Summary: The first section of the paper deals with the influence of the political context on CSO impact on policy processes – from ‘internal’ factors such governmental structures, capacity and attitudes; to the political context of the country; to the wider ‘external’ influence of international politics. The second part of the paper presents the importance of good, timely, appropriate and well-presented evidence when trying to influence policymaking, as well as associated problems. The third section looks at the potentially limiting factors of CSO capacity (from financial capacity to resources) and links, and explores the importance of networks. Fourthly the paper covers external factors that influence the policymaking process, including the cases where donors have expansive control over research and policy processes. Finally, the last section of this paper summarises and presents the lessons on evidence-based policy-engagement that emerged from the consultations, and includes a section on specific recommendations and next steps for the CSPP as suggested by conference attendees.

Region: International

Type: Workshop Reports
Sector: Civil Society Organisations
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: CIVILIZACION INTERIOR Y GUERREROS SIN ESTADO Bases Etnoepistémicas para el diálogo interétnico del Mundo Indígena Americano con el Mundo Occidental INTRODUCCION AL PROYECTO DE INVESTIGACION GLOBAL La Matriz Mítica y el manejo del Mundo en los aborígenes de la Amazonia Paleoindia-Arcaica-Contemporánea (+-12000- 500 a.n.e., 500 a.n.e.-1492 a.d., 1492-2008) y en los Griegos Antiguos (7000 – 1200 a.n.e., 1200 – 508, 508-146 a.n.e I. Plan General “The History of the World is not intelligible apart from a Government of the World.” — W. V. Humboldt 1. Etnoepistemología Occidental y No Occidental: Etnofilosofía y Etnociencias 2. Etnofilosofía: Fundamentos Etnohistóricos de la Etnofilosofía Griega Antigua y de la Etnofilosofía Amazónica Arcaica- Contemporánea 3. Etnociencias: Etnobotánica, Etnomedicina, Y Etnoecología Aborigen Amazónica 4. Conclusión: Etnoeducación y Etnodesarrollo en Suramérica Amazónica Aborigen y su relación con los Gobiernos Locales y los Organismos Multilaterales Occidentales

Region: Latin America

Type: Facilitation Resources
Sector: Globalisation
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: The authors, Pekka Virtanen and Dag Ehrenpreis, examine Mozambique’s recent record of sustained economic growth and rapid poverty reduction. They note that such rates of growth are based on 1) a ‘bounce-back’ to pre-war levels of agricultural production without any increases in productivity and 2) industrial growth based on enclave mega-projects in energy and mining in the south, which have created few jobs and been accompanied by rising regional poverty. In light of Mozambique’s pattern of growth, they put a priority on directing ODA, which has thus far had a positive impact on the economy, to investments that make agriculture globally competitive and help enhance rural livelihoods.

Region: Africa

Type: Case Studies
Sector: Economic Development
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: This is an introduction to the global research project: Mythical Matrix and World Management in Aborigines from Paleo-Indian, Archaic and Contemporary Amazonia and the Ancient –Archaic Greeks: Epistemic bases for inter-ethnic dialogue between American aborigines World and the Western World . For the Author, The planet political government with dominance with a unique Ethno Episteme (1), it was and has been the highest aspiration of the successive empires and ethnic groups that have restrained the diversity of the World (2). War of the Worlds and its civilizations (*) has been a constant in universal history of empires, States, bands and hordes of all ages, and now it continues to run as a western global movement against collateral worlds and civilizations, some of which co-exist as semi-nomadic warriors and in shamanic war with western cosmos vision . The latter is a cross-cultural synthesis whose agencies are Major Transnational Corporations and State from all continents that drive westernization

Region: Latin America

Type: Presentations
Sector: Globalisation
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: This is an introduction to the global research project: Mythical Matrix and World Management in Aborigines from Paleo-Indian, Archaic and Contemporary Amazonia and the Ancient –Archaic Greeks: Epistemic bases for inter-ethnic dialogue between American aborigines World and the West World. For the Author, The planet political government with dominance with a unique Ethno Episteme, it was and has been the highest aspiration of the successive empires and ethnic groups that have restrained the diversity of the World. War of the Worlds and its civilizations has been a constant in universal history of empires, States, bands and hordes of all ages, and now it continues to run as a western global movement against collateral worlds and civilizations, some of which co-exist as semi-nomadic warriors and in shamanic war with western cosmos vision. The latter is a cross-cultural synthesis whose agencies are Major Transnational Corporations and State from all continents that drive westernization. This is an update.

Region: Latin America

Type: Papers
Sector: Globalisation
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: This toolkit describes a range of tools that CSOs might use to understand and map political context, in order to engage more effectively in policy processes. This guide introduces a series of tools that have been designed to map various dimensions of political context. The tools have been selected because they cover a wide variety of political dimensions. As such, they provide a menu of different approaches to mapping political context; CSOs and others can select from this menu and make use of the tools according to their own needs.

Region: International

Type: Toolkits
Sector: Civil Society Organisations
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: This study is concerned with old-age poverty in Kenya. It is also concerned with strengthening and developing social pension programs for the elderly. In this study, we develop precise socioeconomic and demographic profiles of the elderly in Kenya from the viewpoint of providing policy-makers with information that may be useful in the reform and expansion of the pension system. It also analyzes the impact of current pension systems on poverty among elderly and national poverty. Further, the current study evaluates the potential effects that alternative policies and targeting alternatives may be expected to have on poverty within the country.

Region: Africa

Type: Papers
Sector: Poverty
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: This Conference Paper by Degol Hailu was presented at the “Global Conference on Gearing Macroeconomic Policies to Reverse the HIV/AIDS Epidemic”, jointly organized by UNDP’s HIV/AIDS Group and IPC and held in Brasilia, November 2006. It is part of an IPC-supported Research Programme on “Macroeconomic Policies to Combat HIV/AIDS”. The paper argues that Kenya represents an unusual case of a country in which HIV/AIDS financing has been on the rise while total ODA and public spending on health have been falling. Despite the minimal danger of macroeconomic instability, the Government has resorted to restrictive macroeconomic policies. It has sought to maintain very low inflation rates, cut public-sector wages and halved its fiscal deficit. As result, the ODA allocated for combating HIV/AIDS has been neither fully spent nor absorbed.

Region: International

Type: Case Studies
Sector: AIDS/HIV
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: This One Pager, written by Degol Hailu, examines the impact of khat production and export on the Ethiopian economy and the livelihoods of Ethiopian farmers. Khat is a plant-based stimulant that grows in Eastern Africa. Because of declining coffee exports and the lack of alternatives, farmers have turned to khat production in order to meet rising regional and international demand. Drawing on a recent book publication, the author argues that banning khat would most likely drive farmers and traders deeper into illegal activity or into poverty. A more reasonable alternative would be a system of regulating khat production, trade and consumption that takes into account its critical contribution to rural livelihoods.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: Rural Development
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: In this study, Tatiana Feitosa de Britto, visiting researcher at IPC, provides an analytic overview of the prospects and potential difficulties of this new cash transfer program, with a particular emphasis on its ‘co-responsibilities’ (conditionalities), eligibility requirements for beneficiaries, targeting strategy, mechanisms of local participation and criteria for graduating from the program. The main message of the study is that a small country such as El Salvador, which has limited resources and faces notable constraints, can successfully set up a complex CCT program. The study is noteworthy for covering under-researched issues, such as the program’s institutional structures, intersectoral coordination and political support. One of its major conclusions is that the CCT program in El Salvador needs to be incorporated into a broader and longer-term social protection strategy instead of remaining a stand-alone program.

Region: Latin America

Type: Evaluations
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: This paper examines the trend in post-Apartheid earnings inequality in South Africa. By combining data sets, the paper is able to analyze the trend for the whole period 1995-2004. Earnings inequality rose sharply during 1995-1999 and then declined marginally, but remained high, during 2000-2004. A dramatic rise in unemployment was the driving force in exacerbating earnings inequality in the 1990s. Unemployment began to level off in the 2000s but remained at a high rate. An unprecedented influx of new entrants into the formal labour market in the 1990s put downward pressure on average real wages, affecting workers both in the middle of the distribution and toward the bottom. The growth of the South African economy has been neither rapid enough nor employment-intensive enough to absorb such a large influx of workers. Moreover, the economy’s greater openness to trade and financial flows appears to have left many workers behind, especially Africans, workers in low-skilled occupations, residents of rural areas in general and poor regions in particular. Earnings inequality remains high across groupings of workers differentiated by race, education and occupation although occupation has become a more important factor than the other two in the 2000s. Differentials across the mean earnings of workers classified by rural and urban residence and by province have also intensified. In the 1990s, inequalities within groupings of worker rose sharply and then moderated by the 2000s. While earnings differentials by race and the rural-urban divide also exacerbated inequality in the 1990s, they have been in modest decline since then. These changes in the dynamics of earnings inequality between the 1990s and 2000s pose new challenges for South African policymakers in their efforts to substantially reduce the Apartheid legacy of high inequality and poverty.

Region: Africa

Type: Papers
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: The TIPS sourcebook, produced by the Social Development Department, provides practical guidance how to conduct social analysis in the context of Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA). An appraoch promoted by the World Bank to analyze distributional impacts of policy reforms on the well-being or welfare of different stakeholder groups.

Region: International

Type: Toolkits
Sector: Development Policy
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: Costas Lapavitas argues in this One Pager that the current practice of sub-Saharan African countries of using ODA for excessive reserve accumulation acts as a substantial barrier to attaining the MDGs. Drawing on an evaluation by the IMF Independent Evaluation Office, the author notes that ODA should be used, instead, for its intended purpose, namely, importing real resources into the economy and boosting economic growth and development. A major reason that developing countries have stockpiled reserves is that they have liberalized the capital account instead of managing it. This One Pager continues the debate on ODA and Macroeconomic Policies initiated by One Pagers #34 and #35.

Region: Africa

Type: Evaluations
Sector: Economic Policy
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: Existing evidence clearly indicates that political and institutional context issues are the most important set of factors affecting the interface between research and policy. These issues usually explain why research does, or usually does not, lead to policy change. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a systematic understanding of when, why and how political context matters for bridging research and policy in developing countries. Is bridging research and policy easier in democratic countries? Do different issues matter in different components of policy processes? Is using research to inform policy easier in a context of crisis? What makes bureaucrats more susceptible to changing practice based on research evidence? This paper reviews the relevant literature on politics, policy processes and institutions in order to identify the key issues that may affect research-policy links. The aim is to generate understanding about the research-policy nexus in order to provide practical advice for developing and transition countries.

Region: International

Type: Papers
Sector: Politics
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: This background note aims to identify organisations that are working to influence policy and build capacity around pro-poor trade in Latin America. This mapping provides an important baseline for the work of Comercio y Pobreza en Latinoamérica (COPLA, www.cop-la.net), a project funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) on trade, poverty and social exclusion in Latin America, and may also be useful for others concerned with the pro-poor dimensions of Latin American trade and trade-related policies. It focuses on organisations working on at least one of the following issues: spatial poverty (lagging regions); gender; indigenous peoples; and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Region: Latin America

Type: Evaluations
Sector: Trade
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: Terry McKinley examines why tax reforms in low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa have failed to adequately boost revenue to finance MDG-based strategies. He argues that trade liberalization has led to stagnant tariff revenue, lowering rates on corporate profits and personal income have undercut their tax potential and the much-vaunted VAT has failed to compensate for revenue losses from other taxes. This One Pager follows up the themes initiated in IPC One Pager #39, “Raising Domestic Revenue for the MDGs: Why Wait until 2015?”. Both One Pagers are part of the IPC Research Programme on “Economic Policies, MDGs and Poverty”.

Region: Africa

Type: Papers
Sector: Fiscal Policy
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis