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The Local Economic Competitiveness of Rural Hometowns for Overseas Remittances-Induced Investments: Two Case Studies from the Philippin
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Rural communities of origin play an important role in harnessing the development potential of overseas remittances. This role is to enable and ensure an economically competitive locality for all entrepreneurs and investors (including town mates working and residing abroad). This qualitative case study research illustrates the local economic competitiveness conditions of two rural municipalities in the Philippines. Assessing local economic competitiveness will help ascertain the roles being played by local communities and their authorities. Findings here can also provide indications on how overseas town mates’ remittances have changed in response to prevailing local competitiveness conditions.
Qualitative findings here were part of a mixed methods tool, called the Remittance Investment Climate Analysis in Rural Hometowns (RICART), which employed the rapid rural appraisal (RRA) method. A global framework and a nationally applied index on local economic competitiveness were used as guides to analyze RRA findings. It was found that these municipalities have prevailing bottlenecks that limit the economic competitiveness of the locality—and the situation may deter prospective migrant town mates abroad from investing and doing business in their hometowns. Not surprisingly, interventions of local governments to improve their local investment conditions matter.departmental bulletin pape
Personal Determinants of Volunteering for Former International Volunteers: A Case of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers
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The present study examines values and personality traits as personal determinants of volunteering among former Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCVs). A total of 228 former JOCVs, who participated in a two-year internationalvolunteering program approximately ten years ago, completed an online survey about what their days of volunteering had contributed over the previous year across ten domains of volunteer activities: values (Self-transcendence and Openness-to-change), personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism), and socioeconomic status (age, sex, marital status, personal income, household income, and work hours). Results show that the former JOCVs with higher levels of Openness-to-change contributed more days of volunteering in domains of education and international development. On the other hand, Self-transcendence, which conceptually overlaps with altruism and is well known to predict volunteering, had no association with volunteering in any domains. Furthermore, higher Extroversion and lower Neuroticism and Conscientiousness were moderately related to volunteering. Our findings suggest that civil society organizations may benefit from soliciting former JOCVs’ contributions by emphasizing the change-making aspects of volunteering to match their values.departmental bulletin pape
Help-seeking Pathways and Barriers of GBV Survivors in South Sudanese Refugee Settlements in Uganda
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Gender-Based Violence (GBV) has been recognized as a significant challenge among communities forcibly displaced by armed conflict, such as those living in refugee camps. Since the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, significant progress has been made by the international community and UN member countries in responding to GBV. However, providing support only to those who positively seek help is insufficient, and there is a need to develop more effective ways to extend support to those who face such difficulties, as well as prevent future incidents of GBV from occurring. This paper identifies help-seeking pathways in order to overcome the barriers to securing help in refugee communities. First, the paper develops a model of help-seeking based on an adapted version of the ecological model to understand help-seeking. Second, the model is appraised in relation to the data gathered from twelve focus group discussions (FGDs) with South Sudanese refugees in six refugee settlement areas in Uganda. The paper identifies the factors underpinning GBV and help-seeking, help-seeking pathways, and barriers to help-seeking. GBV survivors often decide not to avail themselves of any help or support services, mainly due to fear of stigma resulting from socio-cultural norms and low expectations of services. The help-seeking pathway reveals that the community leaders or churches are the primary and most familiar institutions with which to seek support, rather than through support by humanitarian agencies or the host community. The conclusion contributes recommendations toward the development of a modified help-seeking model for GBV survivors and services, specifically in conflict-affected refugee conditions.departmental bulletin pape
Are the Operations of Microfinance Institutions Different Across Countries? A Comparative Analysis of Cambodia and the Philippines Using DEA and PCA
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Of all the Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia and the Philippines have well-developed microfinance institutions (MFIs). However, the environments in which MFIs operate differ considerably between the two countries. Our study investigates the differences in management characteristics and efficiency of Cambodian and Philippine MFIs during the period of 2009-2015 using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and measures the key management characteristics and efficiency levels of local MFIs. Our study found that Cambodian MFIs tend to target sustainability (profitability) oriented management, and Philippine MFIs tend to target outreach (financial service to the poor) oriented management. Second, MFIs in the Philippines had a tendency to shift toward more outreach-orientated management over the period of our analysis. Third, while there are no clear differences in the capital-intensity of MFI operations between the two countries, over time capital-intensity improved in both. We further examined the relationship between country-specific factors, management characteristics and efficiency. We found that overall efficiency, outreach-orientation, and labor-intensive management were associated with the initial conditions of deposit-to-GDP ratio in the period of our analysis. This suggests that the development paths of MFIs are dependent on the development of traditional financial institutions in the early period of MFI development.departmental bulletin pape
Monetary Policy Spillover into a Developing Country When the US Federal Fund Rate Rises: Evidence on a Bank Lending Channel
Get PDFBanks in developing countries are highly dependent on funding sources from abroad, and such high dependency on external funding could cause vulnerability to the sector by channeling the effects of foreign monetary policies to domestic bank lending. In this paper, we study the international transmission of monetary policy of US and banks’ major shareholders’ home countries into bank lending in Cambodia, using data on banks’ loan disbursement and balance sheets from 2013Q1 to 2019Q2. Cambodia is one of the least developed countries in the south-east Asian region, while its economy is highly dollarized and capital movement is free. This environment is likely to allow banks to transmit financial shocks into domestic lending. As a result, we find that US monetary policy affected domestic lending through the channel of foreign funding exposure, suggesting that Cambodian banks with foreign funding exposure are likely to reduce lending when there is a rise in the cost of funding from abroad. We also find that an increase in the US monetary policy rate is associated with increases in loan disbursements in secured loans, USD currency loans, and retail loans, suggesting the monetary transmission also affected loan reallocations by changing risk-taking behavior in bank lending. In addition, we find that these results are robust for US monetary policy effects, but weak and not robust for monetary policies of banks’ major shareholders’ home countries.departmental bulletin pape
Variety of Middle-Income Donors: Comparing Foreign Aid Approaches by Thailand and Indonesia
Get PDFIs there a middle-income approach to international cooperation that differs from the approach of advanced countries? To answer this question, this paper conducts comparative case studies of Thailand and Indonesia from a public administration perspective. By examining how these countries transformed themselves from recipients to donors of aid, we argue that there is a plurality of approaches among middle-income donors that can be explained by variations in ministerial politics and the historical evolution of expertise. The paper highlights the importance of geo-political conditions that make each country a unique donor in the emerging landscape of foreign aid in Southeast Asia.departmental bulletin pape
Currency Choice in Domestic Transactions by Cambodian Households: The Importance of Transaction Size and Network Externalities
Get PDFBeyond dollarization in financial systems and business transactions, foreign currency is widely used in domestic transactions by households in several dollarized economies. Based on data from a nationally representative household survey in Cambodia, we examined the key factors that affect household preferences in relation to currency choice in those transactions where they accept money when selling some assets. We found that size of transaction is negatively correlated to household choice of local currency. In addition, we found that having a bank account mitigates the negative effect of size of transaction on local currency choice, suggesting that availability of financial services could reduce the transaction costs for households when accepting local currency. We also found that our measures of the extent of the network externalities of foreign currency are significantly correlated to household choice of foreign currency. Our findings suggest that improvement in the usability of local currency gained by reducing the transaction costs of local currency relative to foreign currency, particularly for large transactions, can have a positive impact on household use of the local currency in domestic transactions.departmental bulletin pape
G20 Compact with Africa
Get PDFThe G20 Compact with Africa (CWA), under the G20 Finance Track, promotes sustainable development in reform-minded African countries by improving the framework conditions for mobilizing private sector investments. The initiative identifies commitments in the macroeconomic, business and financing frameworks that form country-led investment compacts. The CWA is governed through the G20 Africa Advisory Group (AAG), co-chaired by Germany and South Africa. The African Development Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank Group coordinate the initiative. While the CWA has been successful to date, it could benefit from further coordination of stakeholders as recommended in this brief.articl
Linking Smallholder Production with Value-Added Food Markets
Get PDFDemographic pressures and climate change in Africa are rendering subsistence farming an unviable livelihood strategy for smallholder farmers. However, urbanization and economic growth are creating new markets for fresh and processed foods in the region. To enter this market, African smallholders need to adopt new production strategies that will increase income and make farming more appealing to the next generation. The G20 can encourage this transition by supporting the growth of a rural-based food processing sector, the reorientation of smallholder agriculture to commercialization, and the development of infrastructure to link farmers to markets.articl
Early Childhood Development Education and Care: The Future is What We Build Today
Get PDFEarly Childhood Development, Education and Care (ECD/ECEC) has become a
priority for governments and international bodies. ECD/ECEC is explicitly included
in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4, 4.2), underlining the global
consensus. In 2018, G20 acknowledged the key role of ECD and, in their Leaders’
Declaration, announced a G20 ECD initiative. Access to high quality early childhood
development, education and care programmes is unequal between and within
countries, which remains a major cause for concern. However, in the context of local
and global sustainability a new focus on the purpose of ECD/ECEC should become a
complementing priority of the G20 process.articl