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The major paradigms of the development discourse have recently incorporated the language of rights. To move from the rhetoric of human rights to concretely elaborate the content of rights for informal workers, particularly women, in Asia is the purpose of this paper. Using a rights-based approach to development, the paper takes up the issue of gender-enabling worker rights in the context of developing economies that are increasingly open to external influences. A matrix of rights consisting of the right to work, broadly defined, safe work, minimum income and social security are identified as core issues for informal workers. Further, we focus attention on four specific groups of informal workers: self-employed independent producers and service workers, self-employed street vendors, dependent producers such as homeworkers and outworkers, and dependent wageworkers. Gender-sensitive micro-economic and macro-economic and social polices are identified for each of these segments of the informal workers. The access to economic, market and social reproduction needs are to be addressed simultaneously to ensure the basic matrix of rights for women informal workers in developing countries. Each of the needs of the workers have to be viewed as a right and a system of institutions or mechanisms that will help to bring these rights to the center of policy have to be worked out. The claim of women and informal workers for a voice in the macro policy decisions through representation at the local, national and international levels is at the heart of the rights-based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of technological improvements in transport, landlocked developing countries continue to face structural challenges to accessing world markets. As a result, landlocked countries often lag behind their maritime neighbours in overall development and external trade. While the relatively poor performance of many landlocked countries can be attributed to distance from coast, this paper argues that several aspects of dependence on transit neighbours are also important. Four such types of dependence are discussed: dependence on neighbours' infrastructure; dependence on sound cross-border political relations; dependence on neighbours' peace and stability; and dependence on neighbours' administrative practices. These factors combine to yield different sets of challenges and priorities in each landlocked country. The paper concludes with a brief set of policy recommendations. A detailed appendix presents maps and regional overviews that outline key challenges facing the landlocked countries in each region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews recent approaches by developing country governments to include ordinary people, particularly the poor, in democratic processes so as to benefit the people and protect democracy itself. Three issues currently characterise all aspects of government: centrist approaches, fiscal constraints, and resistance to reform. There have been five types of approaches to political reform, including elected councils, user committees, and other mechanisms, as well as efforts to engage civil society and elites in the process. This paper discusses how these efforts can be facilitated, and how to tackle resistance to reform, before going on to look at ways to measure the impact of such reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the search for the understanding of governance in the context of development goes on, this paper offers a way of looking at particulars of the concept, as well as the effects of empirical governance activities in the conceptual evolution of the term. The central argument is that the current governance framework has evolved to incorporate the values of various actors, notwithstanding the dominance of market values. Importantly, new trends in governance suggest a slow but increasing acceptance of the underlying principles of the current framework. The apparent evolution of the concept seems to reflect the process of increased interaction between actors and the sum total of their experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like many cities in developing countries, São Paulo, Brazil, is characterized by major intra-urban inequalities with respect to human development. The center-periphery spatial regimes are the most obvious spatial manifestation of this phenomenon. In this paper we apply confirmatory spatial data analysis to examine these inequalities and their relationship to public interventions. Using district-level data, we examine the relationship between public interventions and the level of human development, while controlling for population density, spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation. Our results suggest that public interventions reinforce the existing differences between center and periphery. Specifically, public services and utilities and social programs are allocated more intensively in districts with higher human development levels. These findings call for a more careful consideration of distribution of societal resources and effectiveness of public programs and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews experience since governments first began, through the United Nations, setting time-bound quantitative goals to serve as guidelines and benchmarks for national and international action and development assistance. It argues that, contrary to much opinion, many of these goals have had a major influence on subsequent action and many have been largely or considerably achieved. It discusses approaches to implementation adopted in the United Nations Development Decades as well as by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the Bretton Woods' structural adjustment programmes. It underlines the need for a more nuanced and critical approach to what is meant by goal achievement, drawing on the experience of the Water Decade and the child survival revolution. It examines the ways in which global goals were costed, and draws lessons for the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals. Appendix 1 summarizes the wide range of goals, targets and results adopted and the results achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors argue for reforms in the international financial system to deliver sufficient and sufficiently stable private and public flows, and to sustain more rapid growth and investment in developing countries. The paper begins with an analysis of the way in which international financial volatility impacts on developing countries, and how financial and economic crises often become social crises with devastating consequences for human security, giving illustrations from Indonesia and Argentina. The authors then critically analyse current plans for reform of the international financial system, and make recommendations to strengthen global regulation, provide liquidity, arranged for orderly debt workouts, democratize global governance, and protect the poor during periods of financial disturbance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the central features of four models of social security — classical, socialist, transition, and developing country — looking at the coverage provided and the institutions and financing of social security in different contexts. It explores different ways of providing social security to the entire population in developing countries, and particularly ways of meeting the priority social security needs of the excluded majority in poor countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technology gap between developing and advanced countries has been increasing during the last few decades. In the process of technology development human capital plays a critical role as an absorption capacity for new technologies in developing countries. The cross-country regression shows that human capital interacts with inflows of foreign technology embodied in machinery imports as well as FDI, and thereby contributes to technology growth in developing countries. We also find that the stock of human capital, at the secondary and tertiary levels of education in particular, plays a key role in determining the development of information and communication technology.This paper discusses the measures in building appropriate human capacities for the adaptation of new technologies in developing countries by focusing on the education strategies of East Asian economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a vigorous debate about poverty measurement in Russia, where both the poverty line and poverty data have been subject to criticism. We outline some of the issues raised and discuss the use of an alternative welfare measure based on household assets. Asset indices have mostly been constructed for low-income countries, supported by two arguments: first, the asset index appears to have a number of empirical advantages in terms of data collection; and second, it may be better at capturing long-term welfare than either income or expenditure data. We show that the asset index approach is useful in Russia, and may present policy-makers with a superior means of determining household welfare. However, our discussion raises a number of methodological issues that must be confronted by those constructing asset indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces articles about economic development published in the March 2004 issue of the "Journal of Human Development." Analyses of efforts by many developing country governments to introduce policies, institutions and strategies to empower and include people; Forms of transit dependence of landlocked countries; Experience of Mexico and the Philippines in meeting the Millennium Development Goals and the reasons for progress or lack of it.