the analysis, different possibilities for future land reform are elaborated, followed by some recommendations for future land-reform policies in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores whether trade facilitation - i.e. improved and simplified trade procedures - could be an important part of the reform agenda of the Barcelona Process. Adopting a Southern perspective by focusing on exports to the European Union (EU) from non-EU Mediterranean countries, it tests whether the efficiency of trade procedures affects (i) bilateral volumes of exports and (ii) the number of products exported. The findings suggest that trade facilitation could lead to substantially increased export volumes and export diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Africa as in Asia, will successful agricultural transformation happen first in countries whose rulers are driven by concerns to avert fundamental rural-based political threats? This article explores this question with reference to Rwanda, where the political incentives are found to be different from those in comparable African countries. Whilst this did not immediately lead to the adoption of an appropriate agricultural strategy, following a major shock and some serious rethinking, policy has now turned a corner and the results are promising. This experience has revealed that the political economy of agricultural policy in Rwanda is distinguished by a capacity for learning from errors as well as a seriousness about implementation that are not widely observed elsewhere in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that, in Ethiopia, the aim to transform the performance of smallholder agricultural production is driven by the twin imperatives of economic growth and political control. The agricultural extension programme - the largest and fastest growing in the continent - has been central to this strategy, and the unparalleled investment in the extension system has been driven by these twin imperatives. However, there are tensions between the objectives of stimulating agricultural growth, on the one hand, and extensively penetrating society and winning elections, on the other, and these may reduce the returns to this investment. Implications are drawn for wider debates on the reform of agricultural extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the case of South Africa, this study examines how decentralisation policies and inter-party politics have affected urban service-delivery responsibilities and resources. Service delivery does not appear to be worse off in Cape Town than in Johannesburg, even though the former is controlled by the opposition Democratic Alliance. While there have been political attempts to undermine the authority of its officials, the fiscal elements are protected by a relatively strong and well-managed department of finance. Consequently, both donors and the national government steer money towards Cape Town because they know it can deliver on its obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]