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Resilience against the Pandemic: the Impact of COVID-19 on Migration and Household Welfare in Tajikistan
Full text linkTajikistan’s economy hinges heavily on remittance inflows mainly from Russia that have exceeded a quarter of annual GDP in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have adverse effects on the economy through damage to migration and remittances. We use a unique monthly household panel dataset that covers the period both before and after the outbreak to examine the impacts of COVID-19 on a variety of household welfare outcomes. We provide several brand-new findings. First, the adverse effects of the pandemic were particularly pronounced in April and May in 2020 but gradually diminished afterward, with some indicators leveling out in autumn. Second, in contrast to expectation, the pandemic had a sharp but only transitory effect on the stock of migrants working abroad in the spring. Some expected migrants were forced to remain in their home country during the border closures, while some of the incumbent migrants expecting to return were not able to do so, and remained employed in their destination countries. Both departures and returns started to increase again from summer. Employment and remittances of the migrants quickly recovered to levels seen in previous years, after a sharp decline in April and May. Third, regression analyses reveal that both migration and remittances have helped to mitigate the negative economic outcomes at home during the “with-COVID-19” period, suggesting that they served as a form of insurance. Overall, the unfavorable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were severe and temporary right after the outbreak, but households with migrants were more resilient against the pandemic.departmental bulletin pape
Microfinance Competition and Multiple Borrowing:Evidence using Panel Data from Bangladesh
Full text linkThis paper examines the causes and consequences of multiple borrowing in rural Bangladesh using long-term household and village panel data covering the years 2000 to 2014. Our empirical analysis reveals that sharply growing number of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in a wider set of villages over time, coincides with corresponding increase in household borrowing from multiple MFIs as well as households accessing loans generally. The climbing number of MFIs also explains the significant rises in the total values of household assets especially in the form of agricultural equipment. Although the increasing number of MFIs resulted in some households borrowing for the purposes of repaying previous loans, the fraction of such households is still relatively small. Overall, our results suggest that the majority of the cases of multiple borrowing are “healthy” or “solvent” overlapping loans that meet the large demand for credit for productive purposes.departmental bulletin pape
Developing Textbooks to Improve Student Math Learning: Empirical Evidence from El Salvador
Full text linkSchool enrollment has rapidly increased since 1990 in developing countries at the primary level but the quality of education has stagnated over the years. In teaching and learning practices, textbooks are an important intermediate that links curriculum, teachers, and students. Since textbooks describe the content and methodology of teaching and learning, they can improve teaching and learning practices, if they are carefully designed. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the package of interventions including the distribution of textbooks that are carefully designed to improve student learning in math through a randomized controlled trial in El Salvador. This experiment tracked same students for two years. The average one-year impact of the package on primary school 2nd grade students’ math learning is estimatedaround
0.48 standard deviation of test scores. The impact was larger on students with higher baseline scores. The average accumulated impact of the first-year interventions one year after is around
0.12 standard deviation. The package of intervention improved math learning of 2nd grade students, and the impact persisted even after schools of the control group also received the package of interventions in the following year.departmental bulletin pape
Strengthening Teacher Support for Students to Improve Math Learning: Empirical Evidence on A Structured Pedagogy Program in El Salvador
Full text linkWhile recent debates on educational development focus on the learning crisis in primary education, the crisis in lower secondary education level is equally profound. Around 58 percent of school-age children worldwide enrolled in lower secondary education are not reaching the minimum proficiency level in mathematics. One of the approaches to improve student learning is a structured pedagogy program that provides schools with teaching and learning materials and other related interventions. The impact of teaching and learning materials on student learning depends upon the support of teachers for students. This study investigates the impact of additional components in a structured pedagogy program that tried to strengthen support of teachers to improve student math learning at the lower secondary level in El Salvador through a randomized controlled trial. The study tracked the same students for two years. While the average one-year impact of the additional component is estimated at around 0.18 standard deviations of test scores, the impact did not persist when the difference of interventions between the treatment and control groups disappeared in the second year of this research. Furthermore, a causal mediation analysis is conducted to investigate the possible causal path of the additional interventions on student math learning.departmental bulletin pape
Understanding the Progress of Bangladesh
Full text linkDespite its start as one of the poorest countries in the world, Bangladesh has been observing a continuously
strong economic growth and social improvement. JICA Ogata RI research project “Empirical Study on the
Risk and Poverty in Bangladesh” investigated key factors of its impressive socio economic development. A
few country specific driving forces, such as non farm industries, especially ready made garment (RMG),
microfinance institutions (MFIs), and the development of infrastructures, can be considered t o have
constituted the mechanism of progress of Bangladesh. Understanding why these changes happened may give
useful insights for sustaining its great progress in Bangladesh, and for replicating it in other countries.articl
日本による台湾水道開発の歴史—明治政府が欧米から吸収し、日本と台湾で応用した考え方
Full text link世界で高い技術を誇る日本の水道は、明治政府が公衆衛生の考え方を欧米からいち早く吸収し、法制度や経営、人材育成に適用したことに端を発する。その経験は植民地であった台湾でも応用された。本土を凌ぐ劣悪な衛生状況と低い技術水準であったにもかかわらず、日本の台湾水道開発は卓越した成果を挙げ、現在の中華民国でも利用・評価されている。
日本の台湾水道開発の特徴として、①政策面では、防疫と貿易促進の観点から衛生改善を急務と考えた後藤新平により、本土と変わない早さで水道整備が進展した。また「日本近代水道の父」バルトンの丁寧な調査により、特に台北では上下水道と都市計画を一体で見て、経済性や地域性、緊急度を踏まえた比類ない公衆衛生政策を実現した。②財務面では、バルトンの教えに沿った、受益者負担が可能な範囲内で最良の公衆衛生を保つための水道経営が実践された（日本統治前の清でも住民負担原則での改革が取り組まれたが、挫折した）。③能力面では、本国が官学一体で進める技官育成体制に台湾人は含まれず、自治体での限定的な技術移転のみだったが、戦後中華民国で活躍する台湾人技官の登場に寄与した。research repor
Remittance Investment Climate Analysis: Framework and Methods to Ascertain the Local Development Potential of Overseas Remittances
Full text linkABSTRACT
This paper presents the integrated mixed methods results and findings of four community-based studies on the local development potential of overseas remittances. We developed a Remittance Investment Climate (ReIC) analytical framework that outlines what the rural origins of overseas migrants need to see for their remittances to make productive contributions locally. This ReIC framework was piloted through a mixed methods tool called the Remittance Investment Climate Analysis in Rural Hometowns (RICART) and was conducted over a four-year period in four rural municipalities in the Philippines. The interactions between remittance owners (remitters abroad and their families) and their rural hometowns’ investment climate conditions were analyzed. The results and findings on remittances being saved, invested and parked as operational enterprises locally are contextualized per municipality. We find that the interventions by local authorities to improve investment conditions are important actions, but so are improving rural residents’ financial literacy levels, and their practices surrounding financial inclusion and financial functioning. The local development potential of remittances thus rests on conjoint actions to improve local investment climate conditions and regulations, and the financial capabilities of rural residents.departmental bulletin pape
A Quest for Learning and Beyond: Aiming at Second Chance Education in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Full text linkAbstract
Violent conflict poses huge challenges and restrictions on people’s lives and their fundamental rights, including their right to education. Faced with unceasing humanitarian crises around the world, there is a growing concern about how to deliver education in emergencies. Among the wide variety of issues existing in this emerging field, this paper focuses on “second chance” education for the people who drop out of school due to violent conflict, using a case study from Palestine.
Decades-long military occupation has profoundly deprived Palestinians of their land, homes, properties, and other basic human rights. Denial of Palestinian social and individual self-determination has continued for generations with no end in sight. Nevertheless, Palestinians struggle to build their lives and society, and education is one endeavor where significant efforts are being exerted resulting in considerable achievements. Among those efforts is a two-year educational program called “al-taleem al-moazy (parallel learning).” The Ministry of Education of the Palestinian Authority runs this program to ensure education for adults and adolescents who have dropped out of school. Focusing on those who graduated from this program, this paper attempts to uncover the voices of people who have missed out on education in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – collectively referred to as the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt). This contributes to the deepening of our insights into the meaning of education in the oPt, as not enough attention has been paid to the experience of lost education within a relatively “educated” society.
The research draws on life-stories collected through in-depth interviews as its primary source of information. 23 graduates of the Moazy program were interviewed for the purpose of understanding how their schooling or education was interrupted, what it is like to be “uneducated” in society, and what internal and external factors enabled them to go back to education. The interviews reveal that the ways in which the occupation hampers education extend far beyond those of direct measures such as school closures, detention, and movement restrictions. The occupation disrupts every aspect of life in the oPt, including the economy and psychology of the Palestinians. This has a significant impact on the ability and willingness of families to send their children to school. The life-stories, in particular, of many female interviewees illuminate the predicaments of girls in which families force their daughters to leave school and marry at an early age as a safer alternative in an environment of a military occupation that consequently induces violence, harassment, and restrictions.departmental bulletin pape
地震復興における包摂性に配慮したBuild Back Betterの実践的手法：JICAネパール地震復興事業に基づく論考
Full text linkネパール地震は、2015年3月に仙台防災枠組（SFDRR）が採択された直後世界で初めて発生した大災害であり、同地震復興は今後の世界の災害復興のあり方を方向付ける上で極めて重大な意味を持つ。「ビルド・バック・ベター（BBB：より良い復興）」については、達成要件の国際標準化も十分にされておらず、国際的な共通認識が十分に確立も浸透もしていない中で、最近「Inclusive Recovery（IR：包摂的な復興）」という新たな復興のあり方が議論されるようになっている。IRの観点では、BBBについて、個人・世帯レベルでの社会経済ステータスの違いを考慮せず一律に社会全体の脆弱性削減を目指そうとすることで、投入できる資源が十分でない脆弱層を取り残す危険性が強調されがちな面がある。しかし、実施上の配慮・工夫を適切に行うことで、それぞれの視点から補完しあって両立できるものであり、むしろ相互補完することで、より望ましい災害復興を目指すことにつながると考えられる。本稿では、両者の関係性を理論的に整理した上で、JICA緊急住宅復興事業における取組の整理を通じて、実践的なBBBとIRの両立方法を提示することを目指した。
本稿結論としては、JICA緊急住宅復興事業は、本稿で提示した“BBBとIR両立に有効と考えられる取り組み”を実践することはできなかったが、コミュニティ動員プログラム（CMP）により被災者への働きかけを強化することで、自助努力に基づく住宅復興を活性化するなど、その時々の課題に応じて漸次追加投入を行うことによって時間差をもって段階的に取り残される層を最小化していったことが確認された。しかし、
CMP自体は基本的に自助キャパシティを有する層への促進策であり、それでも動くことができない最脆弱層が生じることをあらかじめ想定したうえで、最脆弱層への追加支援を別途準備して事業開始当初から並行展開する必要があることが考察の結果として導かれた。research repor
Integrative Economic Evaluation of an Infrastructure Project as a Measure for Climate Change Adaptation: A Case Study of Irrigation Development in Kenya
Full text linkAbstract
As climate change adaptation is becoming a recognized policy issue, the need is growing for quantitative economic evaluation of adaptation-related public investment, particularly in the context of climate finance. Irrigation, which enhances and stabilizes water supplies for farming, is a potential means of climate change adaptation, but attempts at economic evaluation of its effectiveness as an adaptation measure are few, in part because such assessments require an integration of various types of simulation analyses. Against this background, we conduct a case study of a Kenyan irrigation development project using a combination of simulation models to evaluate the effectiveness of that project for climate change adaptation. The results show that despite the uncertainties in precipitation trends, increased temperatures due to climate change have a general tendency to reduce rice yields, and that irrigation development will mitigate income impacts from the yield loss, i.e., will likely be effective as a means for climate change adaptation.departmental bulletin pape