Johannes P. Jütting

DECENTRALISATION AND POVERTY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: EXPLORING THE IMPACT

Decentralisation has been advocated by donors and development agencies as an important factor broadening citizen participation and improving local governance, thereby promoting poverty reduction from the bottom up. On the basis of a comprehensive review of 19 country case studies documented in the literature, this paper questions this assumption. La decentralisation a ete recommandee par les pays donateurs et les agences de developpement comme un facteur important d’incitation a une plus large participation des citoyens et a une meilleure gouvernance locale, facilitant ainsi la reduction de la pauvrete en partant de la base. Ce document de travail reconsidere cette hypothese, en passant en revue 19 etudes de cas par pays disponibles dans la documentation.

Measuring Gender (In)Equality: The OECD Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base

The Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Developments Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base (GID‐DB) is a new cross‐country research tool with comprehensive measures of gender equality. It improves upon existing sources because it is the only data base on gender that systematically incorporates indicators of social norms, traditions and family law. The GID‐DB thereby permits analysis of hypotheses that link cultural practices to gender equality, human development and economic growth. A cross‐country comparison of the data indicates that inequalities in social institutions are particularly pronounced in countries with low female literacy rates, but correlate less strongly with Gross Domestic Product per capita. Similarly, our econometric analysis suggests a clearly negative correlation between gender inequality of the OECD Development Center and womens labor‐force participation.*The views expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the authors *The views expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the authors

Decentralisation and Poverty Reduction

Decentralisation has become a key issue in development policy in the past two decades. Whereas the advantages and risks of transferring power and resources to local tiers of government have been debated for quite some time, it is only very recently that the linkages between decentralization and poverty reduction have been addressed. This Policy Insight highlights key determinants for a pro-poor decentralisation process and discusses major lessons learnt for donors.

Changing Social Institutions to Improve the Status of Women in Developing Countries

. Deeply rooted social institutions – societal norms, codes of conduct, laws and tradition – cause gender discrimination. . Religion per se does not systematically define such discrimination. All dominant religions show flexibility in interpreting the role of women in society. . The Millennium Development Goals demand change in gender-discriminating social institutions, which should be added to the seven strategic priorities identi?ed by the UN Task Force on Education and Gender Equality. . Donors must redesign their strategies to focus not only on improving women’s capacities and capabilities, but also and concurrently on lowering men’s resistance against reforms that improve gender equality.

Fiscal Decentralization and Infant Mortality: Empirical Evidence from Rural India

Over the last two decades, many countries around the world have been enthusiastically embarking on the path of decentralization. However, because of a preconceived idea that decentralization will automatically result in efficient allocation of public resources and due to the absence of an analytical framework and data, very little empirical work has been done in this area. Nor has much attention been given to an analysis of the factors enabling or constraining its outcomes. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model and use it to test empirically the impact of fiscal decentralization on rural infant mortality rates in India between 1990 and 1997. The random effect regression results show that fiscal decentralization plays a statistically significant role in reducing rural infant mortality rate and the results are robust. The results also show that the effectiveness of fiscal decentralization can be affected by other complementary factors such as the level of political decentralization.

Private Health Insurance for the Poor in Developing Countries

The financing of health care is a major challenge for developing countries, especially since deficiencies in national health systems specifically harm the poor. Innovative financing mechanisms, such as private health insurance, offer benefits and risks. Their implementation requires caution on the part of policy makers who need to consider adequate regulation in order to optimise health outcomes.

The Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base

This policy insight introduces the Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base: a new tool to determine and analyse obstacles to womens economic development.

Institutions and Development

In recent years, the role of institutions for development has received considerable attention from development researchers, policy makers and practitioners. This paper reviews the evidence on the impact of institutions on growth and other development outcomes. Most of the reviewed studies find a strong positive correlation between the quality and performance of institutions on the one hand and development outcomes on the other. However, due to various methodological approaches and conceptual problems, the evidence on causation is still thin. To address some of the identified weaknesses, the paper proposes an innovative analytical framework that maps out channels of influence between institutions and development outcomes. The developed framework stresses the idea that institutions do not stand alone but are embedded in a local setting influenced by historical trajectories and culture. Studies analysing the impact of institutions on development outcomes need to take into account the ... Depuis quelques annees, le role des institutions dans le developpement a ete abondamment etudie par les chercheurs, les decideurs et les praticiens du developpement. Ce Document technique fait le point des theories concernant l’impact des institutions sur la croissance economique et sur d’autres aspects du developpement. La plupart des travaux font etat d’une forte correlation positive entre la qualite et les performances des institutions d’une part, et les resultats en matiere de developpement d’autre part. Toutefois, du fait de la diversite des methodologies appliquees et des problemes d’ordre conceptuel, le lien de causalite n’est pas clairement etabli. Certaines lacunes ont ete identifiees. Pour y repondre, ce Document propose un cadre analytique qui cartographie quelles sont les voies d’influence des institutions sur le processus de developpement. Le cadre d’analyse souligne que les institutions ne sont pas seules en cause mais qu’elles s’inserent dans une configuration locale ...

Decentralisation and Poverty in Developing Countries

Decentralisation has been advocated by donors and development agencies as an important factor broadening citizen participation and improving local governance, thereby promoting poverty reduction from the bottom up. On the basis of a comprehensive review of 19 country case studies documented in the literature, this paper questions this assumption.

Culture, Gender and Growth

While the overall picture for gender equality is still gloomy, recent changes in family institutions in come countries provide an enlightening example.