Bridging the humanitarian-development divide in the health sector

Photo © Dominic Chavez/World Bank

This blog originally appeared on the Huffington Post blog.

The bloody civil wars that wracked Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s did more than kill hundreds of thousands over the course of a decade. They also decimated the health systems of both countries, setting the stage for the rapid spread of Ebola and threatening global health security.

These countries are not unique. Over 2 billion people, and a growing share of the world's poor, live in the 35 countries considered fragile or conflict states in 2016. And whether we are talking about pandemics, war, or prolonged occupation, these conditions devastate health systems and have lasting impacts on the physical and mental health of affected populations. As a result, we find some of the poorest health outcomes in fragile contexts with infant and maternal mortality rates multiples of those that in non-fragile countries at similar income levels.

There is a growing recognition that, in order to make meaningful progress towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals and to eradicate poverty and boost shared prosperity, the development community must make special efforts to reach these settings. Which is why the focus of the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Vancouver -- building resilient and responsive health systems -- is so relevant.

During the course of conflict, the health sector tends to be doubly affected: as demand for health services increases due to the rise of injuries and mental health conditions, supply is disrupted due to targeting of health infrastructure and provider flight. This has been starkly highlighted in Syria where there are only 29 physicians left in Eastern Aleppo which is under siege and is home to a quarter million people. Similarly in Gaza, with an ongoing blockade and three recent wars, there remain four psychiatrists for a population of close to 2 million people.

An increased need necessitates an increased response. Traditionally, humanitarian actors have provided much needed relief in settings affected by conflict and violence. But with the average conflict lasting 17 years and the top ten engagements of humanitarian groups like the Red Cross lasting 35 years, there is an urgent need for humanitarian and development actors to work together and bridge the humanitarian-development divide. This was emphasized at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May 2016 where over 35 humanitarian and development agencies signed onto the "Grand Bargain" where they pledged to "collaboratively work across institutional boundaries on the basis of comparative advantage".

So what is the comparative advantage of development actors?

Agencies like the World Bank Group can help finance work in fragility: providing multiyear grants to humanitarian agencies that allow for long- term planning; crowding in new players such as the private sector to help fund interventions in the humanitarian health space; and developing innovative health financing instruments such as development impact bonds for conflict or a global insurance mechanism for pandemics.

Through their neutral convening platforms, development agencies can also bring together multiple stakeholders to develop a medium to long term vision for the health sector and share islands of innovation.

Finally, the high level analytic work development agencies conduct can push the frontiers of what can be accomplished in these settings, for example by driving impact evaluations in fragile contexts to create a body of evidence of "what works" or developing cutting edge tools which employ Big Data to analyze the health needs of populations.

One example of such analytic work is the World Bank's programmatic approach to strengthening health service delivery resilience in fragile, conflict, and violence settings. The work, generously funded through the State and Peace Building Fund, tests catalytic pilots in frontier settings and aims to inform how global health efforts can best accelerate progress in fragile contexts and humanitarian crises.

The series of pilots include tools to assess the cost of conflict on the health sector; approaches to build up the health sector in South Sudan; addressing service delivery constraints in ARMM Philippines; health systems strengthening in post pandemic settings such as in the post-Ebola countries of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone; and approaches to improve emergency care under fragility and conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories. We are privileged to share this work at the 2016 Health Systems Research Symposium, joining over 2,000 leading global health thinkers and practitioners on health systems.

A bridging of the humanitarian-development divide is essential to mitigating the impacts of current crises and reducing the probability of occurrence of future ones. And while the challenges to closing the strategic and institutional gaps between humanitarian and development organizations, securing flexible and long-term financing, and building the technical know-how to work in these settings are considerable, there is increasing commitment towards these goals, with positive and collaborative partnerships centered on innovative thinking that are allowing us to move beyond shock-driven responses towards addressing underlying vulnerabilities and engendering resilience.

The World Bank
EMRE ÖZALTIN, AAKANKSHA H PANDE, ZIAD OBERMEYER

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Weekly wire: The global forum

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.
 

Needed but not wanted: Economic migrants are seen as a threat to jobs and the welfare state. The reality is more complex.

The Economist

STOKE-ON-TRENT in northern England is home to the world’s second-oldest professional football club, Stoke City FC. Founded in 1863, it enjoyed its heyday in the mid-1970s, when the club came close to winning the top division. The playing style was described by its manager, Tony Waddington, as “the working man’s ballet”. These days the flair is often provided by players from far afield. More than half the first-team squad comes from outside Britain, mostly from other parts of Europe. But that is about as far as Europhilia in Stoke goes. In June’s referendum on Britain’s European Union membership, the city voted strongly for Brexit.

 

How Can We “Leapfrog” Educational Outcomes?

Stanford Social Innovation Review

Today, examples of rapid, non-linear progress—sometimes called leapfrogging—are evident in a number of sectors. Often, these instances are most obvious in the developing world, where in telecommunications or banking, for example, whole phases of infrastructure and institution-building that other countries had to go through have been by-passed by nations that got a later start down that road. Many African countries never systematically invested in laying phone lines, yet today access to cell phone service on the continent has grown so rapidly that in many cases communities are more likely to be connected to the outside world via cell phone service than to have access to electricity or running water. Likewise for banking: Instead of focusing on expanding physical branches to reach the many communities and families who lack access, people across the developing world are relying on mobile money—transfers and payments via text message—which grew out of innovations in Kenya. Could this type of non-linear progress happen in education?
 

Making the Connection: How Internet access could help lift women and girls out of poverty by 2020

ONE

In less than a generation the Internet has revolutionised the lives of billions of people. It has changed the way we communicate, work, learn and engage with the world around us. Thanks to the Internet some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people now have access to information and networks that help them communicate, set up businesses, and access services, helping them and their families lead healthier, safer and more prosperous lives. But this digital utopia is not available to everyone. More than half of the world is still unconnected and where someone lives makes a huge difference. Almost 75% of Africa’s population is offline compared with 19% of people in developed countries. Poverty is sexist: girls and women are hit harder and have fewer opportunities than men, and access to the Internet is no different. Women living in LDCs are a third less likely than their male counterparts to be connected and the gap is increasing. By 2020 over 75% of women in the least developed countries will be unconnected. In this report ONE calls for an action plan to connect those 350 million women and girls which would have spin off benefits for everyone.

 

Robots and industrialization in developing countries

UNCTAD

Industrialization has historically been synonymous with development, while deindustrialization is a well-established trend in mature developed economies as they move towards services-based economies. Yet recent trends show that many developing countries – especially in Africa and Latin America – have witnessed their shares of manufacturing employment and output shrinking long before they have attained income levels comparable to those in the developed world. Such premature deindustrialization began during the adjustment programmes in the 1980s and 1990s, yet has continued, as commodity booms and speculative financial inflows have led to currency appreciation and a loss of manufacturing competitiveness, compounded by the rise of China’s manufacturing exports. The current question is therefore: now that the commodity bonanza is over, capital flows are reversing and China is turning towards a more balanced growth path driven more by domestic demand than exports, how can Africa and Latin America reignite industrialization? Whatever the chosen strategy, it will have to account for the rapidly increasing spread of new automation  technologies and artificial intelligence in the form of robots.

 

Facebook built a Snapchat-like app for developing countries

Engadget

Facebook has launched a new Snapchat-like app less than a year after it killed its old Snapchat-like app Slingshot, according to Recode. What's special about this one is that it was built specifically with emerging markets in mind. The new application called Flash was reportedly created by a team within the social network in charge of building apps for developing nations. They also could've been the ones behind Facebook and Messenger Lite. Flash is less than 25MB in size, which is much smaller than Snapchat for Android that's roughly 70MB. It was also built to work even in areas with limited connectivity.

 

Society at a Glance 2016: Spotlight on Youth

OECD Social Indicators

his is the eighth edition of Society at a Glance, the biennial OECD overview of social indicators. This report addresses the growing demand for quantitative evidence on social well-being and its trends. It updates some indicators included in the previous editions published since 2001 and introduces several new ones, with 25 indicators in total. It includes data for the 35 OECD member countries and where available data for key partners (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa); other G20 countries (Argentina and Saudi Arabia) are also included. The report features a special chapter on the NEET challenge and what can be done for jobless and disengaged youth. It also provides a guide to help readers in understanding the structure of OECD social indicators.

The World Bank
ROXANNE BAUER

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10 candid career questions with PPP professionals – Jeff Delmon

Editor's Note: 
Welcome to the “10 Candid Career Questions” series, introducing you to the PPP professionals who do the deals, analyze the data, and strategize on the next big thing. Each of them followed a different path into PPP practice, and this series offers an inside look at their backgrounds, motivations, and choices. Each blogger receives the same 15 questions and answers 10 or more that tell their PPP career story candidly and without jargon. We believe you’ll be as surprised and inspired as we were.  

1. What was your first job?
First I was a bus boy (clearing tables at a restaurant), then moved to dishwasher, then server, then prep cook—a distinguished part-time career in food preparation. First full-time job was as a lawyer in Paris.
 
2. What do your family members think you do all day at work?
Not a clue, though they think it is hilarious that grown-ups sit around all day saying “P-P-P” and no one starts giggling. (What do you really do all day at work?) Have fun, learn, be amused, and help people.
 
3. What is your go-to industry website?
I have three: the Dilbert cartoon website (so true!), Google, and PPPIRC - it has lots of useful contracts, checklists and laws.
 
4. Do you have a personal motto that you live by?
Chill out, love your neighbor, do your best, then let it go. It will all work out, though usually not the way you planned.
 
5. What are you shocked to hear yourself say when you give advice to young professionals?
“Back when I was young…” When did I become my Dad?
 
6. What is the most rewarding thing you have experienced in the course of PPP practice? 
Every time someone I have been teaching asks a question or makes a comment that shows they have learned and surpassed what I have taught, it’s awesome!
 
7. What is the most surprising thing you have experienced in the course of PPP practice?
How difficult governments and other big organizations make it for their staff to deliver.
 
8. If PPP were a food, what would it be?
A pizza – before you get to the cheese and the toppings, you have to diligently knead the dough, toss it, roll it out, and of course, prepare the sauce. It is all about the preparation, the things you don’t necessarily see, but make a pizza special.
 
9. If PPP were a life event, what would it be?
Marriage – preparation is essential, but as important is your commitment, working at the relationship each day, finding solutions, common ground, letting each partner play the roles that fit with their strengths and passion.
 
10. What do you want to be when you grow up? 
A professional beach volleyball player, a jet fighter pilot, or bass player in a blues band. I haven’t decided yet.
 
Your Feedback Needed to Update the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Reference Guide
We are seeking your detailed input and feedback on the current version of the PPP Reference Guide, especially in the area of stakeholder engagement. Share your comments with us by November 10, 2016.

The World Bank
JEFF DELMON

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Can Africa’s current education policies help build the scientists of tomorrow?

A medical intern in the hematology department of the Hospital Militaire D’Instruction (Military Teaching Hospital) in N’Djamena, Chad, puts a blood sample into a machine for analysis. © US Army Africa

As I write these lines, I am sitting in an airplane returning from my first mission in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo. My mission was for the education sector, and included visiting a few lower secondary public schools. As I listen to the pilot’s welcoming message, I find myself thinking about the children I met at the schools, and trying to assess the odds of their becoming pilots, engineers or scientists.

Since my visit, I have wondered whether the education policies implemented throughout Africa will be able to deliver the scientists and engineers needed to build up the continent, and transport it into the socio-economic emergence we all aspire to. But as suggested by recent statistics, Africa is falling behind, and as I see it, its education policies seem largely unlikely to put it on the path to prosperity, at least in their current state.
 
As we toured the secondary schools in Brazzaville, I saw dusty buildings, rusty infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, and barely any textbook in the classrooms. This was no surprise. However, I was not fully prepared for such an acute shortage of mathematics and physics teachers. In a secondary school of 4,200 students – yes, you read that correctly – across four grades there were only two teachers for mathematics and two for physics out of a grand total of 53. Another school had one teacher for both mathematics and physics out of 26 teachers.
 
Digging deeper into the government’s education statistical yearbook, I found that in 2013-14, there were 305 public lower secondary schools catering to the education needs of nearly quarter of a million students. The teachers’ workforce was 2,472-weak – and among them, just 326 taught mathematics (of which 10 were women), while 249 taught physics (of which 14 were women). These 326 mathematics teachers are supposed to deliver 17,300 hours of class every week, a weekly average of 53 hours compared to the official workload of 20 hours.
 
In one of the schools visited, the 16 classes need 90 hours of mathematics per week, but even if the sole mathematics teacher works full time six days a week in a double-shift, he can only deliver 60 hours per week. Therefore, some classes had to be “sacrificed” and the school director was forced to make the tough choice that 7^th and 8^th-graders (the first two grades in secondary) would not be taught mathematics for now. We also learned that in the previous school year, 9^th-graders were not taught physics for the entire year. Now in the 10^th grade, these students will soon sit for the final exam to allow them to go to upper secondary with a significant handicap.
 
This short analysis begs the obvious question: why such a shortage of mathematics and science teachers? To come up with the answer, I looked into the most likely supply source of future mathematics teachers: the number of students in the last year of upper secondary school who are in a mathematics section (Série C). In 2014, 46,139 Congolese students sat the baccalaureate (the high school diploma). Among them 2,945 or 6.4% were on the scientific track (Série C) and only 1,104 succeeded. You might think this is bad, and I did, too until I looked into the numbers from Chad.
 
In 2013-14, there were 65,662 Chadian students in the last year of upper secondary likely to sit the baccalaureate. Only 762 or 1.2% were in Série C, with just 57 girls out of the entire country. And to put these numbers in perspective, Chad’s population is more than three times that of Congo.
 
With these statistics, I came back from mission wondering where Africa would find the people to build the roads, bridges, and other infrastructure that it so urgently needs. Where will Africa find the pilots to steer its economies and make its countries take off? And when China’s wages become too high and manufacturing jobs need to go somewhere else in the world, will Africa have the human capital to take up this opportunity? Clearly, we are a long way off from achieving our goals for Africa’s scientific progress, and a solution cannot come until all actors – including governments, educators, and development institutions – fully realize how dire the problem is and where it is rooted.
 
Each November, the United Nations celebrates the World Science Day for Peace, offering an opportunity to mobilize global actors around science and its role in peaceful and sustainable societies – from government officials to the media to school pupils. This is a great time to gain more clarity on the huge gap in science and mathematics education across Africa. Albert Einstein once said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend 55 minutes defining the problem, and only 5 finding the solution – we need to understand the full scope of this problem before going about solving it.
 
To paint a fuller picture for Africa, I invite you to share the statistics you may have on the number of mathematics and physics teachers in lower and upper secondary public (and private) schools around Africa (as well as elsewhere in the world).

The World Bank
WALY WANE

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From immersion, to empathy, to action: is VR a game-changer for communicating development?

Former Bougainvillean combatant, now cocoa farmer, Timothy Konovai (right) tries out VR for the first time (Photo: World Bank / Alana Holmberg)

Late last year, my team and I were asked to delve into the world of Virtual Reality (VR) to produce a series of 360-degree films for the World Bank focused on the issue of conflict across East Asia and Pacific. More than six months of production across four countries later, The Price of Conflict, The Prospect of Peace series is now complete, with stories from Solomon Islands, Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) and and Mindanao (Philippines).
 
Yet when I was first asked to work on this, my initial reaction to this project was to try and talk people out of it. I had vague memories from the early 1990s of dorky plastic helmets where people would awkwardly walk around a pixelated floating room, doing not much else besides provide amusement/bemusement for those watching from the outside. 

It wasn’t just these memories – nor the countless VR rollercoaster apps now flooding the App Stores – that clouded my opinion. Because clearly technology has made massive progress in the 20 years since, and many tout VR as the new frontier for how we will be entertained and informed. I’m first and foremost a believer that to tell a story truly well, the medium or technology should never be the most important thing; story should always come first. If the viewer/reader/consumer is thinking about the novelty of the cool tech they’re experiencing, then isn’t it actually just distracting them from the most important element; the story?
 
Seeing The Displaced in a Samsung Gear VR headset flipped my opinion. It opened my mind to the potential of VR storytelling. Yes, my initial minute watching this film was spent aware of the technology and the experience of having a 360-degree story told in front, behind and above me. But that awareness largely disappeared soon enough. I was quickly – to use the most frequently-used adjective associated with VR – immersed. I wasn’t just engaged because the events in the film were happening in a 360-degree format. I was more engaged, because within minutes I’d forgotten about the medium: I was integrated into it. I was ‘in’ the scene, floating up through those marshes in South Sudan.
 
The Displaced, and similar films such as Clouds Over Sidra, Waves of Grace, The Source or Collisions shows the potential for storytelling in this new medium, particularly for documentary and real-life storytelling. They’ve demonstrated that the VR medium can deepen the understanding of the viewer by putting them in the scene; bringing them closer to the reality than the traditional storytelling mediums we’re accustomed to.
 
More specifically, it’s the area that I work in – aid, development and humanitarian response – that gets me most excited about the potential of VR. Aid organisations are generally fairly skilled at bridging the gap between the work on the ground – the communities, conflicts or disasters they work in – and your average person living in a developed country. Yet it’s an incredibly crowded market. Each day thousands of organisations are competing for their share of air time on countless issues and causes. Consumers are justified in feeling tired or cynical.

Josh Flavell (The Price of Conflict Cinematographer) and Chris Panzetta (Director) set up a 360-degree shot under the Bougainvillea
in Oria village, Konnou, in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. (Photo: World Bank / Alana Holmberg)

VR and immersive 360-degree storytelling provides a way to cut out the noise and put consumers closer to reality on the ground in some of the world’s toughest and most extraordinary places than they’re ever likely to have the opportunity to do. We can never truly understand what life is like for a Syrian, Ukrainian or South Sudanese refugee child, but The Displaced helped people to connect with that experience in a profound way.
 
But it’s now the next step – beyond connecting people and creating empathy – that’s the key challenge: how do we ensure the immersive experience of VR inspires genuine action? Initial results across the sector are encouraging. UNICEF has reported that when Clouds Over Sidra has been screened as part of its face-to-face fundraising efforts, it’s seen a conversion rate from donors go from one in 10-13, to one in five or six. charity:water, with its VR film The Source, likewise has reported similarly impressive returns.
 
Our The Price of Conflict series is primarily targeted at senior government and institutional decision-makers, and the precedents in this space are similarly exciting. In a recent video on the UN’s push into VR, the UN’s Gabo Arora, the founder of UNVR Lab, says the impact of Clouds Over Sidra on the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2015 and the recent International Pledging Conference on Syria was significant; the latter seeing twice the funding to what was projected:
“When the film debuted in Davos, it was a sensation to everyone we showed it to. They come out of it very deeply moved. I’d say half the people who watch Clouds Over Sidra cry. …The film was then integrated with the Secretary General in the Kuwait pledging conference for Syria. He made everyone at the reception of the pledging conference watch it. And it really made a big difference in getting people to pledge more, to care more, and to be more involved.”
 
While time will tell on the impact of our films, the initial response to screenings of The Price of Conflict have been encouraging, with viewers repeatedly telling us the experience has changed their perception of conflict and recovery from it:

“I felt like I was right there… [with] the participants, learning about what the problems they’re experiencing were, and how our interventions could support real change in their lives,” said one delegate.
 
“It’s as close to being on a field trip as I’ve ever been. It’s bringing you there,” said another.

 
This last comment from one of our viewers is important to consider, given the potential outlay for producing VR content is likely a challenge for development communicators to get over the line, as recognised by UNICEF’s David Cravinho. Yet when compared to the cost of potentially taking donors on field visits, the value stacks up quickly, even before security and other logistical challenges are taken into consideration.
 
The final challenge ahead, however, seems to be the biggest hurdle: actually getting people to take the time to watch VR films in their genuine 360-degree VR form; to get them into the space, cut out the noise and normal distractions and commit to the film in its true experience. Samsung deserves credit for pushing their Gear VR headsets so strongly to help spread 360-degree content, and Google Cardboard (and now, Google Daydream) offer a relatively cheap solution for anyone with a new-ish smartphone.
 
With the VR 360 medium continuing to push further into the mainstream, the challenge for us, as content makers, is to make must-see content that audiences will want to take the time to completely cut themselves off from the outside world to watch. Because once they do, then VR’s impact has the potential to be life-changing.

The World Bank
TOM PERRY

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International cooperation, ethics and climate change

In pursuing meaningful sustainable development, and investing in conservation and redressing the environmental damage caused by decades of neglect, we need to better explore and understand the role of international cooperation and why human values and ethics are central to this debate.

International cooperation. A key ingredient for generating a sustainable development path will have to be a significant strengthening of the current mechanisms of international cooperation, which have turned out to be insufficient to meet the global challenges that we face. The process of globalization is unfolding in the absence of equivalent international institutions to support it and harness its potential for good.

There is no global environmental authority, for instance. Policy on the climate change front is being done via ad-hoc approaches involving elements of international cooperation, voluntary compliance, and large doses of hope. In the absence of a body having jurisdiction over the global environment with corresponding legal enforcement authority, the international community has, de facto, abdicated management of the world’s environment to chance and the actions of well-meaning states. Even the 2015 Paris Agreement, bringing together 175 countries pledging reductions in emissions, if implemented in full, will not prevent a warming in excess of 2°C, the threshold recognized by climate scientists as necessary to avoid “potentially devastating consequences” (Stern 2016).

Whether we focus our attention on climate change or other global challenges, the fact is that major planetary problems are being neglected because we do not have the mechanisms and institutions strong enough to deal with them.

Effective, credible mechanisms of international cooperation, that are perceived to be legitimate, and capable of acting on behalf of the interests of humanity—rather than those of a particular set of countries—are essential if the world is to meet the challenge of striking the correct balance between concern for the environment and the policies that must underpin such concern, on the one hand, and the need to ensure that the global economy develops in a way that provides opportunities for all, particularly the poor and the disadvantaged, on the other.

It is an open question whether the existing system of sovereign nation states is capable of achieving this level of cooperation, or if such a system will require a more fundamental restructuring involving greater levels of national accountability to ensure outcomes that will better serve present and future generations.

Ethics and human values. Finally, no strategy aimed at fostering the emergence of a sustainable development path would be complete without a fundamental rethinking of the human values that have driven much of the development process during the past century. A considerable body of academic research in recent years has examined the issue of the correlation between growing income and human happiness. The question itself might have appeared slightly quaint a couple of decades ago, when economists in academia and policymakers in government and international financial organizations more or less accepted as an article of faith that higher growth and income would always be desirable and would increase human welfare, and along with it, happiness.

Several insights, however, have contributed to a gradual change of perspective. First, the realization that, however beneficial might have been the several decades of robust post-war economic growth in improving living standards, the global economy was beginning to run up against environmental constraints which could actually be measured.

Second, psychologists, newly empowered with analytical tools developed in other sciences, were able to show that human happiness was correlated with income only up to a certain level. Money seemed to be crucially important for happiness when basic material needs had not been met. But once these had been satisfied, the sources of happiness shifted to other concerns, reflecting deeper spiritual aspirations, including friendship, relationships, a sense of purpose in life, security, among others.

The above observations suggest the need to broaden the definition of what constitutes “well-being” and investigate more closely the relationship between increasing market activity and the welfare of the people participating in the economic system. One starting point would be to establish a clearer mental demarcation between the concepts of “growth” and “development.”

The first is essentially a quantitative concept which captures the expansion in the scale of the economic system, while the latter refers to qualitative changes in this system and in its relationships with the environment and other aspects of life in the community. Properly understood, economics should concern itself less with how to add to the physical dimension of the economic system and more with the long-term welfare of the community whose interests the “system” is ultimately intended to serve.

The World Bank
AUGUSTO LOPEZ-CLAROS

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The practice and craft of multistakeholder governance

In a new paper by Stefaan G. Verhulst at Global Partners Digital, Verhulst argues: “In recent years, multistakeholderism has become something of a catchphrase in discussions of Internet governance. This follows decades of attempts to identify a system of governance that would be sufficiently flexible, yet at the same time effective enough to manage the decentralized, non-hierarchical global network that is today used by more than 3 billion people. In the early years of the Internet, the prevailing view was that government should stay out of governance; market forces and self-regulation, it was believed, would suffice to create order and enforce standards of behavior. This view was memorably captured by John Perry Barlow’s 1996 “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” which dramatically announced: “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather”.

However, the shortcomings of this view have become apparent as the Internet has grown in scale and complexity, and as it has increasingly entered the course of everyday life. There is now a growing sense—perhaps even an emerging consensus—that markets and self-policing cannot address some of the important challenges confronting the Internet, including the need to protect privacy, ensure security, and limit fragmentation on a diverse and multi-faceted network. As the number of users has grown, so have calls for the protection of important public and consumer interests.

Out of such realizations and imperatives has emerged a growing interest in multistakeholderism as a model of Internet governance. There is now an ongoing discussion, both theoretical and practical, about the nature, advantages, and disadvantages of such a model. For instance, the Global Commission on Internet Governance stated in their final report “One Internet” issued in June 2016: “…today’s Internet governance landscape is complex and challenging to those who wish to participate. It encompasses debates in the technical, economic, political, social, military, law enforcement and intelligence spheres, and those debates take place in forums that are by turns national, regional and international. If that was not complex enough, there is broad recognition that if it is to be effective and accepted as legitimate, Internet governance should be multi-stakeholder, involving and taking into account the views and needs of governments, the private sector, civil society and technical actors. The term “multi-stakeholder” is overused in the realm of Internet governance, but if used accurately, it can tell us a great deal. The term is used here to mean a model in which affected stakeholders who want to participate in decision making can, yet where no single interest can unilaterally capture control”.

In this paper, we contribute to this ongoing discussion by examining current and actual instances of governance and governance bodies that at least approximate the ideal of multistakeholderism. Part I, below, examines seven institutions and fora that serve as real-world examples of multistakeholder governance on the Internet. In Part II, we assess these examples to present a number of lessons learned and more general reflections that can help us better understand the state of—and prospects for—multistakeholder governance of the Internet today.

The full report, "The Practice and Craft of Multistakeholder Governance" is available trhough Global Partners Digital.

The World Bank
STEFAAN VERHULST

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A tale of two disasters: Communities connecting and learning from each other

Community members from Nepal learn how to make paper jewelry crafts from Ibasho-Japan members.(Photo: Margaret Arnold / World Bank)

In the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Nepal in April 2015, Santoshi Rana of Bihani, a social venture working with elderly community members in Kathmandu, noticed that many efforts engaged the youth in relief and recovery activities. “Our elderly were completely left out of the equation, and were treated as passive beneficiaries in need of care.” So she took to the Internet to see what resources she could find. She came across a World Bank-Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) report, “Elders Leading the Way to Resilience,” which assessed the impact of Ibasho café, an elder-led recovery effort in Ofunato, Japan, following the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) in 2011.

Ibasho: a Japanese approach to community resilience

In Ofunato, elder community members planned and built the Ibasho Café, which serves as a hub to restore the fabric of a community badly damaged by the GEJE disaster. Ibasho Café is an informal gathering place that brings the community together. All generations connect in that space, with children coming to read books in the English library, older people teaching the young how to make traditional foods, younger people helping their elders navigate computer software, etc. With the elderly actively engaged in the operation of the Ibasho café, the place helps build social capital and resilience, while changing people’s mindsets about aging. The café runs as a sustainable business and, over time, has developed a noodle shop, an organic farm, and a farmers market to further support its operation.

In 2014-2015, GFDRR supported the documentation of the Ibasho experience in Japan. Learning about this experience, Santoshi realized the elders and women of her community could also lead the way, and reached out to Emi Kiyota, head of Ibasho, the NGO that facilitated the process in Ofunato.

Learning and sharing with Nepal at community and government levels

Now, with support from GFDRR, Ibasho works with community elders, women, and people with disabilities in Matatirtha, Nepal, to develop Ibasho-Nepal as part of their earthquake recovery efforts.
  
This October, a group of representatives from Matatirtha visited Japan, as part of a peer-to-peer exchange, to learn from the Ofunato elders. The delegation included five community members elected to represent them on the visit and four invited representatives from the Nepalese government, which is developing a project to support the psycho-social recovery of earthquake-affected communities.

Over four days in Ofunato, the group visited temporary housing communities, reconstructed public housing, and a fisheries cooperative to learn about the recovery process since GEJE. Most importantly, they spent a lot of time at the Ibasho café, interacting with its members to understand how they developed and operate the space, the different livelihood activities they support, and the role the café plays in supporting the psycho-social recovery and resilience of the community.

The Ofunato elders showed the Nepali community leaders their methods for organic farming, and how to make paper crafts they could sell at Ibasho-Nepal. The Nepali representatives made a presentation on the activities they are developing in Nepal, and received feedback from the Ofunato elders and Nepalese officials. Both groups shared personal stories of how they and their communities were affected by the respective disasters, and how they are overcoming loss to build more resilient communities. They also shared plenty of laughter, songs, and good food.

Takeaways for community leaders and the World Bank

Reflecting on what they learned from the visit, community leader Pancha Kumar Shrestha said, “We know we can overcome this disaster because we have now seen others do it.” In addition to the practical skills they learned, the community leaders also shared that the visit showed them how much more they can achieve by working collectively, and that “everyone has something to contribute, including the elderly, and people with disabilities.”
 
Working with GFDRR’s Inclusive Community Resilience program and the World Bank DRM Hub, Tokyo, the Ibasho Café initiative also aims to share their approach with communities in the Philippines and other countries.
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In our work at the World Bank, we tend to think of peer-to-peer learning as government representatives learning from government peers in other countries. This visit demonstrated the importance of connecting communities to other communities that have been through similar experiences. The Nepali elders left feeling inspired, empowered, and connected to people that understood exactly what they had been through and what they could achieve. The bonds between the Matatirtha and Ofunato elders are strong, and as Ibasho-Nepal takes shape, the community members will continue to draw on the lessons and inspiration they gained from their friends in Ofunato.

The World Bank
MARGARET ARNOLD

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Agribusiness can help to unlock the true potential of Africa

A woman farmer works fields in the Conde’ community of Morro da Bango, Angola. © Anita Baumann

The challenges faced by small farmers are similar across the developing world – pests, diseases and climate change. Yet in Africa the challenges are even greater. If farmers are to survive at current rates (let alone grow), they need to have access to high-yielding seeds, effective fertilizers and irrigation technologies. These issues threaten the region’s ability to feed itself and make business-growth and export markets especially difficult to reach. Other factors include the rise in global food prices and export subsidies for exporters in the developed economies, which leave African farmers struggling to price competitively.

Organizations such as The International Finance Corporation (IFC) provide and mobilize capital, knowledge and long-term partnerships in agribusiness. It has provided over $25 billion in financing, mobilized investments from partners and provided advisory services across the continent. Connecting the private sector with global and regional NGO’s and the public sector is one of the most important steps. Of the $3.7 billion invested in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015 by the IFC, $1.8 billion came from other investors.

Modernization of technologies, innovative technologies and widening access to markets is central to turning such huge sums of money into results. In Kenya, a mobile app called M-Farm allows farmers to directly send messages requesting guidance and data on crop prices. It also helps farmers to connect directly with food suppliers; thus reducing reliance on middlemen and market buyers. Cutting costs in this way can go some way to mitigating the impact of subsidized exports from the developed economies.

In Ethiopia, access to simple market knowledge has also helped small food manufacturers grow. AfricaJUICE is the first Fairtrade certified fruit juice in sub-Saharan Africa and it has been able to expand through the provision of technical expertise and understanding global markets and industry practices. This assistance came from the World Bank, alongside equity financing of $6 million.

Agribusiness is growing fast, yet the true potential is stymied by limited mechanization, fragmented markets, price controls and poor infrastructure. For a sector that contributes 25% to Africa’s overall gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 70% of all employment, it is an industry that presents enormous opportunities to investors.

A woman farmer who works in the maize fields on the Canhumbuca Farm in Huambo, Angola. © Anita Baumann

For policymakers and investors, one of the hurdles is knowing how to find and identify those small-scale farmers or food manufacturers that have really strong commercial potential. In Angola, this challenge has been met by the creation of a state-backed organization called Fundo Activo de Capital de Risco Angolana (FACRA). It is a public venture capital fund that supports Angolan SME’s in agribusiness and other sectors in building, innovating and expanding their existing business. It opens doors for businesses that have the potential for growth and makes it significantly easier for investors to enter the Angolan market.

Aside from providing growth opportunities and support for market-entry, organizations such as FACRA also have a role to play in helping Africa to become self-sufficient in food and become a regional exporter. With 70% of the workforce already working in the sector, Africa already benefits from having a mobilized workforce. Honing in on communities that have such strong potential is one way of helping to support economic growth.

Like so much in Africa, things have to happen from the ground up, through investing in small projects and local communities. The financial and administrative burden for such initiatives very often fall on the government but the private sector has the ability to get involved at a local level too, if it can take a long-term view and work in partnership. The introduction of world-class machinery and support for the type of infrastructure needed for rural communities to succeed are two areas where foreign investors can take a stake through public-private partnerships (PPP’s) or direct investment.

Direct investment brings with it a range of financial incentives for foreign investors. Infrastructure linking rural communities to markets is much-needed. Mechanization is also particularly important in achieving greater production and capacity and so too are storage facilities and modern irrigation and water conservation technologies. These are all areas where investors can bring capital and technical expertise to an industry sector that has enormous economic potential.

As African economies continue to work against the tide of low oil and commodity prices, there is determination regionally and on the national level to achieve diversification and economic growth within the SME sector, not only in agriculture but all burgeoning sectors.

Agribusiness is especially important because of the scale of opportunity and the important role that it plays in supporting a wider value chain, job growth and economic diversification. Now is the right time for all African stakeholders, global bodies and private investors to come together and create an environment that helps Africa to feed itself and deliver economic growth for ordinary people, national economies and investors.

The World Bank
TEODORO DE JESUS XAVIER POULSON

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How can we better support social entrepreneurs to improve service delivery?

Social Enterprises: How They Fit and Thrive

These few examples of innovative solutions demonstrate how South Asia and Africa are increasingly becoming a dynamic regional market for SEs, filling big gaps in the delivery of social services to the poor and underserved communities. SEs have increased their presence and reach every year, particularly in Eastern and Southern Africa, with vibrant markets in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda leading the way.
 
Yet, while inspiring success stories exist, widespread scale, replication, and integration within the wider network of public and private sector delivery have not yet been achieved across the region and within countries. SEs face multiple challenges that relate to the under-developed ecosystems within which they operate.
 
So, how can we help? How can we better understand SE ecosystems at a national and sectoral level? How can we improve them? What can we learn from best practices around the world?
 
With all of these questions in mind, the Social Enterprise Innovation team at the World Bank Group developed an SE ecosystem diagnostic tool. The tool combines different methodologies found in the literature to create an exhaustive review of the SE ecosystem: demand by the target population, supply of services, the SE situation at the heart of the model, and four factors that influence their ability to operate effectively and scale up.

Ecosystem Factors for Effectiveness and Scaling Up

The ecosystem framework guides analysis at all levels: country, service delivery sector and service delivery subsector. The team aims for the framework to help practitioners, policy makers, and social entrepreneurs to:

• Better understand the sector landscape and the potential role and impact of SEs
• Analyze inter-relations between actors and the importance of partnerships
• Examine best practices from ongoing initiatives, with early evidence of what is and isn’t working
• Review short-, medium- and long-term results of projects in seven African countries
• Make evidence-based decisions on priorities and interventions to maximize resources
• Benchmark ecosystem performance against other countries

Understanding the immense potential of SEs and creating an enabling environment for them to thrive could supplement public and private service delivery, bringing critical social services to the last mile.

The World Bank
CRISTINA NAVARRETE MORENO

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People’s living standards – do numbers tell the whole story?

These questions came up recently when we were trying to understand changes over time in the welfare and living standards of people and communities across the Europe and Central Asia region. In our studies, we looked at the growth of the “bottom 40 percent”, trends in poverty rates, and GINI using household surveys – indicators that painted an overall positive picture of performance throughout the 2000s. For instance, the numbers told us that the share of people living in extreme or moderate poverty declined from almost half in 2000 to 14 percent in 2013; and that the middle class more than doubled between 2003 and 2013.

So, the message is very positive, right?

Not quite. We felt something was missing from the picture, and decided to look beyond the numbers. We agreed, therefore, to ask people what they themselves thought and felt about their own welfare and living standards.

What we heard from selected men and women across the region told us that traditional indicators do not fully reflect the reality on the ground. Indeed, recent qualitative research in 43 communities across 9 countries reveals that there is a lot of discontent, even in countries that have been growing fast. Similar insights have been obtained from the Life in Transition Survey: even in periods of growth, a large share of households in many countries in the Europe and Central Asia region claimed that life was better before the economic transition of the 1990s.

Almost everywhere, men and women perceive that advances in living standards have been more subdued (if at all), than traditional economic indicators describe – and they feel extremely vulnerable to downward mobility. In countries growing more slowly, they worry about a disappearing middle class.

Everywhere, there is a concern about growing polarization, echoing similar concerns in other parts of the world. But what is behind this disconnect between objective measures and people’s perceptions on welfare and mobility?

We asked men and women in the Europe and Central Asia region what factors they consider to be important in order to move up the “wellbeing ladder” in their respective communities. During those discussions, three strong views were repeatedly expressed:

“It is all only about work.”

The lack of (good) jobs, particularly among women and youth, is driving discontent amidst rising prosperity. But what is a good job? Only 78 percent and 47 percent of our respondents, respectively, thought that being a worker in agriculture or construction constituted a job. People have high aspirations, which make them exclude from their idea of jobs many ‘irregular’ forms of employment that are becoming increasingly common in the region.

People aspire to full-time, formal jobs with permanent contracts, and they place a high value on security and stability. As a result, close to 80 percent of the people we talked to declared they would rather work in the public than in the private sector - “because those are stable jobs.” Even youth tend to express a similar preference for public sector jobs, so this cannot be dismissed as a generational issue.

“Who you know matters more than what you know.”

The people we spoke with in the Europe and Central Asia region perceive social and political connections, and social norms, to be crucial for accessing jobs and improving individual well-being. Yet, both goals are perceived to be outside the control of the individual, leading to frustration and perceptions of unfairness in labor markets.

Men and women alike voiced great frustration about how the lack of connections curtails their opportunities, and with the unfairness in the process of getting a job. Many agreed that, “Nowadays, it’s very difficult to find a job without connections, whether through a political party or family ties.”

Similarly, social norms, particularly those related to gender, also mediate access to jobs. Women often referred to the need to redefine roles in the household in order to be able to look for jobs. In addition, lack of access to affordable and quality childcare limits options. Both men and women shared the widespread view that, “Women have worse prospects of finding a job, because mentality, family and children prevent them from being hired.”

“The poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer.”

Men and women in the region describe societies that are increasingly polarized, with an elusive middle-class. The message that resonates powerfully through their voices is that, “Those at the top, the rich ones, stay as they are, but those below are drastically different compared to 10 years ago, and we’re going downhill.”

Although everybody might be moving up, the fact that others are doing so more quickly affects perceptions, and therefore progress seems more modest. But there is also the view that people at the top are there not due to hard work but thanks to the fact that “they are better connected”, “they control how the money flows” and “they have more opportunities.”

Our study reveals a blind spot in policies aimed at improving access to more and better jobs, often because traditional indicators – on which most policies are based – do not capture the full story. Therefore, barriers such as the lack of networks and information, and social norms that keep people out of work are often ignored in the design of policy responses to the jobs challenge. And yet, they play a critical role in shaping people’s perceptions, behavior and opportunities.

Luckily, once these non-traditional barriers to jobs and mobility are diagnosed, they are actually amenable to policy. So, what can be done?

First, we can do better at connecting people to jobs. There is a growing body of evidence on interventions that work to address governance failures, especially around public employment, or information failures, by improving access to networks and information on school-to-work transitions and labor markets.

Second, we can do more to overcome social norms that limit access to economic opportunities, particularly for women. Again, evidence is building up on interventions that can make the difference. They include shifting aspirations through mentoring and role models, media campaigns, or innovative approaches involving employers, such as gender certifications and behavioral interventions to address hiring biases.

"Voices of Europe and Central Asia", our new report (available on 14 November), reveals the perceptions and aspirations of people in the region around mobility and jobs. But, this is only part of a bigger agenda in Europe and Central Asia, and beyond. Going forward, additional qualitative work – that goes beyond the numbers – could help us better understand the implications of these aspirations for people and communities at times of rapid economic change and growing concerns about polarization.

Join our panel discussion on 14 November: Do Numbers Tell the Whole Story? Perceptions and Reality about Prosperity and Jobs 

"Voices of Europe and Central Asia: New Insights on Shared Prosperity and Jobs" was funded by the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), a multi-donor trust fund managed by the World Bank Group.

The World Bank
GIORGIA DEMARCHI

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Social enterprise and infrastructure morality

Photo Credit: Kathleen Bence via Flickr Creative Commons

I’ve been looking for a good definition of social enterprise. The information overlords at Google and Wikipedia suggested this:

“A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being—this may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for external shareholders.”

That’s a pretty broad and somewhat unsatisfying definition. I mean: “What organization in the 21^st century wouldn’t put human and environmental development, social impact and profit high on their agenda?” – (He asks naïvely.)

Infrastructure professionals think a lot about social enterprise, but in a slightly different way. There is of course the unrelated term “social infrastructure,” which broadly covers public services such as healthcare, education, leisure and other government services. But really what we think about when it comes to social enterprise is “infrastructure morality.”

We do not use those exact words. Instead, we talk about the affordability of infrastructure, its social benefit, its impact, economic development, and access to essential human services. We aim to improve the morality of infrastructure through programs under an equally diverse set of themes — such as social responsibility, activist investing and greater transparency. KPMG’s latest edition of Insights magazine is dedicated to this very topic.

James Stewart, my colleague – and the chairman of KPMG’s Global Infrastructure practice –linked infrastructure morality with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in a blog for GE Reports in April. He wrote: “Nothing touches people’s lives more immediately than infrastructure. A competitive, inclusive, fair and modern society must deliver effective and affordable public services — including energy, housing, clean water, universal healthcare, communications and transportation. As global leaders grapple with the challenge and expense of delivering these services, the private sector has a critical role to play. But public-private partnerships (PPPs) must begin to prioritize a new set of P’s — people, the planet and prosperity.”

A cursory glance at almost any day’s headlines – or more targeted search on Twitter for #infrastructuremorality or #inframorality – will show that we still have some way to go to bring about the desired change.

Even the things we celebrate – such as the Olympic Games – are not without dilemmas. In a blog about infrastructure morality for the Huffington Post in April, KPMG’s Lord Michael Hastings highlighted the forced eviction and displacement of some of Rio de Janeiro’s poorest to make way for this summer’s Games. He asked: “How will history remember Brazil’s Olympic and Paralympic legacy? Will the city thrive thanks to its investments in new housing, Bus Rapid Transit, a new subway line, improved expressways, and a commitment to cleaner waters? Will the city live up to its promises? Or will the sacrifice of Maria da Penha and the hundreds of other families forced out of the Vila Autódromo largely be in vain?”

The issue is not limited to developing markets. With aging infrastructure and fiscal challenges, Hastings noted that even the United States struggles with these themes. The slow recovery of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the bridge collapse in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2007, and the Gold King Mine waste water spill in Colorado in 2015 are all events tied to themes of infrastructure morality. More recently, Rapper Jon Connor from Flint, Michigan, tweeted in July 2016 that his mother is still using bottled water to shower. It’s been three years since the city switched sources and began supplying its citizens with corrosive, contaminated water containing harmful metals such as lead. The mainstream media may have forgotten #FlintLivesMatter but residents certainly haven’t.

Poor infrastructure morality is at the core of problems like climate change, pollution, inadequate working conditions, overcrowding, and congestion. The causes are often things like inequality, poor governance, corruption, conflict, a lack of corporate responsibility, and mismanaged migration and population growth – to name but a few.

The world is full of problems, and how we develop and manage our infrastructure can make it better – but only if done correctly. Infrastructure is a social enterprise. As concepts, they have the same core objective and are of the same state of mind. To quote Muhammad Yunus in Marta Milkowska’s 2015 World Bank Social Enterprise Innovations blog of the same title: “Every time I see a problem, I create a social business to solve it.”

That’s a much more satisfying summation of social enterprise than what Google and Wikipedia gave me. It is also firmly aligned to the idea of infrastructure morality. We see problems, and we build infrastructure to solve them. And like a good social enterprise, these solutions need to be affordable, sustainable and for the benefit of all in society.

The World Bank
JOHN KJORSTAD

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Statement from World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim on the Entry into Force of the Paris Climate Change Agreement

WASHINGTON, November 3, 2016 – The World Bank Group today released the following statement from World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim on the eve of the Paris Climate Change Agreement going into force:

“November 4, 2016, is a defining moment in human history. For the first time a global agreement to turn down the heat on our planet enters into force.  

The Paris Climate Change Agreement—ratified in record time by over 90 countries to date—will now be the instrument around which our futures depend. However, even with the commitments made in Paris and encouraging action on the ground, we will not meet our aspiration of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees unless we move faster and at the scale that is needed. 

As the world heads into COP22 in Marrakesh, we must regain the sense of urgency we felt a year ago. With each passing day, the climate challenge grows. If we are to have any chance of meeting the goals enshrined in the Agreement, we need to move quickly on at least four priorities for action. 

Build climate ambition into the development plans of every country:  Over the next 15 years, infrastructure investments around the world will amount to over $90 trillion. Most of this will be in developing countries. Making sure these investments are low-carbon and climate-resilient can promote sustainable economic growth, which is key to achieving our goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. Countries can now use the Paris Agreement to drive climate-smart policy action, like carbon pricing, to attract the right infrastructure investments. In the post-Paris world, growth cannot come at any cost.

Accelerate the transition to cleaner energy: Last week, the International Energy Agency boosted its five-year growth forecast for renewables because of strong support in key countries and sharp cost reductions. In fact, renewables surpassed coal last year to become the largest source of installed power capacity in the world. Building on this momentum, we need to focus special attention and action on Asia, where energy demand is growing and some countries continue to look to coal as the solution. Shifting those countries toward low-carbon energy paths, combined with action on phasing down hydrofluorocarbons, could make all the difference. We need to help countries make the right choice between high-carbon energy sources and renewable alternatives. We must ‘follow the carbon.’ That means we have to direct concessional finance where it will make the greatest difference. 

Help countries build resilience to climate shocks: As we said in Paris, without climate action at scale, more than 100 million people could fall back into extreme poverty by 2030. That’s why we need to build the resilience of communities, economies, and ecosystems. We have a good idea of what is needed—more efficient water supply, climate-smart agriculture, early warning systems, disaster risk reduction, and better social protection. We have a choice to make. Otherwise, the poverty reduction gains we’ve made together will be lost.

Green the finance sector: We need a global financial system that’s fit for purpose to factor in climate risks and opportunities. This is vital if we are to mobilize the trillions of dollars in private capital needed to address climate change. More and more, we are seeing major institutional investors incorporating climate considerations into their decision making. Still, many developing countries will continue to need significant amounts of concessional finance to make good on their climate plans. Donor countries made a strong commitment in Paris. And now we must turn those commitments into action. 

What was agreed in Paris is now a defining principle of the World Bank Group’s work. Ending extreme poverty and fighting climate change are inextricably linked. We cannot do one without the other. 

Today is a day to celebrate. Tomorrow, we get back to work with an even greater sense of urgency.” 

The World Bank

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Why Bangladesh's garments won’t go ‘haute couture’ (II)

Mannequins at a garment shop in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh exports basic garments at the lowest possible cost, unbeatable by any other competitor country. Manufacturing clothes is the most basic link of the fashion industry value chain, as discussed in my previous blog. But can the country get more out of it?

On the one hand, clothes will always be in demand. On the other hand, far from being just a garment to keep one warm and safe against the elements, people wear clothes for a variety of reasons— as a form of cultural identity, to signal one’s income status, a form of self-expression, as a medium of protest or celebration, or to “wear” a wide range of human emotions.

Indeed, psychology and anthropology may have as much to do with the purchase of a garment than economics. For example, Princess Kate Middleton of the UK royal family has made such an impact on the global fashion map that the phrase “Kate effect” was created on her account to describe how items she is seen wearing immediately disappear off store shelves. Such an impact on demand, though massive, is often short-lived and transitory.

Demand for apparel can thus be categorized into two types: (i) demand for basic apparel; and (ii) demand for apparel that appeals to individuality and sense of style and is subject to a smorgasbord of factors that influence perception of quality, brand name, style appeal, trendiness, and other product attributes.

In the first category, the demand for primary articles of clothing like basic shirts, dresses, and jeans worn regularly is driven by price attractiveness and relative durability. There is very little regard for brand influence. Most Bangladesh garment exports fall into this category, as noted in a recent ADB report. The demand is influenced by levels and changes in two important variables – price and consumer income. As income rises, people spend a smaller portion of their income on these types of garments.

Like many top exporting countries, Bangladesh has increasingly started supplying garments to the very active second category. Known as “fast fashion”, it is defined as “low-cost clothing collections that mimic current luxury fashion trends. Fast fashion companies thrive on fast cycles: rapid prototyping, small batches combined with large variety, more efficient transportation and delivery, and merchandise that is presented “floor-ready” on hangers with price tags already attached. The idea is to provide consumers with accessible and affordable clothes at convenient prices, marketed as highly wearable, on-trend apparel that makes the impression of being here today but probably gone tomorrow. H&M, Mango, Uniqlo, Gap, Topshop, and Forever 21 are some of the prominent brands that stand out in the global fast fashion landscape; most of these companies have seen their sale almost double between 2008 and 2014.

While fast fashion has exacerbated something like the ‘Kate effect’, by nature the fashion business is a classic “buyer-driven” global value chain. Unlike producer-driven value chains—where scale, volume, and technology are major determinants of profits—the buyer-driven global apparel value chain brings profit opportunities for specialized services at the beginning and end of the processing. In other words, retailers, designers, advertisers and marketers leverage their talents in high-value research, design, and retail services. It has enabled major advertisers to pierce layers of reason that govern normal spending habits and tweak the average person’s common-sense approach to shopping for apparel.

Moreover, this changing structure of demand relative to price and income sensitivities has an important bearing on trade opportunities for Bangladesh garments. If it keeps exporting the same category of apparel to its traditional markets, even if income rises in those markets, the demand for Bangladesh basic garment exports is unlikely to increase.

To benefit sustainably from its garment export performance, Bangladesh should shift its production capabilities to cater to the higher value-added category of clothing demand. But this may prove very difficult because of the segmented nature of the value chain.

One possibility is to shift gears toward the domestic market, by beginning lines of fashion that can appeal to the growing and vast Bangladeshi middle class. With exposure to media, they can hit the styles for younger people that also appeal to their sense as individuals. An average Bangladeshi spends almost 5% of per capita income on clothing, while the average Japanese and American (whose per capita incomes are 12 and 17 times, respectively, more than that of a Bangladeshi) only spend 2.2% and 2.6%, respectively.

More importantly, this would be a way of developing the types of skills that will allow Bangladesh to move to the “retail” end of the fashion value chain. This has been done in other sectors, like Watsons with appliances by producing refrigerators with features that cater specifically to typical Bangladeshi households, but increasingly using reverse engineering skills to expand to air conditioners, televisions, and motorcycles.

The fragmented nature of this individuality-driven apparel category, in turn, makes for a good environment to use branding to drive demand. Particularly for income-insensitive but socially conscious consumers, branding could also be a vehicle to push issues that go beyond the product itself, like ensuring that clothes are produced in ways that ensure decent working conditions for garment workers, particularly women, as discussed in a recent ADB employment report.

Consumers who find cheap bargains irresistible may not want to be reminded about the labor and compensation practices in developing countries where their shirts and jeans are made. The “Made in Bangladesh” campaign has tried to bridge that image gap somewhat, by creating some doubt, juxtaposing a pretty Bangladeshi model who looks like a factory worker in a provocative pose and tight jeans. The idea is to remind consumers where their clothes are made, and perhaps appeal to a sense of social responsibility that could trump the urge to look trendy.

ADB
Valerie Mercer-Blackman

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Land records go digital in Punjab, Pakistan

The World Bank
MARY LISBETH GONZALEZ

The Government of Punjab started computerization of rural Land Records with the overall objective to improve service delivery and to resolve the overall dispersed nature of land records. The transaction costs were very high for the poor during the old days of patwari system. Women were denied their land rights and the low mobility of land markets contributed to preserving the highly unequal distribution of land and, therefore, opportunities to improve people’s livelihoods.
 
Before the Land Records Management Information System (LRMIS) was set up, the Board of Revenue (BOR),​Government of Punjab, operated a land record maintenance system which involved several levels of administration: the district, Tehsil, Qanungo circle, and Patwar circle. At the lowest administrative level of the records system – the Patwar Circle – are the Patwaris, who were not only responsible for preparing community maps and issuing land records, but also for many social, political, and administrative tasks. Administrative tasks included keeping weather records, collecting crop harvest information, reporting crimes, and updating the voter registry. Imagine 8,000 Patwaris maintaining the land records – usually very small holdings -- of about 20 million land owners. The Patwaris, who were the custodians of these confidential and important records, kept this information in a cloth bag called Basta.
 
LRMIS has been performing really well. The Project was rolled out in all 36 districts of Punjab. The Project has successfully tested linkages between the land records system and the deeds registration system. The biggest achievement of the project is that the time required to complete transactions has been reduced from 2 months to 45 minutes. Land record services are now provided on an automated basis throughout all 150 Tehsil Service Centers. There are many contributing factors to the success of the Project:

Political commitment: The Province of Punjab and the Board of Revenue have been strongly committed to improving the land records system.

Human capital: The Project hired top professionals who are proud to be good at their jobs and are willing to do even better.
 
IT and software connect with social inclusion and people’s participation. The LRMIS team designed an indigenous software tailored to the needs of the Punjab province and to the issues that needed to be resolved. The team undertook the detailed task of reviewing all manual records and data entry with exceptionally rigorous quality controls. These efforts included checking the double blind entry, system cross checks, complete verification by Patwaris and all records corrections and verifications. The software and the IT system, however, were unable to resolve the land records conundrum on their own unless a sustained and a clear social strategy to include and promote the participation of the ancestral Patwari system within the new and sophisticated computerized system was set in place. The incentives to foster the involvement and participation of the Patwaris to clean and update the records was and remains crucial. They continue to play a key role within the overall governance of the land records system, but in a regularized form with checks and balances. It was proven that it is more efficient to work through and with the existing local institutions while seeking changes needed to attain objectives.
 
Governance and the relationship between decentralization and centralization: Clearly a balance between decentralized land administration and management on one hand and national level direction on the other is necessary but how to achieve this balance is the tricky part. While the BOR is the institution providing direction at the provincial level with the implementation of the LRMIS, at the local district (Tehsil) level data centers called Arazi Record Centers (ARCs) were created. The establishment of about 150 ARCs increases access for the local population by reducing the physical distance between them and the ARCs. The centers have contributed to reduced costs, increased transparency, reduced transaction time and improved good governance.
 
LRMIS has contributed tremendously towards protection of women’s land rights. Records are computerized. The succession law is applied; one part for women and two parts for men. The ARCs also have reserved areas to service women and senior citizens; these are operated by female staff, thereby contributing to women’s participation in Pakistan’s workforce.
 
For Pakistan and for the Province of Punjab and for the Board of Revenue, as the implementing agency, this Project has been a challenge.  Now it is a challenge of success, i.e., how to expand it to the rest of Punjab nay Pakistan.

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Improve workforce development systems in 5 (not so simple) steps

The World Bank
VIVIANA ROSETH, ALEXANDRIA VALERIO

Nurses listen during a training program to learn more about child and adolescent mental health in Monrovia, Liberia

In the last decade, policy attention to better develop the knowledge and skills of the workforce has increased for several reasons. First, global youth unemployment rates, three times higher than the unemployment rate for those over 25 years old, have raised concerns about social stability as well as sustained and long-term economic growth. Second, many who argue that youth unemployment is partially caused by a mismatch between graduates’ skills and the skills that employers need, also believe that revitalizing vocational education and training can help address the problem. Third, a skilled workforce that can easily adapt to technological change is likely a fundamental component for countries to remain competitive in the global economy.

In this context, the SABER-Workforce Development assessment was designed to analyze the extent to which policies, institutional arrangements and practices in workforce development systems foster a dynamic coordination between the skills and knowledge of graduates of technical and vocational institutions and those that employers look for among mid-level workers such as skilled craftspeople, technicians or production supervisors. The assessment has two unique characteristics. First, it enables a structured dialogue by identifying nine policy goals that workforce developments systems should seek in order to align skills demand and supply (see figure). Second, it facilitates cross-country learning as it benchmarks country policies against international good practices in a continuum of four performance levels - latent, emerging, established, or advanced.

As of 2016, the SABER-Workforce Development assessment has been implemented in 35 countries and a synthesis of global trends identified through a cross country analysis was recently published in the book “Workforce Development in Emerging Economies: Comparative Perspectives on Institutions, Praxis, and Policies.” The book identifies the following common challenges among the 27 countries that implemented the assessment between 2011 and 2014:

Strategic Framework Dimension

• In most countries attention to workforce development is relegated to ministerial units that may be technically apt to articulate a strategy, but lack the political power and capital to sustain its implementation.
   
• Governments appear to have difficulties in engaging employers in workforce policy dialogue, which is currently a rare occurrence and often a mere formality.

System Oversight Dimension

• Most systems lack data on the performance of public training programs. Funding decisions are therefore usually made on the basis of administrative protocols.
   
• Few systems use a life-long learning approach. They usually fail to recognize prospective students’ prior learning, do not articulate vocational and general education streams to diversify learning pathways, and offer support for career development only through unarticulated and stand-alone arrangements.

Service Delivery Dimension

• Few countries have regulatory or monitoring mechanisms in place to ensure that public and private training providers are accountable for and manage to improve the labor market outcomes of their graduates. 
   
• The collection of data is a relatively recent practice in most countries and is limited to administrative data reported by public training institutions.
   
• The analysis and use of data to enhance policy development or training provider management occurs in only a few systems

These common challenges, explained in more detail here, uncover 5 policy areas where technical assistance, cross-country learning and policy attention and reform may be especially useful:

1. Walk the talk: ensure that the national workforce development strategy is accompanied by political and technical will at all relevant levels and sectors, corresponding funding, and solid monitoring and evaluation arrangements. Failure to do so will result in poor implementation, uncertain outcomes or inaction.
    
2. Make employers more than “starring guests”: employer engagement in workforce development systems should take place both at the policy making and training provider levels. Mechanisms and incentives must be in place to ensure an institutionalized, meaningful and sustained relationship with employers at both levels.
    
3. Boost the appeal of vocational education and training: negative perceptions are usually addressed through publicity, which falls short and should be complemented with investments in modern and relevant programs, improvements of educational progression opportunities for graduates and effective system rebranding.    
    
4. Motivate performance: measures include enforcing quality standards, measuring performance against targets, allocating financial resources using performance criteria, and making performance information publically available for prospective students, families and employers to make informed decisions. 
    
5. Collect, analyze and use data: current practices can be followed by the collection of data from private providers and of data on graduates’ job placement and income. Efforts should be made to establish national systems for data management, regularly analyze data and make it publically available so it can be used in decision making.

For more information on these policy areas and country examples, please download a copy of the book “Workforce Development in Emerging Economies: Comparative Perspectives on Institutions, Praxis, and Policies”, the infographic “What is SABER-WfD? How does it work? What are the findings?”, or look at country-specific SABER-Workforce Development reports.

A new SABER-Workforce Development tool to assess the implementation of policies on the ground is in the making. Stay tuned for information on the performance of training providers and their actions to ensure that they offer quality and relevant training. 

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