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Social Protection Beyond the Bottom Billion
Get PDFMost conceptualisations of the bottom billion assume that “the poor” are a minority group in a state of continuous dependency, identifiable by region and demographic. Using a flow analysis (inflow and outflow) of poverty, rather than a stock analysis, we explain why poverty is more appropriately understood as a dynamic, with the majority of people flowing in and out of poverty for short durations. Distinguishing between structural and transitory poverty gives rise to a focus on the identification of multiple constituencies in the wider population including the permanently poor; sometimes poor; and non-poor. External shocks, including economic and environmental shifts, and risks such as ill-health, can affect any individual, household, or population in a non-predictable way, and can lead to loss of livelihood and a decent into poverty for various durations. At any point in time the bottom billion is made up of a blend of both transitory and structural elements with the former reflecting poverty as a risk for a much wider population than is often assumed. Using this analysis, the total stock of poverty potentially entails up to 5.1 billion people who do not have access to comprehensive social protection systems and are therefore vulnerable to spells in poverty. To protect against shared risks and mutual vulnerabilities, this paper argues that global insurance instruments, regulated through domestic institutions, would provide an efficient solution to transitory poverty. Further, it argues that these instruments could provide a foundation for investment in more equitable and extensive social protection measures that could target the multiple dimensions of structural poverty thereby seeking to ensure that no one is left behind
The Impact of Training Programme Type and Duration on the Employment Chances of the Unemployed in Ireland
Get PDFIn the extensive literature on the employment impact of public sponsored training programmes for the unemployed, insufficient attention has been paid to the differential impact of different types of training programmes and of their varying duration. This paper uses a unique dataset, which tracks the labour market position of a cohort of unemployment benefit claimants for almost two years, to evaluate the impact of a range of government sponsored training courses in Ireland. Overall, we found that those who participated in training were less likely to be unemployed at the end of the two year study period. However, the average effect of training varied by the type and duration of training received. We found strong positive effects for job search skills training and medium to high level skills courses, a more modest positive effect for general vocational skills programmes (which are not strongly linked to demand in the labour market) and less consistent effects with respect to low level skills training. We also found that training episodes with lower duration had a more positive impact, with the exception of high level skills training programmes where longer training durations appear more effective. We ensure the robustness of our results by employing propensity score matching to reduce the impact of nonrandom assignment of programme participants, and estimate generalised propensity scores to estimate dose response functions
Maternal Country of Birth Differences in Breastfeeding at Hospital Discharge in Ireland
Get PDFIn 2010, 46 per cent of Irish-born mothers were breastfeeding at hospital discharge, in comparison with 84 per cent of non-Irish-born mothers. Using data from the Irish National Perinatal Reporting System, we find that maternal country of birth is a large and highly significant predictor of breastfeeding at hospital discharge in Ireland over the period 2004-2010. Furthermore, we find that most of the difference in breastfeeding rates between Irish-born and non-Irish-born mothers is unexplained, i.e., not due to differences in observable characteristics. Our findings suggest that there are strong cultural/attitudinal differences in breastfeeding behaviour between Irish-born and non-Irish-born mothers
Averting Crisis? Commentary from the International Institutions on the Irish Property Sector in the Years Before the Crash
Get PDFIreland has been particularly badly impacted by the current international crisis, with an unprecedented deterioration in government finances and unemployment reaching 14.9 per cent. In many ways, the economic roots of the Irish crisis are quite mundane; the country experienced a classic asset bubble. As early as the year 2000, commentators were pointing Irish policymakers to examples of dozens of property boom/bust cycles in the recent histories of developed economies. What is certainly more controversial is how an advanced social democracy sleepwalked into a crisis that in retrospect seems to have been so apparent. In many ways, the Irish crisis can be considered as having stemmed from a failure of the variety of institutions that helped influence economic policy. This paper will examine what the large international institutions published about the Irish property and construction sectors from 2000 to 2006. It will show that the European Commission published comparatively little of relevance, while the International Monetary Fund in particular produced regular in-depth analysis that challenged prevailing policy. None of the institutions, however, came remotely close to anticipating a near-total collapse of construction activity, rendering inadequate many of their policy recommendations
Middle Class Squeeze? Social Class and Perceived Financial Hardship in Ireland, 2002-2012
Get PDFIreland has been particularly hit by the economic downturn of 2008. For many families in Ireland the economic downturn put strong pressures on their household budgets. This study examines how the recession has changed class differences with regard to experiences of economic strain. It contrasts the “middle class squeeze” view that sees the “middle” or the “middling classes” as particularly hard hit by the economic downturn with the class theoretical point of view that the recession is expected to widen the gaps between classes with regard to their ability to maintain living standards and that working, not middle classes bear the largest strain on economic wellbeing. The study derives competing hypotheses from these views and tests them using data from the Irish leg of the European Social Survey. Key findings are that financial hardship increased most for the working classes and the class of own account workers and self-employed employees and that class differences with regard to unemployment and benefit dependency risks are the main explanatory mechanism
Re-conceptualising Commitments to Sustainable Development in the 21st Century – Nurturing Action and Accountability in the Networked World
Get PDFThe 2012 United Nations (UN) Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, was the largest UN conference in history. The goal of the conference was to renew the political commitment for sustainable development, and to assess remaining gaps in implementation of the outcomes of major summits on sustainable development. Rio+20 sought to produce a focused political document by which world leaders could drive action on “the future we want,” the tagline of the conference. Unlike the original Rio Earth Summit of 1992, no major legally binding treaties were signed and no significant funding mechanisms were mobilised. In the aftermath of the conference, many observers expressed discontent at the lack of an ambitious globally negotiated agreement to catalyse on-the-ground sustainable development results
Sustainable Food Systems for Future Cities: The Potential of Urban Agriculture
Get PDFPopulations around the world are growing and becoming predominately urban, fueling the need to re-examine how urban spaces are developed and urban inhabitants are fed. One remedy that is increasingly being considered as a solution to inadequate food access in cities, is urban agriculture. As a practice, urban agriculture is beneficial in both post-industrial and developing cities because it touches on the three pillars of sustainability: economics, society, and the environment. Historically, as well as currently, economic and food security are two of the most common reasons for participation in urban agriculture. Urban agriculture not only provides a source of healthful sustenance that might otherwise be lacking, it can also contribute to a household’s income, offset food expenditures, and create jobs. Social facets are another reason for populations to engage in urban agriculture. A garden or rooftop farm is a place where people come together for mutual benefit, often enhancing the common social and cultural identity for city residents. Larger urban farms also participate in community enrichment through job training and other educational programmes, many of which benefit underserved populations. Finally, urban agriculture can play an important role in the environmental sustainability of a city. As a form of green infrastructure, urban farms and community food gardens help reduce urban heat island effects, mitigate urban stormwater impacts and lower the energy embodied in food transportation. This paper will describe a multi-year study undertaken by the Urban Design Laboratory at the Earth Institute to assess the opportunities and challenges associated with the development of urban agriculture in New York City (NYC). The paper will present metrics on potential growing capacity within the City inclusive of both rooftop and land-based options, results from a survey of New York City based urban farmers that gathered information on the challenges and barriers to food production in NYC, with a focus on rooftop farming, and data from an environmental monitoring study on a commercial rooftop farm in Brooklyn. The paper will use the results of the multi-year study to provide insight into the potential role of urban agriculture to creating a more sustainable food system for New York City and cities elsewhere
The United Nations in the Age of Sustainable Development
Get PDFAchieving sustainable development will be the over-riding challenge of this century. Throughout most of history, the challenges of integrating economic development, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability were local or regional. In the 21st century, however, they are indisputably global. Only through global cooperation can individual nations overcome the interconnected crises of extreme poverty, economic instability, social inequality, and environmental degradation. In the Age of Sustainable Development, the United Nations will be more essential than ever. As foreseen in the UN Charter, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) is the world’s meeting ground for global cooperation, and UN agencies have specialised knowledge of essential global importance. Yet the UN will have to be organised to succeed in this unprecedented challenge, to ensure much higher levels of accountability, timeliness, efficiency, and political commitment of the Member States and the UN itself. The proposal made at the 2012 Rio+20 Summit for a new High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) led by Heads of State and Government to oversee the UN’s new mandate in sustainable development is, in this regard, a critical starting point
Financing Sustainable Drug Development for Neglected Diseases: A Case of Push-Pull Mechanisms and Global Public Goods
Get PDFNeglected tropical diseases (NTDs) often afflict the poorest populations of the world. This observation suggests that while demands for new drugs against NTDs continue to grow, there is still a low profit margin for any innovation produced. As a result, there are few incentives for private industrial investments in drugs R&D for neglected diseases, and thus, urgent need for a new set of mechanisms to drive research towards these often “forgotten” issues. One possible solution comes in the form of a collaborative partnership where drugs for neglected disease are seen by public, private and philanthropic organs as global public goods. In this scenario, multilateral collective action creates an artificial market where there are fewer risks for innovators and more results for benefactors. Coupled with policy-based push-pull mechanisms, these collaborations, like the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), mitigate the challenges of a failed market and represents a paradigm for other potential sustainable development collaborations, post-2015
Informational Efficiency in Distressed Markets: The Case of European Corporate Bonds
Get PDFThis paper investigates the effect of the 2008 financial crisis on informational efficiency by carrying out a long-memory analysis of European corporate bond markets. We compute the Hurst exponent for fifteen sectorial indices to scrutinise the time-varying behaviour of long-range memory, applying a shuffling technique to avoid short-term correlation. We find that the financial crisis has uneven effects on the informational efficiency of all corporate bond sectors, especially those related to financial services. However, their vulnerability is not homogeneous and some nonfinancial sectors suffer only a transitory effect