co

Putting women and girls’ safety first in Africa’s response to COVID-19

Women and girls in Africa are among the most vulnerable groups exposed to the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Although preliminary evidence from China, Italy, and New York shows that men are at higher risk of contraction and death from the disease—more than 58 percent of COVID-19 patients were men, and they had an…

       




co

The Renminbi: The Political Economy of a Currency

The United States and other countries have complained that China keeps the value of its currency artificially low, boosting China’s exports and trade surplus at the expense of its global trading partners. Arthur Kroeber explains how the ongoing currency conflict is rooted in two very different views about the function of exchange rates.

      
 
 




co

The Euro-Area Crisis: Weighing Options for Unconventional IMF Interventions

Domenico Lombardi and Sarah Puritz Milsom explore the role of the International Monetary Fund in the eurozone crisis and review the policy options that the international community must consider to strategically and effectively address the current situation.

      
 
 




co

Mapping racial inequity amid COVID-19 underscores policy discriminations against Black Americans

A spate of recent news accounts reveals what many experts have feared: Black communities in the U.S. are experiencing some of the highest fatality rates from COVID-19. But without an understanding of the policy contexts that have shaped conditions in Black-majority neighborhoods, one may assume the rapid spread of the coronavirus there is caused by…

       




co

COVID-19 is turning the Midwest’s long legacy of segregation deadly

The COVID-19 pandemic is unmasking a lot of ugly economic and social truths across the Midwest, especially in my home state of Michigan. The appearance of a good economy in the Midwest following the Great Recession (which hit the region very hard) was a bit of an illusion. Prior to the arrival of the coronavirus,…

       




co

COVID-19’s recent spread shifts to suburban, whiter, and more Republican-leaning areas

There is a stereotypical view of the places in America that COVID-19 has affected most: they are broadly urban, comprised predominantly of racial minorities, and strongly vote Democratic. This underlines the public’s perception of what kinds of populations reside in areas highly exposed to the coronavirus, as well as some of the recent political arguments…

       




co

How a Detroit developer is using innovative leasing to support the city’s creative economy

Inclusive growth is a top priority in today’s uneven economy, as widening income inequities, housing affordability crises, and health disparities leave certain places and people without equitable access to opportunity, health, and well-being. Brookings and others have long argued that inclusive economic growth is essential to mitigate such disparities, yet implementing inclusive growth models and…

       




co

How ‘innovation districts’ are continuing the fight against COVID-19

Last month, I wrote about innovation districts’ critical efforts to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. Since the outset of the pandemic, these districts have leveraged their academic research capabilities, innovation infrastructure (e.g., laboratories, advanced technologies, Big Data for modeling), and local and global peer networks to understand and contain the spread of the coronavirus. These…

       




co

The next COVID-19 relief bill must include massive aid to states, especially the hardest-hit areas

Amid rising layoffs and rampant uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a good thing that Democrats in the House of Representatives say they plan to move quickly to advance the next big coronavirus relief package. Especially important is the fact that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) seems determined to build the next package around a generous infusion…

       




co

COVID-19 is expanding further into Trump country

The COVID-19 pandemic has already shown a dispersion away from the nation’s most urban and densely populated counties to suburban, somewhat whiter, and less politically Democratic parts of the country.  Yet the group of counties that newly qualify as areas with a high prevalence of COVID-19 cases are even more dispersed, and represent places where…

       




co

Which city economies did COVID-19 damage first?

Since the United States first witnessed significant community spread of the coronavirus in March, each week has brought a fresh round of devastating economic news. From skyrocketing unemployment claims to new estimates of contracting GDP in the first quarter of 2020, there has been little respite from the growing awareness that COVID-19 is exacting unprecedented…

       




co

American workers’ safety net is broken. The COVID-19 crisis is a chance to fix it.

The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing some major adjustments to many aspects of our daily lives that will likely remain long after the crisis recedes: virtual learning, telework, and fewer hugs and handshakes, just to name a few. But in addition, let’s hope the crisis also drives a permanent overhaul of the nation’s woefully inadequate worker…

       




co

As states reopen, COVID-19 is spreading into even more Trump counties

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, America has begun to open up for some business and limited social interaction, especially in parts of the country that did not bear the initial brunt of the coronavirus.  However, the number of counties where COVID-19 cases have reached “high-prevalence” status continues to expand. Our tracking of these…

       




co

Can social media ‘targetcasting’ and democracy coexist?

Speaking recently at Georgetown University, Mark Zuckerberg told an audience “I’ve focused on building services to do two things: give people voice, and bring people together.” He later said “More people being able to share their perspectives has always been necessary to build a more inclusive society.” The speech anointed Facebook as the “Fifth Estate”…

       




co

How the Gannett/GateHouse merger could deepen America’s local news crisis

Last week, shareholders at Gannett and GateHouse, the nation’s two largest newspaper chains, voted to approve the merger of the two companies. Gannett, which publishes USA Today, owns just over 100 newspapers while New Media Enterprises, GateHouse Media’s parent company, owns nearly 400 American newspapers across 39 states. When combined, the new company will own…

       




co

MSNBC debate moderators largely ignored people of color

In the fifth Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta, Georgia, debate moderators promised at the outset that they would talk about race and public policy. They absolutely failed to deliver. Despite several candidates mentioning issues related to race early in the debate, the MSNBC moderators waited until 90 minutes into a two-hour debate to ask the first…

       




co

March Madness and college basketball’s racial bias problem

The NCAA basketball tournament is one of the most-viewed sporting events in the United States. In 2019, nearly 20 million viewers watched the championship game, and each tournament game (67 total) averaged about 10 million viewers. Over 17 million people completed a March Madness tournament bracket for the 68-team tournament. Among youth, basketball is one…

       




co

Critical in a public health crisis, COVID-19 has hit local newsrooms hard

While the coronavirus may be a global pandemic, the public health crisis has revealed the critical role of local news outlets currently working tirelessly to cover the impact of the coronavirus on their communities. These outlets have helped to disseminate essential information from state and local government actors, prevent the spread of misinformation, and report…

       




co

Webinar: How federal job vacancies hinder the government’s response to COVID-19

Vacant positions and high turnover across the federal bureaucracy have been a perpetual problem since President Trump was sworn into office. Upper-level Trump administration officials (“the A Team”) have experienced a turnover rate of 85 percent — much higher than any other administration in the past 40 years. The struggle to recruit and retain qualified…

       




co

Webinar: What role will the Army play in great power competition after COVID-19?

Two years after the National Defense Strategy was published, it’s time to take stock of where the Army stands. On an immediate level, the age of COVID-19 presents the Army with an unprecedented set of challenges. From ensuring high levels of readiness to keeping up recruitment, the pandemic has forced the Army to adapt quickly…

       




co

Trans-Atlantic Scorecard – April 2020

Welcome to the seventh edition of the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard, a quarterly evaluation of U.S.-European relations produced by Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE), as part of the Brookings – Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative. To produce the Scorecard, we poll Brookings scholars and other experts on the present state of U.S. relations…

       




co

Webinar: A conversation with Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper

The COVID-19 pandemic is among the most serious challenges confronting the globe since World War II. Its projected human and economic costs are devastating. While the armed forces of the United States will rise to this challenge as they have others, the Department of Defense will not stop planning for long-term threats to America's security,…

       




co

Trump’s politicization of US intelligence agencies could end in disaster

       




co

Webinar: Policing in the era of COVID-19

The consequences of the novel coronavirus pandemic stretch across the entirety of government services. Major police agencies have reported absentee rates as high as 20% due to officers who are either themselves afflicted with the virus or in need of self-quarantine. Reported crimes are generally down in America’s cities as a result of the many…

       




co

To save his Middle East legacy, Obama must recognize a Palestinian state now


Editors’ Note: To salvage his Middle East legacy, advance American interests in the Arab world, and align with the position of the international community on this conflict, Ibrahim Fraihat argues, President Obama must make the long overdue decision of recognizing a sovereign and independent Palestinian state before leaving office. This post originally appeared on Middle East Eye.

Driven by the search for his legacy in the Middle East, it seems President Barack Obama has decided to spend additional political capital on reviving Israeli-Palestinian talks before the end of his second term in office.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House is working on a renewed peace push, including a possible Security Council resolution or other initiatives such as “a presidential speech and a joint statement from the Middle East Quartet.”

While it is still unclear where President Obama is going with this renewed effort, he must understand that using the same old techniques of U.S. mediation will only exacerbate the crisis, consequently tarnishing his legacy in the Middle East. To salvage his Middle East legacy, advance American interests in the Arab world, and align with the position of the international community on this conflict, he must make the long overdue decision of recognizing a sovereign and independent Palestinian state before leaving office.

[U]sing the same old techniques of U.S. mediation will only exacerbate the crisis, consequently tarnishing [Obama's] legacy in the Middle East.

First, Obama should learn from the mistakes of his predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who also tried to reach a mutually acceptable agreement between the Palestinian and Israelis with only a few months left in office.

Reaching an agreement between the two parties under severe time pressure will not work. A party that is not interested in a peace agreement can easily maneuver by using delaying tactics until Obama’s term ends. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already utilized this strategy when he publicly rejected an invitation from Obama to visit the White House to talk peace because he wanted to “avoid any perceived influence” in the forthcoming U.S. presidential election. These remarks came from the same person who meddled in domestic American affairs by aggressively lobbying against Obama during the last U.S. presidential election.

Obama has already put in the effort by working with the parties, but now he needs to make decisions. Unlike many American presidents, Obama made the resolution of this conflict a top priority. Despite the brutal civil wars engulfing the Middle East region in the past five years, Obama demonstrated a firm commitment and allocated the needed political capital to make a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During his time in office, Secretary of State John Kerry spent more time on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations than any other international conflict. However, the outcome of the Obama administration’s intensive diplomatic efforts has been a total failure. These negotiations ended without an accord or even a memorandum of understanding, agreements that could have built on Obama’s legacy in the Middle East.

Nonetheless, Obama knows very well who made him fail. Netanyahu repeatedly defied Obama: In Congress, he refused to engage in serious negotiations that could have led to an agreement, and he publicly lobbied against Obama’s election for a second term. Obama should not expect Netanyahu to change his position and cooperate on any renewed efforts that could save Obama’s failed legacy in the Middle East. This is the same Netanyahu whom Obama increasingly grew frustrated with throughout his presidency.

With the remaining few months in office, the time has come for Obama to shape his legacy in the Middle East the way he wants it, not the way that Netanyahu has lobbied to characterize it. Obama has an opportunity to take his place in history as the first American president to officially recognize an independent Palestinian state.

Obama has an opportunity to take his place in history as the first American president to officially recognize an independent Palestinian state.

Sooner or later, there will be a Palestinian state and the United States will recognize it. Obama knows that very well. So why should he miss this opportunity and let another president recognize it in the future? Obama should worry about his own legacy, not Netanyahu’s extremist views. Obama should never allow Netanyahu to shape his legacy in the Middle East and leave it stained with failure.

Obama’s Middle East legacy is equally bleak in other parts of the region. Syria could become Obama’s Rwanda; Benghazi and the late Ambassador Chris Stevens are witnesses to his legacy in Libya; al-Qaeda in Yemen is much stronger today than when Obama intensified his drone policy against the organization; only history will tell how the Iran nuclear deal turns out in the future. Unfortunately, Obama cannot change the facts in any of these countries with the limited time remaining for him in office. However, he can still restore his legacy in the Middle East by recognizing a Palestinian state.

By recognizing a Palestinian state now, Obama will have seized an historical opportunity to impact the future and establish a foundation for the next American administration in the Middle East. No matter who comes to the White House, they will have to deal with this new fact. Obama has the international community on his side in recognizing Palestine. France recently stated that it will recognize an independent Palestinian state if a final effort to bring about peace fails. Additionally, Sweden has officially recognized Palestine.

American diplomats have a tradition of balancing their views after they leave office as they become free from the pressure of the Israel lobby and domestic politics. President Jimmy Carter is a one example of this.

Obama should not fall into this trap. No matter how he adjusts his views after leaving office, he will never save his legacy in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if he does not recognize a Palestinian state while he still has the power to do so. The time is now and he must act rather than regretting it later.

President Obama, if not for your legacy, at least recognize Palestine for the Nobel Peace Prize that you received in advance. The committee trusted you and awarded you the prize before you achieved any real peace; do not disappoint them. Make sure you earn the prize, Mr. President. If not for your legacy or the prestigious prize, then please do something for your own personal pride and be the one who laughs last, not Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr. President, recognize Palestine now.

Publication: Middle East Eye
     
 
 




co

Reviving the stalled reconstruction of Gaza


Event Information

April 19, 2016
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM AST

Al Diwan room
Intercontinental Doha
Intercontinental Doha, Al Isteqlal Road
Doha

The Brookings Doha Center (BDC) hosted a panel discussion on April 19, 2016, about the ongoing reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The panelists included Omar Shaban, director of Pal-Think, a research institution based in Gaza; and Naglaa Elhag, head of rehabilitation and international development at the Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS). Sultan Barakat, the BDC’s director of research, moderated the event, which was attended by members of Qatar’s diplomatic, academic, and media community.

Barakat opened by noting the slow progress of reconstruction in Gaza. Almost two years since the cessation of hostilities between Hamas and Israel, the rebuilding process has stalled for a number of reasons. First, the distribution of aid money pledged by donor countries during the October 2014 Cairo Conference has slowed. According to the World Bank, as of March 31, 2016, donor countries had dispersed only 40 percent of the pledged money. At the current rate, the fulfillment of all pledges will not occur until 2019, two years after the target date. Second, construction materials only enter Gaza from one border crossing. As a result of the sluggish rebuilding process, only 9 percent of totally damaged houses and 45 percent of partially damaged houses in Gaza have been repaired, leaving over 14,800 families internally displaced. Additionally, job opportunities promised by various construction projects have failed to materialize, leading to increased feelings of desperation and frustration among Gaza’s population.

Shaban expanded on these developments, expressing the notion that the people in Gaza feel neglected. Due to the high levels of frustration, he feels that a new round of hostilities between militants and Israel could happen at any moment. He explained further by highlighting the volatility of the area and mentioning how previous conflicts were easily ignited by an array of incidents: a kidnapping, a cross-border raid, an assassination, continuous rocket fire. Since frustration among Gazans continues to mount, arguably to its highest level, renewed conflict seems almost certain. Consequently, Shaban argued, fear of another round of conflict between Hamas and Israel has instilled a sentiment of donor fatigue. Donors do not want to see their support go to waste in another round of destruction, turning the delivery of assistance into an exercise of futility.

Shaban attributed this attitude among some donors to the lack of a political solution to the crisis in Gaza. Hamas, the de-facto governing authority in Gaza, does not work for the people, nor does the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in Ramallah. Neither body provides economic opportunities for Gazans, as those employed by either the PA or Hamas often do not receive their salaries. Reconciliation talks between both groups failed to establish a unity government. Egypt, Israel, and the United States would feel more comfortable negotiating with a unity government, presumably dominated by the PA, not Hamas, which each of the aforementioned countries designate as a terrorist organization. If the PA does reach an agreement with Hamas, Egypt has implied that it would open its border with Gaza at Rafah, as long as the PA stations a security presence at the crossing. This could enhance the slow trickle of construction materials into Gaza, allow for the increased export of commercial goods, and also enable Gazans to leave and return at a higher rate than currently permitted. According to Shaban, opening another access point for Gaza to the outside world would temporarily ease the burden faced by Gaza’s citizens, but the current crisis requires a solution to ameliorate the economic and political situation in the long term.

Elhag opened her remarks by reviewing the difficulties of implementing aid projects in Gaza. While working in Gaza for the QRCS, she noticed little progress from international agencies, as they do not address the main problems, typically taking short cuts, which she highlighted by stating, “We don’t treat the wounds, we cover it with a bandage.” To elaborate on this point she mentioned that lack of access in and out of Gaza and the Israeli naval blockade as two factors hindering reconstruction. Due to these restrictions, aid workers have difficulty entering Gaza. Elhag surmised that the lack of accountability on the part of international agencies and the Israelis and the fear of aid projects being destroyed again because of the political situation both contribute to the stalled reconstruction, producing grim realities in Gaza.

Furthermore, Elhag explained that a resolution to the Gaza crisis does not rest on the distribution of money. She believes that only solutions from both sides of the conflict will end the suffering in Gaza. To exemplify the frustrations felt by donors, Elhag noted that since 2008, QRCS invested $100 million in housing units and other aid projects in Gaza, but some of these projects were destroyed during the 2014 war. QRCS observed this and shifted their focus to securing food sources and enhancing the education and health sectors in Gaza.

At the conclusion of Elhag’s observations, Barakat asked the panel where the money donated for reconstruction goes and how the Gaza reconstruction mechanism (GRM) works. Shaban described how the money actually gets funneled through the PA’s ministry of finance in Ramallah, before it reaches Gaza. Hamas officials or members of Gaza’s civil society do not oversee any aspect of aid distribution. So from the start, the distribution of funds lacks transparency, as the PA gives the money to the U.N. office in Gaza, which administers the GRM. From there, the United Nations composes a list of people in Gaza that require construction materials. The Israeli administrative body in the ministry of defense, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat), must approve the names on the list. Construction materials can then be distributed through the GRM. Shaban concluded his explanation of the GRM by noting the many levels of bureaucracy involved have created a slow distribution process for a populace in desperate need.

From the regional perspective, some Arab states’ past political differences with Hamas has stymied political progress in Gaza, but the panel agreed that some of these relationships, especially with Saudi Arabia, are on the mend. The work of regional actors like Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey could help push a reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas. Shaban proposed allowing some Hamas members to take part in any future coalition government, as some of their relationships in Sinai could help Egypt secure the troubled region. Cooperation on security matters between Egypt and Hamas could inspire enough confidence in the Egyptians for them to open the Rafah crossing.

Ending the discussion, Barakat clarified the proposals of the panel by reiterating the need for donors to fulfill aid pledges. The GRM needs reform, especially through the inclusion of Gaza’s civil society in the reconstruction process. Finally, reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, as well as Egypt and Hamas, would help foster security cooperation at the borders.


Video

Transcript

Event Materials

      
 
 




co

How to revive the stalled reconstruction of Gaza


Two years after Hamas and Israel agreed to a cessation of hostilities, reconstruction in Gaza has been painfully slow. This was the focus of a panel discussion at the Brookings Doha Center on April 19. As Senior Fellow and Director of Research Sultan Barakat explained, rebuilding has stalled in part because the distribution of aid money pledged by donor countries during the October 2014 Cairo Conference has slowed; according to the World Bank, donor countries had dispersed only 40 percent of the pledged money as of the end of March. At this rate, the pledged funds will not be dispersed until 2019, two years after the target date.

Moreover, construction materials only enter Gaza through one border crossing and must be cleared by layers of bureaucracy. As Omar Shaban—director of Pal-Think, a research institution in Gaza—explained, money for Gaza reconstruction is funneled through the PA’s ministry of finance in Ramallah, which transfers it to the U.N. office in Gaza. The United Nations composes a list of people in Gaza that require construction materials, and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat)—an Israeli administrative body in the ministry of defense—must approve the names on the list. The U.N. then distributes construction materials. Shaban emphasized that the bureaucratic nature of this process has slowed reconstruction considerably, adding that the process isn’t transparent enough, since neither Hamas officials nor members of Gaza’s civil society oversee any aspect of aid distribution.

As a result of the sluggish rebuilding process, Barakat said, only 9 percent of totally damaged houses and 45 percent of partially damaged houses in Gaza have been repaired, leaving over 14,800 families internally displaced. Meanwhile, promised job opportunities in construction projects have failed to materialize, exacerbating feelings of desperation and frustration among Gaza’s population.

[T]he process isn’t transparent enough [said Shaban], since neither Hamas officials nor members of Gaza’s civil society oversee any aspect of aid distribution.

Shaban agreed that people in Gaza feel neglected. With high levels of frustration, he expressed fear that a new round of hostilities between militants and Israel could begin at any time. Previous conflicts were easily ignited—by a kidnapping, a cross-border raid, an assassination, or continuous rocket fire. Shaban argued that the volatility of the situation may be heightening fatigue among donors, who do not want to see their support go to waste in another round of destruction.

Naglaa Elhag, head of rehabilitation and international development at the Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS), discussed the difficulties of implementing aid projects in Gaza. She argued that international agencies do not always address the main problems and typically take shortcuts, saying of her own organization and others: “We don’t treat the wounds, we cover it with a bandage.” She highlighted various factors slowing reconstruction, including the lack of accountability on the part of international agencies, fears of renewed conflict, and the Palestinian political stalemate. Since 2008, according to Elhag, QRCS invested $100 million in housing units and other aid projects in Gaza, but some were destroyed during the 2014 war. As a result, QRCS shifted its focus away from physical reconstruction and towards food security, education, and health. 

A related problem is the Palestinian political stalemate. According to Shaban, neither Hamas (the de-facto governing authority in Gaza) nor the Palestinian Authority (PA, based in Ramallah) provides economic opportunities for Gazans, and those nominally on Palestinian government payrolls often do not receive their salaries. Reconciliation talks have failed to establish a unity government, making Egypt, Israel, and the United States reticent to negotiate. Egypt has indicated that if the PA does reach an agreement with Hamas, it would open its border with Gaza at Rafah (presuming the PA has a security presence there). This could increase the flow of construction materials into Gaza, allow for the increased export of commercial goods, and enable Gazans to come and go more frequently. But while opening another crossing for Gaza would temporarily ease the burden faced by the people there, Shaban stressed that a long-term political and economic solution is needed. Elhag, too, emphasized that a resolution to the Gaza crisis isn’t about the distribution of money—rather, she believes a joint Israeli-Palestinian solution is needed to end the suffering in Gaza. 

In the past, tensions between some Arab states and Hamas have also hampered progress in Gaza, but the panelists agreed that some of these relationships—especially with Saudi Arabia—are on the mend. Regional actors like Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey could help push a reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas, which would help improve the situation in Gaza. And as Barakat stressed in conclusion, there is an urgent need for donors to fulfill aid pledges and for the Gaza reconstruction mechanism to become more inclusive, so that Gazans themselves can more fully participate in rebuilding their neighborhoods. 

Authors

  • Fraus Masri
      
 
 




co

Local elections could help unlock Palestinian political paralysis


Last month’s decision by the Palestinian Authority to schedule municipal elections in early October hardly registered in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, much less here in Washington. In light of Hamas’ recent decision to take part in the process, however, those elections have suddenly taken on new meaning. While the election of some 414 village, town, and city councils across the West Bank and Gaza Strip will not change the face of the Palestinian leadership or alter the diplomatic impasse with Israel, local elections have the potential to unlock the current paralysis within Palestinian politics.

Although Palestinian law calls for local elections to take place every four years, they have only been held twice since the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1993, only one of which could be deemed genuinely competitive. The first and only local elections to take place in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip were held in 2004-05, in which Hamas—in its first foray into electoral politics—made major gains. Local elections were again held in 2012, although this time Hamas boycotted the process, preventing the vote from taking place in Gaza and allowing Fatah to declare a sweeping, if somewhat hollow, victory. 

Hamas’ decision to take part in this year’s local elections was therefore something of a surprise. Indeed, Hamas initially expressed dismay at the announcement, accusing the leadership in Ramallah of acting without consulting the other parties. Moreover, should the elections proceed as planned on October 8, they would be the first competitive electoral contest in the occupied territories since Hamas defeated Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction in the 2006 legislative election. Those elections triggered an international boycott of the PA which eventually led to the split between Fatah and Hamas and the current political paralysis.

If nothing else, Hamas’ entry into the elections averts another needless internal crisis in Palestinian politics. A boycott by Hamas would likely have further entrenched the political and geographic division between the Fatah-dominated West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, while dealing yet another blow to the beleaguered National Consensus Government, which despite being accepted by both factions in April 2014 has yet to physically return to Gaza. Movement on the reconciliation track could also help push the long-stalled reconstruction of Gaza, which has yet to recover from the devastating war of 2014.

Hamas has little to lose from participating in an election that is unlikely to significantly alter the political landscape one way or the other...[and Fatah] has little to gain from “winning” another electoral process that is largely uncontested.

What explains Hamas’ apparent change of heart? For one, Hamas may believe it has an advantage over Fatah, which continues to suffer from widespread perceptions of corruption and incompetence—a perception reinforced by the collapse of the peace process as well as the unprecedented unpopularity of President Abbas. Hamas may also view the upcoming vote as a way to gauge its current standing and future prospects in anticipation of long-awaited legislative and presidential elections. Either way, Hamas has little to lose from participating in an election that is unlikely to significantly alter the political landscape one way or the other. 

Hamas’ decision to participate in the elections is welcome news for Palestinian voters eager to see the return of competitive elections and a revival of political life after years of stagnation. It even helps Fatah, which has little to gain from “winning” another electoral process that is largely uncontested. More important, as the party that lost both parliamentary elections and a civil war in 2006-07 and that remains the chief proponent of a failed process, Fatah desperately needs a political victory of some kind as well as a basis on which to stake its claim to legitimacy and continued grip on power.

That said, it is important not to overstate the significance of local elections, which in the end will do nothing to address the deeper problems facing Palestinians in the occupied territories, whether from Israel’s continued occupation and its ever-expanding settlement enterprise or the ongoing political dysfunction within their own ranks. On the other hand, the prospect of the first competitive Palestinian elections in a decade represents a small but significant ripple in the otherwise stagnant waters of Palestinian politics.

Authors

      
 
 




co

Let workers decide who counts as ‘family’ for paid sick and family leave

This is the third blog post for the 2018 series on paid family leave jointly sponsored by AEI and Brookings. Aparna Mathur at AEI and Isabel Sawhill at the Brookings Institution are the co-directors of the AEI-Brookings Project on Paid Family Leave. The project includes a diverse group of individuals from different organizations with expertise on this…

       




co

New college endowment tax won’t help low-income students, here’s how it could

There is not very much to like about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. It delivers big benefits to the affluent, creates new loopholes and complexities, and will send the deficit soaring. One provision with some merit, however, is the introduction of a tax on the endowments of wealthy colleges. Of course, it has hardly gone down well within the Ivy League. But…

       




co

The middle class is becoming race-plural, just like the rest of America

For more than half a century, the term “the American middle-class,” has served as a political reference to white American upward mobility. This was less an artifact of particular calculations than one of historical experiences and demographic realities. Since at least the 1950s, Americans who were neither wealthy nor “disadvantaged” were, by default, middle class.…

       




co

State of biomedical innovation conference


Event Information

March 13, 2015
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Register for the Event

As policy agendas for 2015 come into sharper focus, much of the national conversation is aimed at tackling challenges in biomedical innovation. The first two months of the year alone have seen landmark proposals from Congress and the Obama Administration, including the House’s 21st Century Cures initiative, a bipartisan Senate working group focused on medical progress, President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative and a number of additional priorities being advanced by federal agencies and other stakeholders.

On March 13, the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform hosted the State of Biomedical Innovation Conference to provide an overview of emerging policy efforts and priorities related to improving the biomedical innovation process. Senior leaders from government, academia, industry, and patient advocacy shared their thoughts on the challenges facing medical product development and promising approaches to overcome them. The discussion also examined the data and analyses that provide the basis for new policies and track their ultimate success.

 Join the conversation by following @BrookingsMed or #biomed

Video

Audio

Transcript

Event Materials

      




co

Cost, value and patient outcomes: The growing need for payer engagement


Editor's note: This article appears in the April 2015 issue of Global Forum. Click here to view the full publication.

Since passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the last several years have seen a groundswell in physician payment and delivery reforms designed to achieve higher value health care through incentivizing higher quality care and lower overall costs. Accountable care models, for example, are achieving marked progress by realigning provider incentives toward greater risk-sharing and increased payments and shared savings with measured improvements in quality and cost containment. Medical homes are introducing greater care coordination and team-based care management, while the use of episode-based or bundled payments is removing perverse incentives that reward volume and intensity.

These reforms are coming just as the number of highly targeted, highly priced treatments continues to expand. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a decade-high 41 novel new drugs in 2014, many of them targeted therapies approved on the basis of increasingly sophisticated progress in genomics and the understanding of disease progression. In areas like oncology, such targeted treatments have grown as a percentage of global oncology market size from 11% in 2003 to 46% in 2013. New brand specialty drug spending in the U.S. is estimated to have been $7.5 billion in 2013, or 69% of total new drug spending. The growing prevalence of these drugs and their cost to the health system are setting the stage for significant flashpoints between industry, payers, and providers, seen most clearly in the debate over hepatitis C treatment costs that roiled stakeholder interactions for most of the past year. 

More of these targeted treatments are in the development pipeline, and a growing number of public policy efforts taking shape in 2015 are focused on accelerating their availability. The House of Representatives' 21st Century Cures Initiative, for example, has released a slew of legislative proposals aimed at promoting breakthrough innovation by increasing the efficiency of drug development and regulatory review. These efforts have significant downstream implications for the pace at which targeted and specialty therapies will become available, their associated costs, and the growing importance of demonstrating value in the postmarket setting.

As payers and providers continue their push toward increased value-based care, more innovative models for connecting such reforms to drug development are needed. Earlier collaboration with industry could enable more efficient identification of unmet need, opportunities to add value through drug development, and clearer input on the value proposition and evidentiary thresholds needed for coverage. Equally important will be unique public-private collaborations that invest in developing a better postmarket data infrastructure that can more effectively identify high value uses of new treatments and support achieving value through new payment reforms.

Stronger collaboration could also improve evidence development and the coverage determination process after a targeted  treatment has gained regulatory approval. Facilitated drug access programs like those proposed by the Medicare Administrative Contractor Palmetto GBA create access points for patients to receive targeted anti-cancer agents off-label while payers and industry gather important additional outcomes data in patient registries. More systematic and efficient use of policies like Medicare's Coverage with Evidence Development (CED), which allows for provisional coverage for promising technologies or treatments while evidence continues to be collected, could enable industry and payers to work together to learn about a medical product's performance in patient populations not typically represented in clinical studies. A CED-type model could be especially useful for certain specialty drugs: data collected as a condition of payment could help payers and providers develop evidence from actual practice to improve treatment algorithms, increase adherence, and improve outcomes. 

Finally, collaborations that support stronger postmarket data collection can also support novel drug payment models that further reward value. Bundled payments that include physician-administered drugs, for example, could encourage providers to increase quality while also incentivizing manufacturers to help promote evidence-based drug use and lower costs for uses that generate low value. Outcomes-based purchasing contracts that tie price paid to a medical product's performance could be another promising approach for high-expense treatment with clearly defined and feasibly measured outcomes.

Many of these ideas are not new, but as manufacturers, payers, providers, and patients move into an increasingly value-focused era of health care, it is clear that they must work together to find new ways to both promote development of promising new treatments while also making good on the promise of value-based health care reforms.

Authors

Publication: Global Forum Online
Image Source: © Mike Segar / Reuters
      




co

Incorporating continuing education into single-drug REMS: Exploring the challenges and opportunities

Event Information

May 18, 2015
9:00 AM - 4:15 PM EDT

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

The Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) program has become an important tool of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in ensuring that the benefits of a given medical product outweigh the associated risks, and has enabled FDA to approve a number of products that might not otherwise have been made available for patient use. Since the implementation of the REMS program, however, concerns have been raised regarding its impact on patient access to products and the associated burden on providers and health care systems. In an effort to address these concerns—and as part of its commitments under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act reauthorization of 2012—FDA has undertaken efforts to standardize and improve the effectiveness of REMS, and to better integrate REMS programs into the health system. As part of this broader initiative, the Agency is currently assessing the feasibility of integrating accredited continuing education (CE) programs and activities into REMS programs that have been developed for a single drug.

Under a cooperative agreement with the FDA, the Center for Health Policy held an expert workshop on May 18, titled “Incorporating Continuing Education into Single-Drug REMS: Exploring the Challenges and Opportunities”. This workshop provided an opportunity for pharmaceutical manufacturers, regulators, CE providers, accreditors, and other stakeholders to explore the ways that CE can be a valuable addition to the REMS toolkit, discuss potential barriers to the development and implementation of REMS-related CE for single products, and identify strategies for addressing those barriers.

Event Materials

      




co

Incorporating continuing education into single-drug REMS: Exploring the challenges and opportunities


The Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) program has become an important tool of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in ensuring that the benefits of a given medical product outweigh the associated risks, and has enabled FDA to approve a number of products that might not otherwise have been made available for patient use. Since the implementation of the REMS program, however, concerns have been raised regarding its impact on patient access to products and the associated burden on providers and health care systems. In an effort to address these concerns—and as part of its commitments under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act reauthorization of 2012—FDA has undertaken efforts to standardize and improve the effectiveness of REMS, and to better integrate REMS programs into the health system. As part of this broader initiative, the Agency is currently assessing the feasibility of integrating accredited continuing education (CE) programs and activities into REMS programs that have been developed for a single drug.

Under a cooperative agreement with the FDA, the Center for Health Policy held an expert workshop on May 18 titled, “Incorporating Continuing Education into Single-Drug REMS: Exploring the Challenges and Opportunities”. This workshop provided an opportunity for pharmaceutical manufacturers, regulators, CE providers, accreditors, and other stakeholders to explore the ways that CE can be a valuable addition to the REMS toolkit, discuss potential barriers to the development and implementation of REMS-related CE for single products, and identify strategies for addressing those barriers.

Downloads

Image Source: © Joshua Lott / Reuters
       




co

Risk evaluation and mitigation strategies (REMS): Building a framework for effective patient counseling on medication risks and benefits

Event Information

July 24, 2015
8:45 AM - 4:15 PM EDT

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Under the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007, the FDA has the authority to require pharmaceutical manufacturers to develop Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) for drugs or biologics that carry serious potential or known risks. Since that time, the REMS program has become an important tool in ensuring that riskier drugs are used safely, and it has allowed FDA to facilitate access to a host of drugs that may not otherwise have been approved. However, concerns have arisen regarding the effects of REMS programs on patient access to products, as well as the undue burden that the requirements place on the health care system. In response to these concerns, FDA has initiated reform efforts aimed at improving the standardization, assessment, and integration of REMS within the health care system. As part of this broader initiative, the agency is pursuing four priority projects, one of which focuses on improving provider-patient benefit-risk counseling for drugs that have a REMS attached.

Under a cooperative agreement with FDA, the Center for Health Policy at Brookings held an expert workshop on July 24 titled, “Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS): Building a Framework for Effective Patient Counseling on Medication Risks and Benefits”. This workshop was the first in a series of convening activities that will seek input from stakeholders across academia, industry, health systems, and patient advocacy groups, among others. Through these activities, Brookings and FDA will further develop and refine an evidence-based framework of best practices and principles that can be used to inform the development and effective use of REMS tools and processes.

Event Materials

       




co

Bioscience will accelerate East-West convergence in the century ahead


If current economic growth trends persist, the “great divergence” between Western Europe and East and South Asia in per capita income that commenced 200 years ago will close sometime this century. Key to the closing will be greater accessibility to technology, higher education in East and South Asia, and the relentless diffusion of knowledge including in the biosciences. Advances in the biosciences are poised to contribute in a major way to English economist Thomas Malthus’s four necessities of human life–food, fiber, fuel, and building materials–as well as to human and animal health, biodiversity conservation, and environmental remediation and sustainability.

As my coauthor Leo Furcht and I recently wrote in “Divergence, Convergence, and Innovation: East-West Bioscience in an Anxious Age”, 21st century history will describe the great economic and technological convergence between East and West. It will also further entwine the economic and ecological storylines of the human experience as the vast populations of China and India strive to enter the middle class. Environmentally sustainable economic growth will require putting knowledge of life code, cellular processes, biosynthesis, and biological regeneration to practical use. That prospect is at hand because the biosciences are in the midst of their own convergence–with information technology, nanotechnology, microelectronics, materials, artificial intelligence, robotics, architecture, and design.

From William Hoffman and Leo Furcht, "The Biologist’s Imagination: Innovation in the Biosciences" (Oxford University Press, 2014)

Biomolecules, brainpower, and Malthusian limits

Products arising from molecular biology constitute a growing share of the global economy with each passing year as technologies evolve, production processes improve, and markets expand. In recent years industrial biotechnology has grown faster than the biologic drugs and agricultural biotech sectors in the U.S.

 

U.S. biotech revenue in billions of U.S. dollars.
Source: Robert Carlson, "Nature Biotechnology", In press

Industrial biotechnology employs greener and cleaner technologies to make chemicals, solvents, fuels, and materials such as biocomposites and bioplastics. Growth in this sector can weaken the link between economic growth, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Genomics, synthetic biology and metabolic engineering are poised to accelerate growth in the design and manufacture of industrial enzymes and renewable bio-based products. East and South Asian production and consumption of industrial enzymes are on the rise as the Asian middle class expands.

Bioscience is enabling major cereal crops such as wheat, rice, and corn to adapt to a changing climate. Cereal crop yields need to grow by an estimated 70 percent by mid-century to feed the projected nine billion people expected to then inhabit our planet. The challenge of feeding nine billion people without further deforestation and environmental degradation has resurrected the specter of Malthusian limits to our planet’s ecological carrying capacity. These limits are expressed in food and water shortages, forced migrations, political instability, armed conflict, abatement and cleanup activities, and health care related to pollution and climate change. Even with the powerful tools of food crop bioscience–marker-assisted selection, targeted mutation-selection, genetic modification, and others–maintaining crop production levels at expected higher temperatures and with less water is highly questionable.

Precise genomic editing of cereal grains could equip rice, wheat, and corn with nitrogen fixation capabilities, thus reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers with their environmental and atmospheric costs. East and South Asia, facing major food production challenges, ecological limits, pollution from fertilizer use, and drought from climate change, may take the lead over the West in adopting innovative food crop technologies.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of human beings of many ethnicities have had their genomes decoded over the past decade, with the number expected to increase exponentially as sequencing technologies grow in productivity and decline in price. Genomic information coupled with precise genomic editing and bioregenerative tools give us unprecedented power to shape the course of evolution, including our own.

             

Cost trend of sequencing a human-sized genome and Moore’s Law 2001 – 2015.
Source: Kris A. Wetterstrand, DNA Sequencing Costs: Data from the NHGRI Genome Sequencing Program.

The practice of technological innovation in the industrial era – the systematic application of ideas, inventions and technology to markets, trade, and social systems–is now being joined with the code of life, DNA, and the basic unit of life, the cell. Even as the economic gap between East and West narrows, no other convergence has such profound implications for our future and the future health of living systems and ecosystems. That makes the task for policymakers a daunting one.

Authors

  • William Hoffman
Image Source: © Rebecca Cook / Reuters
       




co

Promoting continuous manufacturing in the pharmaceutical sector


Event Information

October 19, 2015
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM EDT

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Over the past decade, drug shortages and product recalls in the U.S. have occurred at unprecedented rates, limiting patient access to critical medicines and undermining health care. A majority of these shortages and recalls have been due to manufacturing quality issues. In response to these problems, and as part of its ongoing efforts to ensure a continuous supply of high-quality pharmaceuticals in the U.S., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is pursuing a range of strategies designed to improve the flexibility, reliability, and quality of pharmaceutical manufacturing. Among these strategies is the promotion of new manufacturing technologies, including continuous manufacturing. Continuous manufacturing offers several important advantages over current approaches to manufacturing and has the potential to significantly mitigate the risks of quality failures. At present, however, these technologies and processes are not widely used by the pharmaceutical industry, and there remain a number of barriers to their broader adoption. In collaboration with a range of stakeholders, FDA is currently exploring ways in which it can help to address these barriers and facilitate the uptake of new manufacturing technologies.

Under a cooperative agreement with FDA, the Center for Health Policy at Brookings held a workshop on October 19 entitled “Promoting Continuous Manufacturing in the Pharmaceutical Sector.” This workshop provided an opportunity for industry, academia, and government partners to identify the major barriers to the adoption of continuous manufacturing, discuss regulatory policies and strategies that could help to address those barriers, and explore approaches to improving public and private sector alignment and collaboration to promote the adoption of continuous manufacturing.

Event Materials

       




co

Facilitating biomarker development and qualification: Strategies for prioritization, data-sharing, and stakeholder collaboration


Event Information

October 27, 2015
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM EDT

Embassy Suites Convention Center
900 10th St NW
Washington, DC 20001

Strategies for facilitating biomarker development

The emerging field of precision medicine continues to offer hope for improving patient outcomes and accelerating the development of innovative and effective therapies that are tailored to the unique characteristics of each patient. To date, however, progress in the development of precision medicines has been limited due to a lack of reliable biomarkers for many diseases. Biomarkers include any defined characteristic—ranging from blood pressure to gene mutations—that can be used to measure normal biological processes, disease processes, or responses to an exposure or intervention. They can be extremely powerful tools for guiding decision-making in both drug development and clinical practice, but developing enough scientific evidence to support their use requires substantial time and resources, and there are many scientific, regulatory, and logistical challenges that impede progress in this area.

On October 27th, 2015, the Center for Health Policy at The Brookings Institution convened an expert workshop that included leaders from government, industry, academia, and patient advocacy groups to identify and discuss strategies for addressing these challenges. Discussion focused on several key areas: the development of a universal language for biomarker development, strategies for increasing clarity on the various pathways for biomarker development and regulatory acceptance, and approaches to improving collaboration and alignment among the various groups involved in biomarker development, including strategies for increasing data standardization and sharing. The workshop generated numerous policy recommendations for a more cohesive national plan of action to advance precision medicine.  


Event Materials

       




co

Beyond Consultation: Civil Society and the Governance of International Institutions


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In the face of unprecedented global challenges, effective global cooperation increasingly requires a partnership between state and non-state actors. Many international institutions now involve non-state actors in arenas that were once the exclusive province of states. The paper analyzes the evolution of civil society participation in the governance of international institutions and highlights the shift from a model based on consultation toward a model of multistakeholder governance. The paper argues that consultation is a less effective approach to involving civil society in achieving the mission of these institutions and suggests that more robust forms of multi-stakeholder participation by civil society can foster greater accountability and better deliberation. It analyzes competing claims about the desirability of including civil society in the governance of international institutions and suggests that an emerging constituency model can promote more effective multi-stakeholder governance. Constituency structures are already central features of several global health institutions and are now being contemplated by institutions in other sectors, including by the Education for All—Fast Track Initiative.

Multi-stakeholder approaches to governance are likely to become more widespread in the years to come in order to harness the contributions of a plethora of private actors engaged in responding to a wide range of global challenges. Even with enhanced cooperation between states, it is increasingly clear that non-state actors are essential to responding to key challenges across a wide range of sectors. Although it is possible to imagine expanded cooperation between state and non-state actors without opening up the governance structures of international institutions, it is less likely that these institutions will be successful in the longrun without a shift toward greater multi-stakeholder involvement in the institutions themselves.

Downloads

Authors

Image Source: © Reuters Photographer / Reuters
      
 
 




co

A Global Education Challenge: Harnessing Corporate Philanthropy to Educate the World's Poor


Despite the undeniable benefits of education to society, the educational needs, particularly in the world’s poorest countries, remain strikingly great. There are more than 67 million children not enrolled in primary school around the world, millions of children who are enrolled in school but not really learning, and too few young people are advancing to secondary school (van der Gaag and Adams 2010). Consider, for instance, the number of children unable to read a single word of connected text at the end of grade two: more than 90 percent in Mali, more than 50 percent in Uganda, and nearly 33 percent in Honduras (USAID n.d.).

With more young people of age 12 to 24 years today than ever before who are passing through the global education system and looking for opportunities for economic and civic participation, the education community is at a crossroads. Of the 1.5 billion young people in this age group, 1.3 billion live in developing countries (World Bank 2007). The global community set the goal of achieving universal primary education by 2015 and has failed to mobilize the resources necessary, as UNESCO estimates that $16.2 billion in external resources will be need to reach this goal.

Read the full report »

Read the executive summary »

Results from this report were presented at an April 6 Center on Universal Education event at the Brookings Institution.

Learn more about the launch event »

Downloads

Image Source: © Oswaldo Rivas / Reuters
      
 
 




co

Financing for a Fairer, More Prosperous Kenya: A Review of the Public Spending Challenges and Options for Selected Arid and Semi-Arid Counties


INTRODUCTION

In August, 2010 the government of Kenya adopted a new constitution. This followed a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Kenyans voted for change. The decisive impetus for reform came from the widespread violence and political crisis that followed the 2007 election. While claims of electoral fraud provided the immediate catalyst for violence, the deeper causes were to be found in the interaction of a highly centralized ‘winner-take-all’ political system with deep social disparities based in part on group identity (Hanson 2008).

Provisions for equity figure prominently in the new constitution. Backed by a bill of rights that opens the door to legal enforcement, citizenship rights have been strengthened in many areas,including access to basic services. ‘Equitable sharing’ has been introduced as a guiding principle for public spending. National and devolved governments are now constitutionally required to redress social disparities, target disadvantaged areas and provide affirmative action for marginalized groups.

Translating these provisions into tangible outcomes will not be straightforward. Equity is a principle that would be readily endorsed by most policymakers in Kenya and Kenya’s citizens have provided their own endorsement through the referendum. However, there is an ongoing debate over what the commitment to equity means in practice, as well as over the pace and direction of reform. Much of that debate has centered on the constitutional injunction requiring ‘equitable sharing’ in public spending.

On most measures of human development, Kenya registers average outcomes considerably above those for sub-Saharan Africa as a region. Yet the national average masks extreme disparities—and the benefits of increased prosperity have been unequally shared.

There are compelling grounds for a strengthened focus on equity in Kenya. In recent years, the country has maintained a respectable, if less than spectacular, record on economic growth. Social indicators are also on an upward trend. On most measures of human development, Kenya registers average outcomes considerably above those for sub-Saharan Africa as a region. Yet the national average masks extreme disparities—and the benefits of increased prosperity have been unequally shared. Some regions and social groups face levels of deprivation that rank alongside the worst in Africa. Moreover, the deep fault lines running through society are widely perceived as a source of injustice and potential political instability.

High levels of inequality in Kenya raise wider concerns. There has been a tendency in domestic debates to see ‘equitable sharing’ as a guiding principle for social justice, rather than as a condition for accelerated growth and enhanced economic efficiency. Yet international evidence strongly suggests that extreme inequality—especially in opportunities for education— is profoundly damaging for economic growth. It follows that redistributive public spending has the potential to support growth.

The current paper focuses on a group of 12 counties located in Kenya’s Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs). They are among the most disadvantaged in the country. Most are characterized by high levels of income poverty, chronic food insecurity and acute deprivation across a wide range of social indicators.

Nowhere is the deprivation starker than in education. The ASAL counties account for a disproportionately large share of Kenya’s out-of-school children, pointing to problems in access and school retention. Gender disparities in education are among the widest in the country. Learning outcomes for the small number of children who get through primary school are for the most part abysmal, even by the generally low national average standards.

Unequal public spending patterns have played no small part in creating the disparities that separate the ASAL counties from the rest of Kenya—and ‘equitable sharing’ could play a role in closing the gap. But what would a more equitable approach to public spending look like in practice?

This paper addresses that question. It looks in some detail at education for two reasons. First, good quality education is itself a powerful motor of enhanced equity. It has the potential to equip children and youth with the skills and competencies that they need to break out of cycles of poverty and to participate more fully in national prosperity. If Kenya is to embark on a more equitable pattern of development, there are strong grounds for prioritizing the creation of more equal opportunities in education. Second, the education sector illustrates many of the wider challenges and debates that Kenya’s policymakers will have to address as they seek to translate constitutional provisions into public spending strategies. In particular, it highlights the importance of weighting for indicators that reflect need in designing formulae for budget allocations.

Our broad conclusion is that, while Kenya clearly needs to avoid public spending reforms that jeopardize service delivery in wealthier counties, redistributive measures are justified on the grounds of efficiency and equity.

The paper is organized as follows. Part 1 provides an overview of the approach to equity enshrined in the constitution. While the spirit of the constitution is unequivocal, the letter is open to a vast array of interpretations. We briefly explore the implications of a range of approaches. Our broad conclusion is that, while Kenya clearly needs to avoid public spending reforms that jeopardize service delivery in wealthier counties, redistributive measures are justified on the grounds of efficiency and equity. Although this paper focuses principally on basic services, we caution against approaches that treat equity as a matter of social sector financing to the exclusion of growth-oriented productive investment.

Part 2 provides an analysis of some key indicators on poverty, health and nutrition. Drawing on household expenditure data, the report locates the 12 ASAL counties in the national league table for the incidence and depth of poverty. Data on health outcomes and access to basic services provide another indicator of the state of human development. While there are some marked variations across counties and indicators, most of the 12 counties register levels of deprivation in poverty and basic health far in excess of those found in other areas.

Part 3 shifts the focus to education. Over the past decade, Kenya has made considerable progress in improving access to basic education. Enrollment rates in primary education have increased sharply since the elimination of school fees in 2003. Transition rates to secondary school are also rising. The record on learning achievement is less impressive. While Kenya lacks a comprehensive national learning assessment, survey evidence points to systemic problems in education quality. In both access and learning, children in the ASAL counties—especially female children—are at a considerable disadvantage. After setting out the national picture, the paper explores the distinctive problems facing these counties.

In Part 4 we look beyond Kenya to wider international experience. Many countries have grappled with the challenge of reducing disparities between less-favored and more-favored regions. There are no blueprints on offer. However, there are some useful lessons and guidelines that may be of some relevance to the policy debate in Kenya. The experience of South Africa may be particularly instructive given the weight attached to equity in the post-apartheid constitution.

Part 5 of the paper explores a range of approaches to financial allocations. Converting constitutional principle into operational practice will require the development of formulae-based approaches. From an equitable financing perspective there is no perfect model. Any formula that is adopted will involve trade-offs between different goals. Policymakers have to determine what weight to attach to different dimensions of equity (for example, gender, income, education and health), the time frame for achieving stated policy goals, and whether to frame targets in terms of outcomes or inputs. These questions go beyond devolved financing. The Kenyan constitution is unequivocal in stipulating that the ‘equitable sharing’ provision applies to all public spending. We therefore undertake a series of formula-based exercises illustrating the allocation patterns that would emerge under different formulae, with specific reference to the 12 ASAL focus counties and to education.

Downloads

Authors

Image Source: © Thomas Mukoya / Reuters
      
 
 




co

Learning First: A Research Agenda for Improving Learning in Low-Income Countries


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Parents, educators, government ministers and policymakers in all contexts and countries around the world are concerned with learning and how to improve it. There are many reasons for this, but none is more important than the fact that learning is at the heart of success at the individual, community and global levels. Learning First is the title of this report, with the strong implication that learning should be the foremost goal of education policies worldwide.

The present review seeks not only to explain why this is the case but also focuses on what we need to know—that is, what research is needed—in order to improve learning in the decades to come, particularly among those children most in need. This question is addressed in the following six sections.

  1. Learning Goals and Research. The first section begins with a historical synopsis of international education goals put forward in 1990 at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien (Thailand), in 2000 at the Education for All conference in Dakar, and later in 2000 as a part of the UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015. In 2011, the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution published A Global Compact on Learning: Taking Action on Education in Developing Countries, which stated that there is a “global learning crisis—which affects children and youth who are out of school with limited learning opportunities and those who are in school but not learning the skills they need for their futures.” The present review of learning research in low-income countries follows from that report. The overall purpose is to explore the most pressing learning issues today that require further research attention in the years to come.
     
  2. Learning Definitions and Contexts. This section reviews how the field of education has defined learning over the years. Here, learning is defined as a modification of behavior due to experience—such as in knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. Three main principles of effective learning are suggested: individual active involvement, social participation, and meaningful engagement. As a way to emphasize the importance of learning contexts, three individual stories—Illa, a four-year-old Quechua-speaking girl in Peru; Pawan, an eight-year-old primary school student in urban India; and Rachida, a young illiterate woman in rural Morocco—are provided in order to better explain the importance of learning as a culturally specific phenomenon. These stories help to illustrate a more general learning framework, encompassing the relationship between two dimensions of learning—its processes and contexts. A discussion follows concerning the need to disaggregate learners and their learning contexts—between countries and within countries—as a way to overcome frequent and simplistic generalizations about how the “average” child learns.
     
  3. Global Change and the Contexts of Learning. This section considers the issue of global change on how learning and learning contexts are being transformed around the world. For example, researchers need to pay more attention to the impact of migration on children’s learning and on educational systems more broadly. In each instance of translocation, children confront the challenges of adapting to a new environment that may include different languages, dialects or cultures within the nonformal learning contexts of daily life. Similarly, in formal education contexts, student migrants have to cope with contrasts in culture, lifestyle and language of schooling, and demonstrate skills and achievement that may vary dramatically with their culture of origin. Other changes due to globalization include increased multilingualism in schools, growing overcrowding in classrooms, inability to keep up with teacher training, changes in intergenerational learning, and the growing importance of 21st-century skills. Based on these observations, it is suggested that learning contexts and needs should be understood as a shifting target.

Downloads

Authors

  • Daniel A. Wagner
  • Katie M. Murphy
  • Haley De Korne
Image Source: © Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters
      
 
 




co

What coronavirus teaches us about addressing climate change

On this episode, Andrea Risotto, the associate vice president of communications at Brookings, interviews William Burke-White and Todd Stern about the connection between the global coronavirus pandemic and the international response to climate change. Burke-White is the Richard Perry Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a visiting fellow in foreign policy at Brookings. Stern is…

       




co

What Americans think about President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic

In this special edition of the podcast, with Brookings Senior Fellows Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck discuss President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his administration's response, and public opinion on that response. Also, what effect will the crisis and response to it have on the election in November? Galston is the Ezra K. Zilkha…

       




co

How US military services are responding to the coronavirus and the pandemic’s impact on military readiness

On this special edition of the podcast, four U.S. military officers who are participating in the 2019-2020 class of Federal Executive Fellows at Brookings share their expert insights about the effects that the coronavirus pandemic is having on the readiness of their respective services, and how their services are responding to the crisis. http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/14065544 Brookings…

       




co

Technology competition between the US and a Global China

In this special edition of the Brookings Cafeteria Podcast, Lindsey Ford, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Foreign Policy, interviews two scholars on some of the key issues in the U.S.-China technology competition, which is the topic of the most recent release of papers in the Global China series. Tom Stefanick is a visiting fellow…

       




co

Addressing COVID-19 in resource-poor and fragile countries

Responding to the coronavirus as individuals, society, and governments is challenging enough in the United States and other developed countries with modern infrastructure and stable systems, but what happens when a pandemic strikes poor and unstable countries that have few hospitals, lack reliable electricity, water, and food supplies, don’t have refrigeration, and suffer from social…

       




co

Decoding declines in youth employment


Interpreting employment stats among young people can be tricky. No one expects employment rates among teens or people in their early 20s to reach those of prime-age workers. These are prime years for what economists call “investing in human capital,” an activity most people would describe as “going to school.”

Education requirements for good jobs are getting higher, so finishing high school and earning a post-secondary credential like two or four-year college degrees, apprenticeships, or certifications are top priorities. But early work experiences can allow young people to learn new skills, gain experience, and expand networks. Evidence suggests that it can improve employment prospects down the line. And the earlier that people are exposed to the workplace, the earlier they learn such skills as teamwork, communication, and dependability—skills that employers say are in short supply

The employment rate for teens fell from 43 percent in 2000 to 26 percent in 2014, and for young adults aged 20 to 24, it fell from 70 to 62 percent. These are big drops. In a new analysis, I take a deeper look at employment trends among young people. When employment rates are broken out by age and race/ethnicity, you see the same downward pattern, but also substantial variation among whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians.

Do these declines spell trouble? The answer is, it depends:  on how young people spend their time, what resources and support are available to them, and how the person making the judgement values academics and enrichment relative to employment.

Some argue that workplace experience provides key developmental opportunities that benefit all young people. Robert Halpern, for example, wryly notes that high school students are isolated from the adult world “at just the moment when [they] need to begin learning about participating in it.” 

Others say that employment matters more for some young people than others. For example, disadvantaged youth—those not on track to earn a post-secondary credential and without strong family or community  networks to help them find jobs—can particularly benefit from formal programs that connect them to the labor market. As Jeylan Mortimer concluded about “low academic promise” high school students (those with poor grades and low educational goals): “[H]aving a positive work experience can help to turn you around.  For those who have a lot of disadvantages, any positive experience is likely to have a greater impact than on people with a lot of advantages already.” Research on Career Academies, high schools that combine academics with career development, support this view. Career Academy students, disproportionately low-income, black, and Latino, posted significant earnings gains eight years after graduation, and young male graduates also had higher rates of marriage and custodial parenthood.

And some would say that it’s appropriate to prioritize education over employment, especially for teens, who are typically not responsible for supporting themselves and their families.

So what do the data tell us? Voluntarily dropping out of the labor force to concentrate on academics as a young person can pay off when people enter their prime working years, generally considered to be 25 to 54. Though education and work are not necessarily incompatible, employment rates are generally lower among students than among those not enrolled in school. Among teens and young adults, Asians have the lowest employment rates, but they also have the highest school enrollment rates. 92 percent of Asian 16- to 19-year-olds and 63 percent of Asian 20- to 24-year-olds are in school, compared to 80 percent and 38 percent among all races. It follows, then, that Asians have high levels of educational attainment. In fact, 50 percent of 23- to 24-year-old Asians have a Bachelor’s degree, double the average rate. Given the strong correlation between education and employment, it is not a coincidence that prime-age Asians have high employment rates and low unemployment rates. Their low employment rates as young people do not, on the whole, seem to lead to problems as adults. (Of course, this is not to downplay the diversity of the Asian population and to suggest that all Asians are doing well economically.)

On the other hand, blacks have the second lowest employment rates as teens and young adults, and the lowest rate as prime age workers. They also have the highest unemployment rates, showing an active desire to work. Among black teens in 2014, the unemployment rate was 38 percent, compared to 23 percent overall, and it was 22 percent among black young adults, compared to 13 percent overall. The trend continues into prime working years: blacks have an unemployment rate of 11.4 percent, nearly double the overall rate of 6.2 percent.  The low employment rate among young black people is not driven by school enrollment. Latinos have similar (below-average) enrollment levels but higher employment rates, and whites have much higher employment rates but only slightly higher enrollment levels. The weaker employment outcomes of blacks at all ages is probably related to multiple factors: relatively low levels of educational attainment, discrimination, and the neighborhood effects of living in concentrated poverty.

Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately represented among so-called “disconnected youth,” young people aged 16 to 24 who are neither working nor in school. 17 percent of black young adults aged 20 to 24 are disconnected, as are 13 percent of Latinos, 7 percent of whites, and 4 percent of Asians. Half of disconnected young adults have a high school credential and another 20 percent have taken some college courses, suggesting that getting these young people on a better path involves not only reducing the high school dropout rate, but also strengthening the transition from high school to post-secondary education and the labor market. 

In short, employment rates among young people tell different stories that often track by race and ethnicity. Some voluntarily withdraw from the labor market to focus on academics and extra-curricular activities, others would really like a job but can’t find one, and some—the most disadvantaged—are alienated from both school and the labor market.

Authors

Image Source: sruss
     
 
 




co

A growth strategy for the Israeli economy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Annual economic growth in Israel of 3.5% over the past decade has largely been the result of an increase in employment rates, while the growth rate in productivity has been very low. The rates of employment cannot continue to grow at this rate in the future due to the expected saturation in employment…