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Public–private development partnership constitutes the core of a deepening normative agenda that places private actors as active development agents and as means through which other development objectives are pursued in partnership with publicly funded aid actors. This normative agenda may challenge international development. This article goes beyond the official policy level to explore the formation of public–private development cooperation in practice, not just on paper. It zooms into the partnership between a Norwegian NGO and a multinational company and their joint project to renovate an old vocational college in Ethiopia to serve the private actor's need for qualified workers. The article shows how a publicly funded development project becomes a proxy for private interests, but argues that the diversion of public aid is not due to bad intentions or conflicting interests. Rather, it is the result of interface situations created by the public–private partnership agenda and its intentional merger of actors with distinct institutional logics, accountabilities and rationales. The article demonstrates how actors put together as part of the public–private partnership agenda end up undermining the agenda itself because of the interface situations created in the nexus of public and private actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Political corporate social responsibility (CSR) research focuses on how companies leverage their CSR efforts to improve public goods provision in countries where public governance is lacking. Previous studies, due to their limited analytical scope, have not thoroughly examined the dynamic nature of these governance gaps. Another missing puzzle is how certain actors in these countries, through their regular operations, independently facilitate political CSR opportunities – such as production network intervention (PNI) programmes. Positioning PNI programmes as brokers of political CSR, we investigate four such programmes in the Myanmar's garment industry during the early years of the country's reform. We conduct neo‐Gramscian analysis to examine how these programmes attempted to establish cultural and ideological leadership over CSR discourse and practice in the industry. We analyse the manufacturers’ responses to this contestation, which evolved with the introduction of a minimum wage, and discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private actors have, over the past decade, entered the field of development operating in new forms of partnerships with established aid actors. Private actors now constitute a central means and objective of publicly funded development aid, causing a growth in actors operating in the name of development but without being compelled to follow established development discourses or principles. This article explores the formation of one such 'strategic partnership' in northern Ethiopia, between a small publicly funded Norwegian NGO and a multinational corporation. The research draws on several fieldworks in Ethiopia, stakeholder interviews, and project observations in 2018 and 2019, complemented with grey literature review. Using the concept of 'interface', the article explores the various encounters between actors with different rationales and mandates that prove hard to reconcile in practice; the seemingly altruistic development aid drawing on participatory approaches to target beneficiaries' needs is at odds with the corporate logic and accountabilities to shareholders and investors. The partnership and project formations are undermined by the practical encounter of these distinct logics, as the private actor gradually withdraws from joint project operations to maintain its corporate reputation. Any notion of participatory planning and local knowledge – here conceived of in terms of moral economy – are omitted from the project formation process, thus, not only undermining a central principle of aid programming, but also making the publicly funded aid project into a proxy for corporate interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy is considered the engine of growth due to its indispensable role in fueling economic activities. However, energy is one of the primary contributors to environmental degradation. In addition, conventional energy sources are depleting quickly due to the over-consumption of these sources, raising the issue of energy security. The solution to these above-stated issues is increasing renewable energy consumption. There is evidence that service sector development, private sector development, and human resource management help improve energy efficiency; however, their role in increasing renewable energy demand is debatable. This analysis fills the vacuum by examining the effect of service sector development, private sector development, and human resource management on renewable energy demand across four major regions: Asia, America, Africa, and Europe, spanning from 1998 to 2021. The analysis depends on the CS-ARDL model that can estimate the short and long-run results by addressing the model's cross-sectional dependence. The model estimates confirm that service sector development, private sector, and financial development escalate the long-run renewable energy consumption in all regions except Africa. Human resource enhances renewable energy consumption globally, in Europe and America. Likewise, GDP and carbon emissions stimulate long-run renewable energy consumption in all regions; however, trade only encourages renewable energy consumption globally and in Europe. The service sector development, financial development, carbon emissions, and trade significantly encourage short-run renewable energy consumption in one or two regions. In contrast, the GDP positively and significantly connects to the short-run renewable energy consumption in almost all regions. Therefore, policymakers should focus on increasing the role of human resources, services, and private sector development in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private sector development (PSD) has been a vital part of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s economic development policy since the very beginning of the development of the region. The objective of this paper is to critically analyse private sector development in post-conflict Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). A qualitative method of critical review to the development of private sector in the use of official documents is used from 2006 to 2016. It is concluded that because of the key challenges facing the private sector and a weak synergy between private and public sector, the KRG polices, and the experience of private sector were not effective in favour of the economy of Kurdistan. This was possibly due to the failure of the KRG in monitoring and evaluating the impact of those polices, political consideration in the way of doing business, internal conflict, and poor institutional system of the region. Public policy implication of this study is that there must be a close tied up of PSD programme to governance and interventions of peacebuilding. Most importantly, promoting the rule of law in the way that political actors should have neither influence on legal system nor on businesses.

The paper analyzes the role of institutional reform in the private sector development in a case of a transition country from 2010 to 2019. Despite the ample theoretical and empirical evidence of institutional reform on business development, only a few research examining this impact in the private sector vis-à-vis state ones. Furthermore, in the context of transition countries, institutional fragmentation (e.g., formal and informal institutions conflict) and political connections (e.g., business-to-state or central to local government) powerfully influence the relationship between institutional reform and firms' performance. Therefore, this study uses sub-nation level data in Vietnam (instead of business survey data) for 2010-2019 to shed light on this research gap with new findings. The study using two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation with two instrumental variables shows: (i) a causal relationship between institutional improvement and private enterprise sector development; (ii) institutional improvement contributing to improved profitability of the private sector; (iii) institutional improvement has heterogeneous effects across regions in Vietnam and tends to increase over time. The results also imply some policy implications for Vietnam's private sector growth in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private sector development (PSD) has been a vital part of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)'s economic development policy since the very beginning of the development of the region. The objective of this paper is to critically analyse private sector development in post-conflict Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). A qualitative method of critical review to the development of private sector in the use of official documents is used from 2006 to 2016. It is concluded that because of the key challenges facing the private sector and a weak synergy between private and public sector, the KRG polices, and the experience of private sector were not effective in favour of the economy of Kurdistan. This was possibly due to the failure of the KRG in monitoring and evaluating the impact of those polices, political consideration in the way of doing business, internal conflict, and poor institutional system of the region. Public policy implication of this study is that there must be a close tied up of PSD programme to governance and interventions of peacebuilding. Most importantly, promoting the rule of law in the way that political actors should have neither influence on legal system nor on businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of private sector development (PSD) in multidimensional poverty alleviation in Vietnam, using provincial panel data for the 2010–2019 period. PSD is measured as the proportion of the workforce in (i) all private firms, (ii) domestic private firms, and (iii) multinational firms, respectively. We use a two‐step general method of moment estimator to account for unobservable heterogeneity, simultaneity, and the relationship between current provincial characteristics and past provincial poverty. We find that each percentage point increase in private sector employment contributes to a reduction of 0.30% and 0.31% in multidimensional poverty and monetary poverty, respectively. Notably, further analysis confirms that a similar effect is also found for both domestic private and multinational enterprises. In addition, our study finds that economic growth and educational attainment emerge as major factors mitigating multidimensional and unidimensional poverty, while income inequality increases both poverty measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Panorama Económico is the property of Universidad de Cartagena and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Private sector-based seed system development remains a key development intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa. Seed system interventions promoting the adoption of improved varieties through the private sector generally follow a linear, market-oriented technological adoption logic. A qualitative case study of the sorghum seed system in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania demonstrates that this model may not be able to drive the broad-scale adoption of improved sorghum varieties and to generate significant benefits for small sorghum-farming households. The findings suggest that the agro-ecological, social, and political-economic contexts critically determine the role improved varieties and the private sector can play in rural development. Improved sorghum varieties promoted by both the public and private sectors may not suit the needs, preferences and contexts of farming households. Seed companies hold sorghum as an add-on in their portfolio, investing less resources and research into sorghum compared to more profitable crops such as vegetable and maize seeds. Significant political-economic obstacles exist that favor the support of cash crops such as maize and rice, limiting the growth and development of the private sector in the sorghum seed system. We conclude that future interventions should build on approaches that aim to develop more diverse channels of seed delivery in both the formal and informal seed systems, adopt a livelihoods perspective to evaluate the costs, benefits, and risks associated with the adoption of new technologies, and acknowledge that seed system interventions are only one out of a portfolio of interventions to generate rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on 'conflict-sensitive' business practices has burgeoned in recent years. Yet there remains a critical knowledge gap on the value of incorporating 'conflict-sensitivity' systematically to business environment reforms (BER) advanced by the public sector and its international partners. Wars and protracted conflicts reshape market environments in deeply distortive ways. The resulting transformation often enlarges the informal sector at the expense of formal state institutions, while it also reinforces high dependence on foreign aid and investments. Simultaneously, policy communication channels also become disrupted and unreliable. The existing BER literature remains generally insensitive to these peculiarities. Drawing on a case study of Sierra Leone, this article explores the implications of these omissions and shows that BER may even bring about adverse effects when the peculiarities of these conflict-generated market distortions are neglected. In order to avoid negative repercussions, conflict-sensitive BER needs to take into account the multiplicity of business environments and the heterogeneity of business actors operating within conflict-affected nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role of private sector development in overcoming the challenges of the resource curse. It identifies the developmental factors in the private sector in natural resource dependent countries by adapting a dynamic flexible adjustment model. Its empirical results are based on panel data from 110 natural resource producers in developed, developing, and emerging countries during the period 1990–2017. The findings show that natural resource rents can foster private sector development, and the speed of adjustment towards the target level of development is faster in oil and gas exporting countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Panorama Económico is the property of Universidad de Cartagena and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

M4P or 'Making Markets Work better for the Poor' is a market systems approach to economic development that seeks to understand how poor people interact with market systems, and therefore how change can take place within those systems to benefit them. Challenge funds, when used as a tool for private sector development, are typically a mechanism to incentivize and support the private sector to invest in ways which both assist businesses to grow as well as provide wider development benefits. Although challenge funds typically act on only part of the M4P 'doughnut' and generally support only one type of market actor (i.e. the private sector and not government or civil society), they can and have worked to achieve systemic change. This paper explores lessons learned on how the design and implementation of challenge funds can be adapted to maximize their impact on market systems and, ultimately, poor people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Arab Spring" drew attention worldwide to the dire socio-economic conditions in many Arab countries. Efforts to explain, address and resolve these challenges led to a surge in both academic research as well as a plethora of policy recommendations from very different perspectives. By focusing on a crucial area for employment and growth in the Arab region — economic governance and entrepreneurship — the present paper consolidates the vast research and policy recommendations available based on a 'best evidence' approach and identifies three priority policy challenges to facilitate entrepreneurship: competition policy, access to finance and entrepreneurial education. We argue that improvement of economic governance tailored to improve these policy areas is a crucial lever for promoting entrepreneurship and creating employment in Arab countries. Highlighting interdependences between these areas, we derive a set of recommendations for each of the identified policy challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhetoric from both domestic and international policy actors equated foreign direct investment and robust business growth in Sierra Leone with an exit from fragility. To the contrary, the trajectory of private sector development experienced from 2002 to 2014 contributed to Sierra Leone's socio-political challenges, replicating in the contemporary period dynamics of grievance and exclusion that were root causes of the country's endemic instability and then civil war. This study challenges the practices and refines the ideas underlying the prevailing vision for business-led development in Sierra Leone and other fragile states. It links extensive documentation of the role of business in Sierra Leone with peacebuilding and statebuilding frameworks to present a novel perspective on the mechanisms of action of private sector development in contexts of persistent fragility. In doing so, it provides a foundation on which further theoretical propositions for the ordering of business-state relations in support of transitions from fragility to peaceful development can be developed and tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 15 years, practitioners have increasingly applied making markets work for the poor (M4P) to sparser, newer, and more fragile markets. What have we learned from the experience of M4P in thin markets? Because there are many gaps in thin markets, it's critical to think in interconnected strategies, rather than only lead interventions. Tailoring M4P programmes to the causes of market thinness increases the chances of success. Working in thin markets requires using the principles of M4P creatively rather than sticking to a rigid 'rule book'. The field has more work to do to increase the effectiveness of M4P in thin markets, including developing additional frameworks, tracking market system change more effectively, and sharing experience more freely. Working in thin markets is set to become increasingly important in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results-based financing (RBF) programmes in the clean cooking sector have gained increasing donor interest over the last decade. Although the risks and advantages of RBF have been discussed quite extensively for other sectors, especially health services, there is limited research-documented experience of its application to clean cooking. Due to the sheer scale of the important transition from ‘dirty’ to clean cooking for the 4 billion people who lack access, especially in the Global South, efficient and performance-proven solutions are urgently required. This paper, undertaken as part of the work of the UKAid-funded Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme, aims to close an important research gap by reviewing evidence-based support mechanisms and documenting essential experiences from previous and ongoing RBF programmes in the clean cooking and other sectors. On this basis, the paper derives key strategic implications and learning lessons for the global scaling of RBF programmes and finds that qualitative key performance indicators such as consumer acceptance as well as longer-term monitoring are critical long-term success factors for RBF to ensure the continued uptake and use of clean cooking solutions (CCS), however securing the inclusion of these indicators within programmes remains challenging. Finally, by discussing the opportunities for the evolution of RBF into broader impact funding programmes and the integration of energy access and clean cooking strategies through multi-sector approaches, the paper illustrates potential steps to enhance the impact of RBF in this sector in the future.

Five years after Lineamientos reforms were approved by the 2011 Communist Party Congress, the effects are beginning to emerge. The development of the private or non-State sector in particular has begun to cause shifts in the economic, social, and political landscape as Cuba continues to adapt to and implement these changes. This paper explores the effects of the expansion of the non-State sector on the delivery of State-run public services, especially education, health care, and other social services. Four possible orientations between the State and non-State sector are explored in general and in the context of existing literature on Cuba, and are discussed in light of observations and interviews from a two-week academic field study in Cuba. Implications for public policy and leadership are discussed in the conclusion.

Interventions designed to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are popular among policy makers, given the role SMEs play in job creation around the world. Significant resources from governments and international organizations are directed to business-support interventions in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) based on the assumption that market failures and institutional constraints impede SME growth. SME business-support interventions in LMICs most often relate to formalization, business environment, exports, clusters, training, technical assistance, access to credit, and innovation. This paper reviews and summarizes 40 rigorous evaluations of SME-support services in LMICs and presents evidence to inform policy debates pertaining to SMEs and business-support services. We present evidence that business-support interventions improve firm performance and create jobs. However, little is known about which interventions work best for SMEs and why. More rigorous impact evaluations are needed to fill the knowledge gap in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private sector development is a multidimensional process both conceptually as well as empirically. It involves many efficiency, quality, sustainability, performance and dynamism features. However, there is no a single country-level measure that captures all these dimensions or features of private sector development. Our paper contributes to the current literature by introducing new composite index of private sector development and its four sub-indices: environment, penetration, sophistication and accountability. These indices are first time created for 57 OIC countries, which can be recalculated on annual basis and should offer a useful analytical tool for policy makers and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey 2008, we explore the differences in pro‐poor growth performance in provinces in Vietnam according to the quality of the provinces' institutions that support private sector activity. We exploit the localized and varying effect of French colonial legacy across Vietnamese provinces to address the endogeneity of institutions. We find strong and robust evidence of a positive effect of good‐quality institutions that support private sector activity on pro‐poor growth and that enhanced working hours and hourly wage and extended income from non‐farm self‐employment play critical roles in this outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will introduce the concept of the challenge fund mechanism, and its role, from both a private sector development (PSD) perspective as well as from the sustainable social impact angle. The paper is informed by practical experience and reflections from the point of view of a manager who manages one of the world’s largest challenge funds with a capitalisation of USD 250m and 200+ investments across 23 different markets. A challenge fund, which by nature, is a risk taking and risk-sharing PSD mechanism is used to support innovative, forprofit business ventures, which, by the virtue of being innovative, and therefore, more risky than other business ventures have restricted access to capital. A challenge fund, in a developing or frontier market context, will invest in innovative for-profit companies that exhibit strong intentionality on social impact, i.e. they will implement the inclusive business model concept. Essentially, inclusive businesses engage low income communities in a formal way either as suppliers of raw material, such as cocoa seeds, which the company then processes, or they engage low income communities as customers who buy and consume products and services which cater to them specifically. In this way, an inclusive business makes a profit and at the same time increases the income of low income communities. In this arrangement social impact remains sustainable because the business sees that it can make a profit by collaborating with low income communities. A challenge fund, by financing innovative and risky SMEs doesn’t only support PSD and social impact, it also creates a tested and proven deal flow of companies for more commercial investors such as private equity funds or development finance institutions such as the International Finance Corporation. Therefore, the challenge fund mechanism serves a critical function in sustainable business and social development.

Abstract: Development in the twenty‐first century (“neo‐liberalism”) is a tool and its success and sustainability depend on how this tool is applied on a specific grounded reality. This article investigates how this modernization process continually co‐creates globalized Bangladesh through private sector development. While this field report highlights the challenges development aid donors can face in Bangladesh’s post‐colonial culture, it also unveils the dichotomous traction between globalization and inequality as well as the friction poverty reduction, through private sector development, can generate in impoverished countries. Finally, this report attempts to reconsider the ways in which the aid development ambitions of equality and liberty can find a workable balance with the neo‐liberal Imperative for private sector development. This article calls for improving quality control to generate greater impact of development aid resources in developing private sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Value chain interventions are increasingly used by donors in the context of private sector development. The paper develops a typology of such interventions, and presents the case of one multilateral lending institution - the Inter-American Development Bank. It argues that interventions risk transforming into an empty label and that an understanding of core global value chain (GVC) concepts, such as power, governance, and rents, is necessary. Further, interventions need to consider different learning channels internal and external to GVCs and particularly the interaction of GVCs with local innovation systems, and the interactive and systemic nature of knowledge and learning. These dimensions have often been overlooked in actual policies and programs. The paper concludes that an improvement in the definition of main concepts and approaches derived from the critical tradition of the GVC literature and of learning and innovation concepts is urgently called for. This reinforces the need for a new generation of industrial policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]