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Challenges of Quality of Learning Outcomes for Countries with the Unfinished Agenda of Universal Primary Education and Gender Parity: The Case of Yemen
Get PDFThis paper sheds light on a potential risk of trade-off between access to primary education and the quality of education in underserved areas in the case of Yemen, which still faces challenges in access, equity, and quality in spite of its rapid improvement over the past decade. It will first examine the level of learning achievement in relation to an improvement of enrollments and gender parity in rural schools where girls were more disadvantaged in 2004, when Yemen started the national basic education strategy toward 2015. It will also examine the level of learning achievement in relation to the other supply-side variables, of which quality and quantity are often affected by expansion of access. The data used here are the student- and school-level data collected by the JICA Research Institute at rural schools in Yemen in 2011 and the data from the TIMSS in 2011. The analyses point to a trade-off between improved access and quality of learning. The results indicated that the school-level increase of gender parity in enrollment and the total enrollment growth of boys and girls alike over the past three years are negatively associated with the current students’ math test scores. The estimation results of trade-offs are valid while controlling for basic students and family characteristics, such as parental education and occupation. As anticipated from previous education production function analyses, some policy variables, such as teacher availability and existence of participatory school management committees, change across schools, and they are important for explaining the learning differences in the relatively underserved rural areas of Yemen. These findings underscore the need of revisiting such policy measures in further increasing access while ensuring the quality standards for disadvantaged areas and avoiding widening of the quality difference within the country and ensuring learning for all.research repor
Enhancing Rice Production in Uganda: Impact Evaluation of a Training Program and Guidebook Distribution in Uganda
Get PDFThis paper provides an overview of rice sector development in Uganda and examines the effects of two technology dissemination programs on the enhancement of rice production in Eastern and Northern Uganda. One program was a JICA training program that provided on-the-job training at demonstration plots 3–4 times a year, while the other was to distribute a rice cultivation guidebook to households that were randomly selected. The training program was shown to have improved rice productivity. In contrast, there were no significant effects resulting from the distribution of the guidebook on technology adoption or rice production. Although the distribution of the guidebook was less costly and easier to implement than the training program, distribution of the guidebook alone cannot be a substitute for conventional training programsresearch repor
Risk, Infrastructure, and Rural Market Integration: Implications of Infrastructure Provision for Food Markets and Household Consumption in Rural Indonesia
Get PDFUtilizing original panel data collected in 2007 and 2010 in rural Indonesia for 2261 households located in 98 villages in 7 provinces, this paper investigates the food markets' functions with different extents of integration, and aims to interlink three important factors in the process of economic development — risk, infrastructure and welfare — of the rural poor. Focusing especially on irrigation systems and local paved roads, we explore the potential effect of infrastructure in relation to the global food price crisis that occurred in 2007–08 and thereafter affected poor households in rural Indonesia. The most important finding from our empirical analysis can be seen in the villages with relatively low integration to the surrounding markets, but which had access to irrigation systems. In those villages food prices, and in particular the price of rice, were kept lower, even when rural Indonesia experienced a spike in food prices. This implies that, although the implication is contrastive to rice producers (net sellers), irrigation facilities offset the negative effects for rural households by maintaining a relatively abundant food supply in local markets. Along with this investigation, the threshold estimation examines whether there exists a certain threshold for the proportion of local paved roads that divides villages according to either lower or higher spatial connectivity. Our results clearly indicate the existence of such a threshold. These findings suggest that when evaluating the potential role of irrigation and the effectiveness of irrigation development and management, it is important to pay more attention to the functions of the surrounding markets as related to rural road conditions, in addition to the direct impact of irrigation on agricultural productivity as it affects households.research repor
Aid Fragmentation and Effectiveness for Infant and Child Mortality and Primary School Completion
Get PDFThis paper examined empirically the overall effect of the project aid fragmentation in the health and education sectors. It focused on the infant and child mortality rate for the health sector and the primary school completion rate for the education sector because they are flagged as important indicators of the MDGs. The research questions in this paper are whether the mitigation of project aid fragmentation leads to the improvement of the two indicators and whether the result differs between health and education. The major findings are the followings: Even if project aid fragmentation is reduced, there may be no reduction in infant and child mortality rates. On the contrary, The rate will be the worst at the mid-range of fragmentation. On the other hand, the reduction of aid fragmentation in countries which receive relatively high external aid will positively impact the primary school completion rate. These findings lead to the conclusion that the effectiveness of aid-fragmentation reduction differs from one sector to another and depends on the degree of aid dependence.research repor
Property Restitution and Return: Revisiting the Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to verify empirically whether foreign interventions concerning property restitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina were effective in promoting the return of forced migrants, both refugees and internally displaced persons. The paper reviews the activities carried out by the international community to promote restitution, and statistically confirms the role played by the occupied properties in hindering the return of refugees and internally displaced persons. We further analyze the end results of the removal of public officials by the High Representative, for the reasons of obstructing the restitution and/or the return, and present the positive impact of the removal on the restitution rate and consequently on the composition of the returnees.research repor
DESIGNING YOUTH EMPLOYMENT POLICIES IN EGYPT
Get PDFThis paper aims to find effective policy options that can support the development of more attractive jobs in Egypt’s private sector and lead to job creation and inclusive growth. Egypt is facing a marked “youth bulge” and therefore has a high rate of youth unemployment, particularly among the highly educated. The paper uses a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to elicit job preferences among youth, and analyzes survey data collected from engineering students at 10 universities in six cities in Egypt during the period of July through October 2013. For a comparative analysis, the survey was also conducted at eight universities in five cities in Indonesia, which is one of the nations in Asia with a Muslim-majority population that faces the same demographic issue. The findings of this research will contribute to building a foundation for designing youth employment policies in Egypt. The most obvious findings to emerge from this study are that: the public-private sector wage differentials must be narrowed; better benefits must accompany private sector employment (particularly support for continuing education, upgrading qualifications, and health insurance); and good IT infrastructure matters. Taken together, these steps could significantly contribute to an increase in the rates of a private sector employment among young Egyptian job seekers, even in the case of continued high public sector wages.journal articl
Does Infrastructure Facilitate Social Capital Accumulation? Evidence from Natural and Artefactual Field Experiments in a Developing Country
Get PDFWhile social capital in general has been recognized as essential for economic activities, its accumulation mechanisms are largely unexplored. How does people’s trust toward others, one of the core dimensions of social capital, emerge? To shed new light on this largely unanswered question, we investigate the impact of physical infrastructure on social capital accumulation by comparing two hypotheses: the habit formation hypothesis and the repeated interaction hypothesis. We use a unique dataset from an irrigation project in Sri Lanka under a natural experimental situation where a significant portion of irrigated land was allocated through a lottery mechanism. Also, we look at the level of social capital using artefactual field experiments by a strategy method based on a within-subject design. By combining these two instruments, we find that physical distance embedded by irrigation systems explain variations in trust across irrigation communities, suggesting that the level of particularized trust is significantly higher than that of general trust. Also, within-community variation in particularized trust is driven largely by each individual’s years of access to irrigation and is not necessarily affected by social distance or repeated interaction among farmers. Our results indicate that social preference emerges from a technological environment set by physical access to irrigation, suggesting habit formation of pro-social behavior.research repor
Inter-Ethnic Hostility and Mobility of Political Power: Changing Influences of Perceived Horizontal Inequalities
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to illuminate the origins of inter-ethnic hostility, which need to be addressed if the centripetalism institutions are to function properly. Using intention of ethnic voting as an indicator of inter-group discrimination, this paper tests several classic hypotheses adapted from social psychology based on the surveys conducted in 14 urban areas from six sub-Saharan African countries. Results show, among others, that horizontal inequalities, when perceived either advantageously or disadvantageously, actually increase the level of inter-group hostility, but that the malicious effect is context-dependent: a greedy tendency in terms of socio-economic group inequality is limited to non-minorities; minorities who think their own group is superior to others economically do not have stronger hostility towards others compared to those who do not see any socio-economic gap; perceived horizontal inequalities matter chiefly in the countries without any kind of political power mobility; hostility between groups is not associated with perceived horizontal inequalities in countries where experience of power sharing or change of government has convinced people that political change is not impossible.research repor
Analysis of Poverty between People with and without Disabilities in Nepal
Get PDFMore than two-thirds of the total population of people with disabilities live in low and middle income countries and are one of the poorest and most marginalized groups in society. However, due to the dearth of data, research on disabilities and poverty is rare. With this paper, we intend to fill this void by examining the factors related to the poverty of people with and without disabilities in Nepal, using the nationally representative dataset Nepal Living Standard Survey (NLSS-2010/2011). For the analysis, we use the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measures. Results show that figures for poverty headcount, incidence and severity are higher among people with disabilities compared to their counterparts without disabilities, indicating that they are more vulnerable to fall into the poverty trap. One striking finding is that persons with disabilities having at least 10 years of schooling are found to be not poor, justifying the greater need for investment in the education of individuals with disabilities. Additionally, males without disabilities are poorer than their female counterparts. This is not the case for females with disabilities who are poorer than their male counterparts, suggesting the likelihood of women with disabilities facing dual discrimination – both as a woman and a person with disabilities. Likewise, regardless of disability status, persons living in rural areas, having lower levels of education, less land and deprived of access to various facilities are found to be poorer. Furthermore, people classified to be in a low caste are the poorest among all groups. These findings thus suggest the importance of addressing the issue of persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups in development efforts to reduce poverty and to make development inclusive and sustainable.research repor