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Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan
No full textThis paper presents evidence from the first three years of a randomized controlled trial of a government-administered pilot teacher performance pay program in Punjab, Pakistan. The program offers yearly cash bonuses to teachers in a sample of public primary schools with the lowest mean student exam scores in the province. Bonuses are linked to three school-level indicators: the gain in student exam scores, the gain in school enrollment, and the level of student exam participation. Bonus receipt and size are also randomly assigned across schools according to whether or not the teacher is the school’s head. On average, the program increases school enrollment by 4.1 percent and student exam participation rates by 3.4 percentage points, both in the third year. The analysis does not find that the program increases student exam scores in any year. Mean impacts are similar across program variants. The positive mean impact on school enrollment is mainly seen in urban schools and the positive mean impact on student exam participation rates is only seen in rural schools
Is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Pakistan’s lifeline?
No full textA featured story recently published by Forbes magazine read “Pakistan: The Next Colombia Success Story?”. For many, this story could ring surprise - or shock – bells, but for some, the story also holds truth in certain aspects of the recent developments taking place in Pakistan. The country is currently going through final phases of its major Operation Zarb e Azb against the Taliban in the FATA region, whereas the internally displaced residents of the region have also started heading home. Although the war against terrorists and insurgents is far from over, the signs and outcomes of Zarb e Azb, consequently resulting in lower terror attacks this year, surely present a somewhat positive security picture of the country.
In terms of national politics, a healthy competition is also taking place between Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik e Insaf (Justice Movement Party) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League in the Centre
Chinas Rohstoffhunger Perspektiven der Zivilgesellschaft
No full textChinas Bedeutung für eine Politik der globalen Nachhaltigkeit wächst stetig. Die europäische Zivilgesellschaft nimmt davon allerdings kaum Notiz. Die Broschüre will mit Informationen und Argumenten MultiplikatorInnen der entwicklungs- und umweltpolitischen sowie der gewerkschaftlichen Bildungsarbeit in die Lage versetzen, sich differenziert mit der Rolle Chinas für globale Nachhaltigkeit auseinandersetzen zu können. Jeder der im Bereich Rohstoffpolitik engagiert ist, muss sich zwangsläufig mit den Aktivitäten chinesischer Unternehmen im Rohstoffsektor befassen. Denn Chinas Rohstoffpolitik sowie die Investitionen im Rohstoffsektor haben nicht nur Auswirkungen in China und in Südostasien, sondern auch in Afrika, Lateinamerika und nicht zuletzt in Europa. Im Mittelpunkt unserer Publikationen stehen die Menschen vor Ort und ihre Rechte. Ein besonderer Fokus dieser Broschüre liegt auf der Sichtweise von Nichtregierungsorganisationen (NGO), die sich mit den Auswirkungen von Rohstoffhandel und -ausbeutung auseinandersetzen
An Alternative World History from India? Ramavatar Sharma's puzzling Hindi narration Mudgarānand'caritāvalī of 1912-13
No full textThe paper contains an interpretation of an text, written by the brahmin pundit and Indian Sanskritist Ramavatar Sharma (1876-1929). The present interpretation of this text will try to unravel a narration that simultaneously speaks out of and into the highly asymmetrical scenario of British colonial rule in India
The Killing of Avijit Roy: Silencing free-thinking and progressive conscience in Bangladesh
No full text"On February 26 the blogger Avijit Roy, a US-citizen of Bangladeshi origin, published author, and prominent voice against religious intolerance was murdered publicly in Dhaka after returning from a book fair (cf. TheGuardian, 27.2.2015; cf. Alam, 7.2.2015). Roy, an engineer by profession was not only known as a passionate writer but also as the founder of the Bengalilanguage blog Mukto-Mona, the “Free Mind”. (...)
Putting Pakistan’s Ban of the Haqqani Network into Perspective
No full textThe Haqqani network is an Afghan and Pakistani terrorist group, which is recognised as one of the most experienced and sophisticated militant organisations in the region. Launching its first activities in the 1970s in Afghanistan, it is now believed to be centrally located in Pakistan, in North Waziristan, a mountainous tribal area at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, also known as the Durand Line
Recasting Culture to Undo Gender: A Sociological Analysis of Jeevika in Rural Bihar, India
No full textThis paper brings together sociological theories of culture and gender to answer the question – how do large-scale development interventions induce cultural change? Through three years of ethnographic work in rural Bihar, the authors examine this question in the context of Jeevika, a World Bank-assisted poverty alleviation project targeted at women, and find support for an integrative view of culture. The paper argues that Jeevika created new “cultural configurations” by giving economically and socially disadvantaged women access to a well-defined network of people and new systems of knowledge, which changed women’s habitus and broke down normative restrictions constitutive of the symbolic boundary of gender
Nepal Earthquake 2015 – Beyond Disaster, Relief and Restoration, Azorean Notes for effective Reconstruction and Development
No full textThe earthquake on 25 April 215 killed more than 8,000 people, injured more than 19000 and more than 450,000 are now displaced. In the aftershock of 16 May more than 100 people were killed and more than 2,500 people were injured. Public awareness after the disaster fades away quickly as demonstrated in the Graph in Figure 1; in the first day there were more than 120 news reports, but after 20 days, less than 20 news reports were issued, even on the day of a major replica of the earthquake. The aim of this SADF Focus is to make some reflections and eventual contributions for the restoration and reconstruction phases after the earthquake. Our attention is on the days after the booming news reporting that, as shown, vanished after five days of the disaster. To follow this aim we first look at some available literature (point 2), then we try to learn from the experience of the reconstruction of Terceira in the Azores after the earthquake in 1980 (point 3), finally we draw some conclusions that might be helpful for the reconstruction and development of Nepal (point 4)
Transforming Electricity Governance in India: Has India’s Power Sector Regulation Enabled Consumers’ Power?
No full textConsumers’ participation in regulatory decision-making in infrastructure sectors can be critical to ensure effective regulatory governance. Providing avenues for enabling consumers’ voice in the regulatory process expands the information base available to regulators in their decision-making, and is critical for ensuring sustainability of policy and regulatory decisions. However, in the reform process of many developing countries’ power sectors, the primary focus has been on the sector’s technical aspects, with inadequate effort to improve the experience of consumers, whether through better quality of service or by ensuring their participation in the regulatory process. This shortfall has often undermined the public’s understanding of and demand for reforms, often reflected in political reversal of key policy decisions. This paper examines the level and quality of consumer participation and protection in five states in India through a review of documents, surveys of consumers, and detailed interviews with key stakeholders. As mandated by law, all states have established standards of performance regulations and set up grievance redressal mechanisms; however, these bodies have not reached the desired level of effectiveness. Similarly, although provisions for consumer participation in regulatory proceedings exist, their adoption is often symbolic and without substantive and deliberative participation. Drawing on analysis of the Indian experience and international best practices, the paper recommends a paradigm shift in pursuing enhanced consumer satisfaction and voice in regulatory decision-making as a central objective of power reforms