Andy Sumner

Is foreign direct investment good for the poor? A review and stocktake

Few issues in the development process raise as much heat as the role of the international private sector in the form of transnational corporations (TNCs) and foreign direct investment (FDI). This article reviews the most recent research on the impact of FDI on economic growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. A brief history of FDI is given. This is followed by discussion of the conceptual transmission mechanisms linking FDI, growth, and poverty. The available empirical evidence is then discussed. It is argued that it is not a question of whether FDI is good or bad for social and economic development, but that its impact is determined by the terms upon which FDI is accepted. Although overall the evidence on FDI, growth, and poverty is not conclusive, research has had a tendency to suggest that the benefits of FDI are linked to the FDI policy regime; and that the current orthodoxy of maintaining a highly liberal FDI policy regime leads to a situation whereby developing countries have a precarious trade-off to make between attracting FDI and maintaining policy instruments to extract the benefits of any inflows.

Meaning versus measurement: why do 'economic' indicators of poverty still predominate?

It is virtually undisputed that poverty is multi-dimensional. However, ‘economic’ or monetary measures of poverty still maintain a higher status in key development indicators and policy. This article is concerned with the apparent contradiction between the consensus over the meaning of poverty and the choice of methods with which to measure poverty in practice. A brief history of the meaning and measurement of poverty is given, and it is argued that ‘economic’ determinism, while it has gradually retreated from centrality in the meaning of poverty, has continued to dominate the measurement of poverty. This is followed by a section that contrasts the relative merits of ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’ measures of poverty. The question is posed: why do ‘economic’ measures of poverty still have a higher status than non-economic measures?

In Search of the Post-Washington (Dis)consensus: the 'missing' content of PRSPS

Abstract The policy-making context in the ‘South’ would seem to have changed in recent years, potentially opening space for alternative voices. The international financial institutions no longer overtly insist on policy content. The ‘locally owned’ Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (prsp) has become the main vehicle for policy. Many have argued prsps represent a ‘remorphing’ of neoliberalism or the Washington Consensus as practised by the international financial institutions for much of the 1980s and 1990s. However, although much research on prsps has focused on the process of prsp production and the extent of participation, the outcome of the prsp process—the actual prsp—and its content has received relatively limited attention. This article is an exploratory piece. Taking the content of 50 prsps the following question is posed: has the prsp process opened space for something new, Stiglitzs post-Washington Consensus, or for the reproduction of the former Washington Consensus?

What shapes research impact on policy? Understanding research uptake in sexual and reproductive health policy processes in resource poor contexts

Assessing the impact that research evidence has on policy is complex. It involves consideration of conceptual issues of what determines research impact and policy change. There are also a range of methodological issues relating to the question of attribution and the counter-factual. The dynamics of SRH, HIV and AIDS, like many policy arenas, are partly generic and partly issue- and context-specific. Against this background, this article reviews some of the main conceptualisations of research impact on policy, including generic determinants of research impact identified across a range of settings, as well as the specificities of SRH in particular. We find that there is scope for greater cross-fertilisation of concepts, models and experiences between public health researchers and political scientists working in international development and research impact evaluation. We identify aspects of the policy landscape and drivers of policy change commonly occurring across multiple sectors and studies to create a framework that researchers can use to examine the influences on research uptake in specific settings, in order to guide attempts to ensure uptake of their findings. This framework has the advantage that distinguishes between pre-existing factors influencing uptake and the ways in which researchers can actively influence the policy landscape and promote research uptake through their policy engagement actions and strategies. We apply this framework to examples from the case study papers in this supplement, with specific discussion about the dynamics of SRH policy processes in resource poor contexts. We conclude by highlighting the need for continued multi-sectoral work on understanding and measuring research uptake and for prospective approaches to receive greater attention from policy analysts.

Revisiting the Meaning of Development: A Multidimensional Taxonomy of Developing Countries

Many have challenged the use of income per capita as the primary proxy for measuring development since Seers’s seminal works. This article continues this tradition with a more recent twist. We use cluster analysis to build a multidimensional taxonomy of developing countries using a set of indicators covering four conceptual frames on ‘development’. The value-added of the article is not to suggest that our classification is the end in itself, but – more modestly – to demonstrate that more work on taxonomies is required in light of the weakness of classifications based solely on income and the changing distribution of global poverty.

Child Poverty, Evidence and Policy : Mainstreaming Children in International Development

Introduction Part one: Child poverty, evidence and policy: Perspectives and approaches: Child poverty and wellbeing Knowledge generation and child poverty and wellbeing Policy processes, knowledge and child wellbeing Part two: Poverty, evidence and policy: Regional perspectives and case studies: Child poverty, knowledge and policy in Africa Child poverty, knowledge and policy in Asia Child poverty, knowledge and policy in Latin America and the Caribbean Conclusions.

Global Health and the New Bottom Billion: What Do Shifts in Global Poverty and the Global Disease Burden Mean for Gavi and the Global Fund?

After a decade of rapid growth in average incomes, many countries have reached middle-income status. At the same time, however, poverty has not fallen so dramatically; as a result, most of the world’s poor now live in middle-income countries (MICs). In fact, up to a billion poor people — or a new bottom billion — live not in the world’s poorest countries but in MICs. As the global distribution of poverty has shifted to middle-income countries, so has the global disease burden.This paper examines the implications of this for global health efforts and recommends a tailored middle-income strategy for global health funders. The paper describes trends in the global distribution of poverty, preventable infectious diseases, and health aid response to date; revisits the rationale for health aid through agencies like GAVI and the Global Fund; and proposes a new MIC strategy and components, concluding with recommendations.Specifically, the paper recommends (1) eliminating the country income threshold as an across-the-board criterion for allocating global health funding, (2) setting up regional pooled procurement mechanisms, or negotiating a MIC public-sector price within existing procurement mechanisms, (3) building evidence-based priority-setting institutions, and (4) establishing increased accountability mechanisms to increase public spending on cost-effective, affordable health priorities.

Twenty Years of Expenditure Inequality in Indonesia, 1993–2013

In this article, we consider the recent increase in inequality in Indonesia. We make new, consistent estimates of expenditure inequality for 1993–2013, using several measures that draw on household expenditure data from the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) for 1993–2013. In doing so, we note that the central statistics agency, Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS), used grouped data for its estimates of inequality until 2009 and that this underestimated inequality up to then. Thus the rise in inequality reported since 2009 actually has a longer history. We argue that Indonesia experienced divergence and convergence at the same time: the magnitude of the rise in inequality was significant (divergence), but the rise was greatest in provinces or districts with low initial levels of inequality (convergence). We consider the literature on drivers of changes in inequality and identify a set of hypotheses, with an empirical basis, which we introduce as potential Indonesian-specific drivers of rising inequality for future exploration.

What is Development Studies

This article is concerned with some initial reflections on the distinctive features of Development Studies (DS). The aim is to trigger further debate, rather than attempt ‘closure’. Discussion of the nature of DS is timely because of the expansion of taught courses at various levels during the previous decade; because of sustained critiques of DS in recent years; and because DS has entered a period of introspection – illustrated by several journal special issues and events – to identify its defining characteristics. The author argues that DS is a worthwhile endeavour (how could a concern with reducing global poverty not be?), but the field of enquiry needs to think about how it addresses heterogeneity in the ‘Third World(s)’ and how it opens space for alternative ‘voices’.

The Future of Foreign Aid

The landscape of foreign aid has changed. When she served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991 through 2000, Ogata said the issue at the time was a “gap between humanitarian and development communities.” At a past UNHCR co-sponsored presentation at Brookings with James Wolfensohn, then President of the World Bank, she questioned how to address the transition from war-torn societies into a much more sustainable development phase and to how eliminate the transition gap.