5,548 research outputs found
FRAGILITY AND MDG PROGRESS: HOW USEFUL IS THE FRAGILITY CONCEPT?
Full text linkWhile progress in developing countries as a whole, in terms of growth, poverty reduc-tion, and several MDGs, has been quite good in recent years, fragile states lag behind in levels of MDG achievement. To understand the link between fragility and MDG progress, and also to identify the most effective policy interventions to achieve the MDGs, it is es-sential that fragile states are appropriately defined and classified. While the amount of literature on how to engage with fragile states is rapidly accumulating, only very limited analysis exists that investigates to what extent the levels and trends in the MDGs differ significantly between different definitions of fragile and non-fragile states. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usefulness of the fragile state concept in tracking the levels and progress of the MDGs. In doing so, this paper applies several definitions of fragility in order to study the MDG progress between 1990 and 2006. It compares aver-age performance in levels and trends of MDG progress between fragile and non-fragile countries and also compares within-group heterogeneity. The paper shows that fragile countries are, indeed, performing worse in terms of MDG levels. In terms of MDG pro-gress, progress is not necessarily slower in fragile states. Only a rather small number of countries suffering from compound disadvantages are doing significantly worse in terms of MDG progress. Lastly, the heterogeneity of MDG performance among fragile states is so large that it is not very useful to treat them as a group; the problems they face, as well as the solutions required, differ greatly and have to be developed and treated sui generis.Fragile States, Millennium Development Goals, Heterogeneity.
Do Fragile Countries Experience Worse MDG Progress?
No full textWhile it is regularly stated that development progress in so-called fragile states is lagging behind, only very limited empirical analysis exists that investigates to what extent the levels and trends in achievements in MDG indicators differ between fragile and other developing countries, and between different definitions of fragile states. We analyse levels of MDG indicators and progress towards achieving the MDGs between 1990 and 2008 of fragile and non-fragile countries. We focus particularly on the widely used World Bank approach to define fragility, but also compare it with other definitions. We show that fragile countries are, indeed, performing worse in terms of achievement levels of MDG indicators. However, progress in these measures is, on average, not slower in fragile states using most definitions of fragility, and highly heterogeneous among the both fragile and non-fragile countries; only if fragility is defined very narrowly do we see lower progress towards the MDGs. As a result, we suggest that current definitions of fragility are not useful aggregations to predict, monitor and explain development progress using MDG indicators
Well-being of Migrant Children and Migrant Youth in Europe
No full textMigration continues to be a very important income diversification strategy, especially for poor populations in developing countries. However, while there has been much analysis on the economic consequences of migration for migrants and the receiving regions, whether internal migration improves or deteriorates human development is not easy to determine. This papers applies a recently development analytical framework that allows to calculate the HDI for subgroups of a population. We use this approach to calculate the HDI by internal migrational status to assess the differences between the levels of human development of internal migrants compared to non-migrants, and also across countries as well as by urban and rural areas. An empirical illustration for a sample of 16 low and middle income countries shows that, overall, internal migrants slightly achieve a higher level of human development than non-migrants. The results also show that differences in income between migrants and non-migrants are generally higher than differences in education and life-expectancy. Disaggregating the analysis by urban and rural areas reveals that urban internal migrants are better than urban non-migrants and rural migrants are better off than rural non-migrants
Well-being of Migrant Children and Migrant Youth in Europe
No full textMigration continues to be a very important income diversification strategy, especially for poor populations in developing countries. However, while there has been much analysis on the economic consequences of migration for migrants and the receiving regions, whether internal migration improves or deteriorates human development is not easy to determine. This papers applies a recently development analytical framework that allows to calculate the HDI for subgroups of a population. We use this approach to calculate the HDI by internal migrational status to assess the differences between the levels of human development of internal migrants compared to non-migrants, and also across countries as well as by urban and rural areas. An empirical illustration for a sample of 16 low and middle income countries shows that, overall, internal migrants slightly achieve a higher level of human development than non-migrants. The results also show that differences in income between migrants and non-migrants are generally higher than differences in education and life-expectancy. Disaggregating the analysis by urban and rural areas reveals that urban internal migrants are better than urban non-migrants and rural migrants are better off than rural non-migrants
Fragility and MDG Progress: How useful is the Fragility Concept?
No full textWhile it is widely presumed that development progress in so-called fragile states is lagging behind, only very limited empirical analysis exists that investigates to what extent the levels and trends in the MDGs differ significantly between fragile and other developing countries, and between different de-finitions of fragile states. The purpose of this paper is to analyze levels and progress of the MDGs between 1990 and 2008 of fragile and non-fragile developing countries. It shows that fragile countries are, indeed, performing worse in terms of MDG levels. In terms of MDG progress, progress is, on average, not slower in fragile states using most definitions of fragility. Lastly, the heterogeneity of MDG performance among fragile states is so large that it is not very useful to treat them as a group; the problems they face, as well as the solutions required, differ greatly and have to be developed and treated sui generis
Analyzing Nutritional Impacts of Price and Income Related Shocks in Malawi and Uganda
No full textThe recent food price crisis and the following global economic recession have led to large increase in the number of people to suffer from hunger. While the impacts can be measured with precision ex post, for policy-makers it is critical to get a sense of likely impacts ex ante to plan approaches to mitigate these impacts. In this paper we adopt a very simple simulation approach to analyze how changes in prices of specific food groups such as maize prices or prices for staple food as well as how negative short-term income shocks on household affect the calorie consumption of individuals and how these changes affect food poverty. We illustrate our approach using household survey data from Malawi and Uganda. We find that food poverty is of particular concern in Malawi and Uganda and we find large variations within countries in food poverty. We find that price shocks for staple foods have a very large impact on food security in both countries while the impact of income shocks is considerably smaller. Moreover, we find that the food security impacts of price shocks are substantially larger in Malawi than Uganda as people in this country rely much more on staple foods for their caloric consumption. This paper demonstrates that it is possible to estimate food security impact of price and income shocks ex ante in a relatively straightforward fashion that can be done relatively quickly for cross-country assessments of the likely impacts of shocks on food security
Estimating Households Vulnerability to Idiosyncratic and Covariate Shocks: A Novel Method Applied in Madagascar
No full textHouseholds in developing countries are frequently hit by severe idiosyncratic and covariate shocks leading to high consumption volatility. A household's currently observed poverty status might therefore not be a good indicator of the household's general vulnerability to poverty. In the recent years, there has been an emerging literature on the concept and empirical analysis of vulnerability. But because of strong data requirements for vulnerability analysis and limited availability of panel and shock data for developing countries, static poverty analysis still dominates empirical vulnerability studies. In this paper, we propose a simple method to empirically assess the impact of idiosyncratic and covariate shocks on households' vulnerability, which can be applied in a wide context as it relies on more commonly available cross-sectional or short panel data. We empirically illustrate our approach for Madagascar. We show that covariate shocks have a relatively higher impact on rural households, whereas idiosyncratic shocks have a relatively higher impact on urban households' vulnerability. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
A household-based human development index
No full textOne of the most serious weaknesses of the human development index (HDI) is that it does not take into account the distribution of human development within a country. All attempts to capture inequality in the HDI have used aggregate information and there exists no HDI at the household level. We provide a method for proxying the HDI at the household level. This allows the immediate analysis of human development by population subgroups and/or socioeconomic characteristics as well as analysis of inequality in human development across population subgroups and households characteristics. We illustrate our approach for 15 developing countries. Inequality in the HDI is stunningly large for some countries, particularly in countries with low overall human development, driven mostly by very high inequality in the education and income components of the HDI
A Reversal in the Relationship of Human Development With Fertility?
No full textISSN:0070-3370ISSN:1533-7790ISSN:1533-779
Analyzing Nutritional Impacts of Price and Income Related Shocks in Malawi and Uganda
No full textThe recent food price crisis and the following global economic recession have led to large increase in the number of people to suffer from hunger. While the impacts can be measured with precision ex post, for policy-makers it is critical to get a sense of likely impacts ex ante to plan approaches to mitigate these impacts. In this paper we adopt a very simple simulation approach to analyze how changes in prices of specific food groups such as maize prices or prices for staple food as well as how negative short-term income shocks on household affect the calorie consumption of individuals and how these changes affect food poverty. We illustrate our approach using household survey data from Malawi and Uganda. We find that food poverty is of particular concern in Malawi and Uganda and we find large variations within countries in food poverty. We find that price shocks for staple foods have a very large impact on food security in both countries while the impact of income shocks is considerably smaller. Moreover, we find that the food security impacts of price shocks are substantially larger in Malawi than Uganda as people in this country rely much more on staple foods for their caloric consumption. This paper demonstrates that it is possible to estimate food security impact of price and income shocks ex ante in a relatively straightforward fashion that can be done relatively quickly for cross-country assessments of the likely impacts of shocks on food security
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