The biggest news at the end of the Brisbane G-20 on Sunday will be to confirm for the first time in an official G-20 communique that China will indeed chair the G-20 Summit in 2016. 

Coming on the heals of a momentous week of great power realignments and breakthroughs at the APEC Summit in Beijing and other one-on-one meetings of heads of state, the timing of China’s presidency of the G-20 Summit in 2016 could not be a better follow-up to this week’s accomplishments. It puts China in play as a global leader at a critical moment in geopolitical relations and in terms of several global agendas that will culminate in the next two years. It also provides an unusual opportunity for the U.S. and China to collaborate on a broader set of societal issues affecting everyone everywhere building on their agreements this week.

One of the reasons why the G-20 Summits have yet to realize their full potential is that the leaders-level summits have been captured by the finance ministers’ agendas and discourse. Leaders at G-20 Summits have individually and collectively failed to connect with their publics; ordinary citizens do not see their urgent issues being dealt with. Exchange rates, current account balances, reserve ratios for banks, and the role of the IMF do not resonate with public anxieties over their lives and livelihoods.

Three streams of global issues will culminate in 2015:  the forging of a “post-2015 agenda” on sustainable development with a new set of global goals to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); the agreement on  “financing for development” (FFD) arrangements and mechanisms to support the new post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be realized in 2030; and the achievement of a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by the end of 2015, which looks more promising now than it did a week ago.

What has been learned from previous global goal setting processes is that building on the momentum for the goal-setting process in 2015 and carrying it directly into the mobilization of national political commitment, resources and policies for implementation is vital. China as a member of the G-20 troika in 2015 through 2017 will be in crucial position of bridging the goal-setting and implementation phases of the new SDGs for 2030 to be adopted at the United Nations in September of next year.

China, as one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, will be in a pivotal position to create complementarities between the G-20 forum for the major economies and the U.N. as a forum for all countries for this critical period of setting the global sustainability agenda for the next fifteen years.  

The post-2015 agenda for social, economic and environmental sustainability is of high interest to the United States, and the new China-U.S. climate change agreement in Beijing this week augurs well for collaboration between the two countries on the broader agenda. White House Chief of Staff John Podesta was on the high-level panel for the post-2015 development agenda last year, which signals high U.S. policy involvement. The Shanghai Institute for International Studies has argued in a recent paper for the U.N. Development Program that “the G-20 and the U.N. could have certain complementary roles. The development issue could become the one linking the major work of both the U.N. and the G-20.”  

The world should welcome the unique role that China can now play in bringing the international community and the global system of international institutions together in charting a common path forward building on the progress made in the various summits this week. 

Editor's Note: The paper is part of a book entitled, “The G8-G20 Relationship in Global Governance.”

Future global growth faces many challenges. The first is securing economic recovery from the global financial crisis and reviving strong growth. The euro area has experienced a double-dip recession. Growth remains subdued in other advanced economies. Emerging economies (including the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, as well as other major emerging economies) had been the driver of global growth, accounting for almost two thirds of global growth since 2008, but in 2013 they too were experiencing slowing growth. The second challenge is sustaining growth. Many countries have large and rising public debt, and face unsustainable debt dynamics (International Monetary Fund [IMF] 2012). Environmental stresses put the longer-term sustainability of growth at risk. The third challenge is promoting balanced growth. Large external imbalances between countries — China's surplus and the U.S. deficit being the most notable — put global economic stability at risk and give rise to protectionist pressures. Unemployment has reached high levels in many countries, and there are concerns about a jobless recovery. And economic inequality within countries has been rising. More than two thirds of the world's people live in countries where income inequality has risen in the past few decades.

Thus, promoting strong, sustainable, and balanced growth is central objective of the Group of 20 (G20). A core component of the G20 is the Working Group on the Framework for Strong, Sustainable, and Balanced Growth. Yet G20 policy actions since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 have focused mainly on short-term crisis response. Economic stabilization is necessary and risks to stability in the global economy, especially those in the euro area, call for firm actions to restore confidence. However, short-term stabilization only buys time and will not produce robust growth unless accompanied by structural reforms and investments that boost productivity and open new sources of growth. To be sure, several G20 members have announced or are implementing structural reforms. But the approach to strengthening the foundations for growth, meeting the jobs challenge, and assuring the longer-term sustainability of growth remains partial and piecemeal. Some elements of an approach are present, but the unrealized potential for a coherent and coordinated strategy and effort is significant. The G20 needs to move beyond a predominately short-term crisis management role to focus more on the longer-term agenda for strong, sustainable, and balanced growth. 

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The tragic and deadly attacks in Paris, the day before leaders were set to arrive in Antalya, Turkey, for the G-20 summit, underlined the divisions that Syria, its fleeing population, and the terrorists of ISIS have created, as fear and short-term political calculations seem to shove aside policies aimed at sustainable solutions to the unprecedented refugee challenge.

It had started on a more hopeful note. Turkey, which chairs the G-20 this year, had placed the refugee issue on the agenda, hoping for a substantive global dialogue while looking for broad-based solutions to the crisis in Syria and the terrorism challenge. No doubt the 2 million refugees in Turkey played a big role, as President Erdogan and other officials tried to rally support for this unusual situation in a variety of G-20 and other venues.

Turkey was supported by another full member of the G-20, the EU, the only non-nation state member of the group, which shrugged off its complacency when hundreds of thousands turned up on its shores in 2015. European Council President Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, echoed the Turkish President in calling for a global response: “Meeting in Turkey in the midst of a refugee crisis in Syria and elsewhere, the G-20 must rise to the challenge and lead a coordinated and innovative response… recognizing its global nature and economic consequences and promote greater international solidarity in protecting refugees.”

The G-20 is an imposing group, consisting of the world’s 20 largest economies, accounting for 85 percent of its GDP, 76 percent of its trade, and two-thirds of its population. Established in 1999 and growing in reach since the 2008 financial crisis, it should be a body that carries weight beyond the economic, with effective mechanisms to have impact on the global agenda. Yet, while Syria and the refugee crisis was the first time the G-20 stepped outside its usual narrower economic mandate, the agenda was quickly overtaken.     

The tragedy in Paris highlighted deep divisions over the refugees. Poland’s new government was the first to announce that it would stop participating in the EU resettlement plan whereby it would have accepted 5,000 refugees. Politicians from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia as well as those with a nativist message from the Nordic countries, France, Germany, and others saw an opening for tighter border controls and a much less welcoming approach to the more than 800,000 refugees that have already made their way into Europe, not to mention the many more on the way. Such views linking refugees to terrorism are not restricted to Europe but can be seen on the other side of the Atlantic, as U.S. presidential candidates and some 27 State Governors declared that Syrian refugees were not welcome.

At this early date, except for a single Syria passport “holder”—a document easily acquired these days, and found near one of the suicide bombing sites in Paris—all those who died or are being sought as suspects are citizens of either France or Belgium. Clearly, there could be some who get into Europe by using the refugees as a cover but with literally thousands of Europeans fighting in Syria, the real threat emanates from the small number of home-grown extremists in Europe who have easy access to the West and a cultural and linguistic familiarity that will elude newcomers for years. This was the same scenario one saw in the Madrid, London, Copenhagen, and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris earlier this year. 

Fear is winning out over policy

The EU also appears in disarray on aiding the 4 million refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. This is significant since it is reduced funding and aid that is leading to the worsening of conditions in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and driving many to Europe. Turkey too is reaching its limits and may potentially face a million or more new refugees if Aleppo falls. Yet funds pledged to these countries remain largely unfulfilled—of the 2.3 billion euros pledged by EU governments, only 486 million are firm government offers. The discussions between the EU and Turkey for additional aid to refugees of 3 billion euros also remain less-than-certain since such aid requires that EU countries agree to receiving and distributing asylum-seekers from Turkey. It also underlines the lack of funding for Jordan and Lebanon.    

In the end, the G-20 yielded little by way of concrete actions on refugees, though additional border controls, enhanced airport security, and intelligence sharing were promised. There was a call for broader burden sharing and greater funding of humanitarian efforts, as well as a search for political solutions. The G-20 also added little to the broad outlines of a potential settlement on Syria discussed in Vienna, Austria, on November 14, 2015, a day before the start of the G-20 summit.

Unfortunately, these are the very things that separate G-20 members among and within themselves. The growing danger is that fear and political opportunism rather than well-thought-out polices will guide the global response to the greatest human displacement tragedy since World War II. It is precisely this fearful and exclusive reaction that ISIS seeks. Indeed, that legacy may live long after ISIS is gone.                           

Event Information

The context for aid is changing. Globalization has spurred economic convergence, upending the twentieth century economic balance and creating a smaller world where both problems and solutions spill across national borders more readily. This has given rise to a legion of new development actors, including emerging economies, NGOs, private businesses, and coordinating networks, who have brought fresh energy and resources to the field while rendering the prospect of genuine donor coordination ever more difficult. Global integration and competition for resources has raised the prominence of global public goods, whose equitable and sustainable provision requires international collective action. Meanwhile, poor countries are demanding a new form of partnership with the international community, built upon the principles of country ownership and mutual accountability.

From G-20 meetings and the upcoming High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Korea to unfolding events in the Middle East and North Africa, leadership from the United States is crucial, placing pressure on the Obama administration to deliver on its promise of far-reaching reforms to U.S. global development efforts. And amidst this shifting global landscape is the issue of effectively communicating the importance of global development cooperation to both a national and global public, at a time when budget pressures are being felt across many of the world’s major economies

At the eighth annual Brookings Blum Roundtable, co-chaired by Kemal Derviş and Richard C. Blum, 50 thought-leaders in international development came together to discuss a new role for global development cooperation, one that employs inclusive and innovative approaches for tackling contemporary development problems and that leverages the resources of a large field of actors.

Roundtable Agenda

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Welcome: 8:40 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Open Remarks
• Richard C. Blum, Blum Capital Partners, LP and Founder of the Blum Center for 
Developing Economies at Berkeley
• Mark Suzman, Global Development Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Kemal Derviş, Global Economy and Development, Brookings

Statement of Purpose, Scene Setter, Comments on the Agenda
• Homi Kharas, Brookings

Session I: 9:00AM - 10:30AM
Reframing Development Cooperation
In almost any discussion of international development, foreign aid takes center stage. But while 
aid can certainly be a catalyst for development, it does not work in isolation. Participants will 
discuss the key objectives of development cooperation, consider what measures of development 
cooperation are most valuable for recipients, and explore an effective balance of roles and 
responsibilities - including both public and private players - in today’s evolving development 
landscape.

Moderator
• Walter Isaacson, Aspen Institute

Introductory Remarks
• Owen Barder, Center for Global Development
• Donald Kaberuka, African Development Bank Group
• Ananya Roy, University of California, Berkeley
• Elizabeth Littlefield, Overseas Private Investment Corporation

Session II: 10:50AM - 12:20PM
The G-20's Development Agenda
Last year’s G-20 meeting in Seoul marked the first time the group formally took up the issue of development. There they announced the Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth and the Multi-Year Action Plan for Development: two far-reaching policies which are expected to guide the G20’s future agenda. What is the G-20’s comparative advantage vis-à-vis development, and how can the group’s development efforts be strengthened and supported?

Moderator
• Mark Suzman, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Introductory Remarks
• Alan Hirsch, The Presidency, South Africa
• Suman Bery, International Growth Centre
• Homi Kharas, Brookings

Dinner Program: 6:00PM - 9:00PM
A Conversation with Al Gore and Mary Robinson
Topic: "Energy Security and Climate Justice"

Moderator
• Kemal Derviş, Global Economy and Development, Brookings

Thursday, August 4, 2012 

Session III: 9:00AM - 10:30AM 
The Road to Buscan
In November, participants from over 150 countries, including ministers of developing and developed countries, heads of bilateral and multilateral development institutions, and civil society representatives, will take part in the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea. The forum is intended to take account of the development community’s progress in achieving greater impact through aid and to redefine the aid effectiveness agenda to adjust to a changing global landscape. What would constitute success or failure at Busan?

Moderator
• Raymond Offenheiser, Oxfam America

Introductory Remarks
• J. Brian Atwood, Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, 
Development Assistance Committee 
• Wonhyuk Lim, Korean Development Institute
• Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Bank 
• Steven Radelet, U.S. Agency for International Development 

Session IV: 10:50AM - 12:20PM 
Lessons from the Middle East on Governance and Aid
Popular protests across the Middle East against authoritarian regimes have prompted reflection 
on the role of aid to non-democratic and poorly governed countries. Some critics believe that aid 
should only be given to relatively well-governed countries where it is more likely to be effective, 
but for others, this amounts to collective punishment for the people who suffer under such 
governments. Do aid allocation models need to change and what role can the development 
community now play in supporting peaceful, democratic reform in the Middle East?

Moderator
• Madeleine K. Albright, Albright Stonebridge Group

Introductory Remarks
• Ragui Assaad, University of Minnesota
• Sheila Herrling, Millennium Challenge Corporation
• Tarik Yousef, Silatech

Lunch Program: 12:30PM - 2:00PM
A Conversation with Thomas R. Nides, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources

Moderator
• Richard C. Blum, Blum Capital Partners, LP and Founder of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at Berkeley

Session V: 9:00AM - 10:30AM
Implementing U.S. Development Reforms 
The end of 2010 saw the completion of two major policy reviews in Washington concerned with 
international development: the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development and the 
Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. Progress on implementation has been 
significant in many respects and meager in others. Additionally, despite directives to deliver on 
many valuable priorities for improvement, essential components of fundamental reform are still 
in need of address. Casting a shadow across the exercise, or alternatively serving as a spur to 
focus, the budget environment has soured.

Moderator
• Jim Kolbe, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Introductory Remarks
• Rajiv Shah, U.S. Agency for International Development
• Samina Ahmed, International Crisis Group
• Robert Mosbacher, Jr., Mosbacher Energy Company

Session VI: 10:50AM - 12:20PM
Communicating Development Cooperation
Public interest in and support for aid matter. Yet in many aid giving countries, there is 
widespread cynicism as to what end aid programs serve and ignorance as to what activities they 
actually involve. What are the best examples of development efforts which have been 
communicated successfully and what can we learn from this to shore up support for 
development cooperation now and in the future?

Moderator 
• Liz Schrayer, U.S. Global Leadership Coalition

Introductory Remarks 
• Steven Kull, Program on International Policy Attitudes
• Joshua Bolten, ONE
• S. Shankar Sastry, University of California, Berkeley
• Jack Leslie, Weber Shandwick

Closing Remarks: 12:20PM- 12:30PM
• Richard C. Blum, Blum Capital Partners, LP and Founder of the Blum Center for 
Developing Economies at Berkeley
• Kemal Derviş, Global Economy and Development, Brookings

Public Event: 4:00PM - 5:30PM
Brookings and the Aspen Institute present “Development as National Security?”: A Conversation with Rajiv Shah, U.S. Agency for International Development; Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Richard J. Danzig, Center for a New American Security; and Susan C. Schwab, University of Maryland.

Moderator
• Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Welcome and Introductions
• Kemal Derviş, Brookings

Hosts
• Richard C. Blum and Senator Dianne Feinstein

The mobile economy in China and India has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade. Mobile technology has the potential to shrink the broadband gap, improve financial inclusion, and support humanitarian efforts. A recent report from the Boston Consulting Group adds another interesting perspective into the existing conversation about the impact of mobile technologies. India appears poised to eschew building up its fixed broadband infrastructure and jump directly to mobile. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in India appeared poised to take advantage of this amazing change.

Mobile innovation lower costs and improve performance

Source: Boston Consulting Group

Maximum download speeds have risen greatly when comparing second generation networks with current fourth generation technology. 2G networks were capable of reaching 20 kilobits per second and 4G technologies can reach 250 megabits per second, which is about 12,000 times faster. At the same time the actual cost of network infrastructure per megabyte is falling dramatically: a 95 percent decrease from 2G to 3G and 67 percent decrease from 3G to 4G. Subsequently, the consumer cost of data per megabyte decreased sharply. From 2005 to 2013, the average cost of a mobile subscription relative to the maximum data speed dropped about 40 percent each year or 99 percent in an 8 year period. Higher speeds and lower costs make mobile a viable development platform for SMEs. In America this had led to the growth of the app economy. In India this effect is even more pronounced.

Widespread use of mobile technologies fuels the leap

In 2013 India reached 900 million mobile connections and became the second largest market in terms of mobile connections and unique subscribers. Indians spend 45 percent of their incomes on mobile technologies and platforms whereas Americans only spend 11 percent.

Source: World Bank Indicators

For the average Indian, mobile is the only point-of-entry to the Internet. Mobile devices are much more common than computers. The PC penetration rate in India of 5 percent stands in stark contrast to the 75 percent rate for mobile devices. Rates of fixed broadband Internet usage increased at a snails pace in India and at the same time mobile cellular subscriptions soared. More and more people in India are choosing to access Internet solely through mobile devices. Currently about 34 percent of people in India access the Internet exclusively from mobile devices. Flipkart an Indian e-commerce company predicts that 75 to 80 percent of their customer’s traffic will come on mobile platforms. The proliferation of mobile technologies in India provides incentives for SMEs to focus on developing mobile oriented business models.

Existing mobile focused SMEs lead the leap

SMEs in India place a greater emphasis on mobile platforms compared to companies in other countries. About 25 to 35 percent of surveyed SMEs in India are identified as mobile leaders, firms that use mobile productivity tools, operational tools (real-time job tracking or mobile data analytics) and sales and marketing tools. In developed countries such as Germany, only 14 percent of the surveyed SMEs are mobile leaders. Further, mobile oriented SMEs are thriving in India in a variety of fields. India’s largest E-commerce marketplace Flipkart Sidesteps has seen its traffic grow twice as face on mobile when compared with PC. Anti-violence apps such as FightBack and mobile health initiatives such as Swasthya Samvedana Sena are also experiencing great success.

India is in the midst of a mobile revolution that is categorically different than other parts of the world. Without existing complex legacy systems, businesses in India are now in the unique position to leapfrog terrestrial Internet technologies and reap the full benefits of a truly mobile economy.

Yikun Chi contributed to this post

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There is a lot of hope around the potential of Big Data—massive volumes of data (such as cell phone GPS signals, social media posts, online digital pictures and videos, and transaction records of online purchases) that are large and difficult to process with traditional database and software techniques—to help achieve the sustainable development goals. The United Nations even calls for using the ongoing Data Revolution –the explosion in quantity and diversity of Big Data—to make more and better data usable to inform development analysis, monitoring and policymaking: In fact, the United Nations believes that that “Data are the lifeblood of decision-making and the raw material for accountability. Without high-quality data providing the right information on the right things at the right time; designing, monitoring and evaluating effective policies becomes almost impossible.” The U.N. even held a “Data Innovation for Policy Makers” conference in Jakarta, Indonesia in November 2014 to promote use of Big Data in solving development challenges.

Big Data has already played a role in development: Early uses of it include the detection of influenza epidemics using search engine query data or the estimation of a country’s GDP by using satellite data on night lights. Work is also under way by the World Bank to use Big Data for transport planning in Brazil.

During the Data for Development session at the recent NetMob conference at MIT, we presented a paper in which we jump on the Big Data bandwagon. In the paper, we use mobile phone data to assess how the opening of a new toll highway in Dakar, Senegal is changing how people commute to work (human mobility) in this metropolitan area. The new toll road is one of the largest investments by the government of Senegal and expectations for its developmental impact are high. In particular, the new infrastructure is expected to increase the flow of goods and people into and out of Dakar, spur urban and rural development outside congested areas, and boost land valuation outside Dakar. Our study is a first step in helping policymakers and other stakeholders benchmark the impact of the toll road against many of these objectives.

Assessing how the impact of the new toll highway differs by area and how it changes over time can help policymakers benchmark the performance of their investment and better plan the development of urban areas.

The Dakar Diamniadio Toll Highway (in red in Figure 1), inaugurated on August 1, 2013 is the first section (32 km or 20 miles) of a broader project to connect the capital, Dakar, through a double three-lane highway to a new airport (Aeroport International Blaise Diagne, AIBD) and a special economic zone, the Dakar Integrated Special Economic Zone (DISEZ) and the rest of the country.

Note: The numbers indicate the incidence of increased inter cell mobility and were used to calculate the percentage increase in mobility.

The cost of this large project is estimated to be about $696 million (FCFA 380.2 billion or 22.7 percent of 2014 fiscal revenues, excluding grants) with the government of Senegal having already disbursed $353 million. The project is one of the first toll roads in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) structured as a public-private partnership (PPP) and includes multilateral partners such as the World Bank, the French Development Agency, and the African Development Bank.

In our study, we ask whether the new toll road led to an increase in human mobility and, if so, whether particular geographical areas experienced higher or lower mobility relative to others following its opening.

Using mobile phone usage data (Big Data), we use statistical analysis in our paper to approximate where people live and where they work. We then estimate how the reduction in travel time following the opening of the toll road changes the way they commute to work.

As illustrated in the map of Figure 1, we find some interesting trends:

• Human mobility in the metropolitan Dakar area increased on average by 1.34 percent after the opening of the Dakar Diamniadio Toll Highway. However, this increase masks important disparities across the different sub-areas of the Dakar metropolitan areas. Areas in blue in Figure 1 are those for which mobility increased after the opening of the new road toll while those in red experienced decreased mobility.
• In particular, the Parcelles Assainies suburban area benefited the most from the toll road with an increase in mobility of 26 percent. The Centre Ville (downtown) area experienced a decrease in mobility of about 20 percent.

These trends are important and would have been difficult to discover without Big Data. Now, though, researchers need to parse through the various reasons these trends might have occurred. For instance, the Parcelles Assainies area may have benefited the most because of its closer location to the toll road whereas the feeder roads in the downtown area may not have been able to absorb the increase in traffic from the toll road. Or people may have moved from the downtown area to less expensive areas in the suburbs now that the new toll road makes commuting faster.

From these preliminary results (our study is work in progress, and we will be improving its methodology), we are encouraged by the fact that our method and use of Big Data has three areas of application for a project such as this:

Benchmarking: Our method can be used to track how the impact of the Dakar Diamniadio Toll Highway changes over time and for different areas of the Dakar metropolitan areas. This process could be used to study other highways in the future and inform highway development overall.

Zooming in: Our analysis is a first step towards a more granular study of the different geographic areas within the Dakar suburban metropolitan area, and perhaps inspire similar studies around the continent. In particular, it would be useful to study the socio-economic context within each area to better appreciate the impact of new infrastructure on people’s lives. For instance, in order to move from estimates of human mobility (traffic) to measures of “accessibility,” it will be useful to complement the current analysis with an analysis of land use, a study of job accessibility, and other labor markets information for specific areas. Regarding accessibility, questions of interest include: Who lives in the areas most/least affected? What kind of jobs do they have access to? What type of infrastructure do they have access to? What is their income level? Answers to these questions can be obtained using satellite information for land prices, survey data (including through mobile phones) and data available from the authorities. Regarding urban planning, questions include: Is the toll diverting the traffic to other areas? What happens in those areas? Do they have the appropriate infrastructure to absorb the increase in traffic?

Zooming out: So far, our analysis is focused on the Dakar metropolitan area, and it would be useful to assess the impact of new infrastructure on mobility between the rest of the country and Dakar. For instance, the analysis can help assess whether the benefits of the toll road spill over to the rest of the country and even differentiate the impact of the toll road on the different regions of the country.

This experience tells us that there are major opportunities in converting Big Data into actionable information, but the impact of Big Data still remains limited. In our case, the use of mobile phone data helped generate timely and relatively inexpensive information on the impact of a large transport infrastructure on human mobility. On the other hand, it is clear that more analysis using socioeconomic data is needed to get to concrete and impactful policy actions. Thus, we think that making such information available to all stakeholders has the potential not only to guide policy action but also to spur it. 

References

Atkin, D. and D. Donaldson (2014). Who ’ s Getting Globalized ? The Size and Implications of Intranational Trade Costs . (February).

Clark, X., D. Dollar, and A. Micco (2004). Port efficiency, maritime transport costs, and bilateral trade. Journal of Development Economics 75(2), 417–450, December.

Donaldson, D. (2013). Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure. forthcoming, American Economic Review.

Fetzer Thiemo (2014) “Urban Road Construction and Human Commuting: Evidence from Dakar, Senegal.” Mimeo

Ji, Y. (2011). Understanding Human Mobility Patterns Through Mobile Phone Records : A cross-cultural Study.

Simini, F., M. C. Gonzalez, A. Maritan, and A.-L. Barab´asi (2012). A universal model for mobility and migration patterns. Nature 484(7392), 96–100, April.

Tinbergen, J. (1962). Shaping the World Economy; Suggestions for an International Economic Policy.

Yuan, Y. and M. Raubal (2013). Extracting dynamic urban mobility patterns from mobile phone data.

Event Information

Since the Rose Revolution in November 2003, Georgia has grappled with the many challenges of building a modern, Western-oriented state, including implementing political and economic reforms, fighting corruption, and throwing off the vestiges of the Soviet legacy. On the path toward a functioning and reliable democracy, Georgia has pursued these domestic changes in an often difficult international environment, as evidenced by the Russia-Georgia conflict in 2008.

On March 17, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) hosted President Mikheil Saakashvili to discuss Georgia’s approach to these challenges. A leader of Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution, Saakashvili was elected president of Georgia in January 2004 and reelected for a second term in January 2008.

Vice President Martin Indyk, director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, provided introductory remarks and Senior Fellow and CUSE Director Fiona Hill moderated the discussion. After the program, President Saakashvili took audience questions.

Video

• Georgia Is a Transformed Country
• Georgia Is a Valuable Asset to Europe
• The Key to Effective Change Is Youth

Audio

• From Popular Revolutions to Effective Reforms: The Georgian Experience

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20110317_saakashvili_transcript

Editor's Note: Launched at a December 5, 2011 event at Brookings, this study is based on a publication developed in 2005 by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement: Addressing Internal Displacement: A Framework for National Responsibility.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

It is a central tenet of international law that states bear the primary duty and responsibility to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of persons within their borders, including the internally displaced. While internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain entitled to the full protection of rights and freedoms available to the population in general, they face vulnerabilities that nondisplaced persons do not face. Therefore, in order to ensure that IDPs are not deprived of their human rights and are treated equally with respect to nondisplaced citizens, states are obligated to provide special measures of protection and assistance to IDPs that correspond to their particular vulnerabilities. Reflecting these key notions of international law, the rights of IDPs and obligations of states are set forth in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (hereafter, “the Guiding Principles”).

Using the Guiding Principles as a departure for analysis, this study examines government response to internal displacement in fifteen of the twenty countries most affected by internal displacement due to conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations: Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkey, Uganda and Yemen. The analysis seeks to shed light on how and to what extent, if any, governments are fulfilling their responsibility toward IDPs, with a view to providing guidance to governments in such efforts. In so doing, this study also seeks to contribute to research and understanding regarding realization of the emerging norm of the “Responsibility to Protect.” To frame the analysis, the introduction to this volume examines the connections among the concepts of national responsibility, “sovereignty as responsibility” and the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P).

The comparative analysis across the fifteen countries, presented in chapter 1, is based on a systematic application of the document Addressing Internal Displacement: A Framework for National Responsibility (hereafter, “Framework for National Responsibility,” “the Framework”). Seeking to distill the Guiding Principles, the Framework outlines twelve practical steps (“benchmarks”) that states can take to directly contribute to the prevention, mitigation and resolution of internal displacement:

1. Prevent displacement and minimize its adverse effects.
2. Raise national awareness of the problem.
3. Collect data on the number and conditions of IDPs.
4. Support training on the rights of IDPs.
5. Create a legal framework for upholding the rights of IDPs.
6. Develop a national policy on internal displacement.
7. Designate an institutional focal point on IDPs.
8. Support national human rights institutions to integrate internal displacement into their work.
9. Ensure the participation of IDPs in decision making.
10. Support durable solutions.
11. Allocate adequate resources to the problem.
12. Cooperate with the international community when national capacity is insufficient.

Event Information

On December 5, 2011, the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement held a private launch event for its report, From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National Approaches to Internal Displacement, which examines government response to internal displacement in fifteen of the twenty countries most affected by internal displacement due to conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations. The analysis presented in the report is based on the first ever systematic use as an assessment tool of the document, Addressing Internal Displacement: A Framework for National Responsibility, developed by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement in 2005 to provide guidance to governments in their response to internal displacement.

Roberta Cohen (nonresident senior fellow at Brookings and former co-director of the Project) moderated the event, which featured remarks from the co-authors of the report, Elizabeth Ferris (senior fellow at Brookings and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement), Erin Mooney (senior IDP and protection adviser at the United Nations and former deputy director of the Project) and Chareen Stark (senior research assistant, Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement). In attendance were representatives from the US Department of State and international NGOs, as well as researchers from think tanks and universities.

Cohen opened the event by discussing the background and significance of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. From the very beginning of discussions about internal displacement, there was an emphasis on the fundamental responsibility of national governments to protect and assist those displaced within their territory. And yet over the years there has been an awareness that international actors also have a role to play. She noted the positive strides that have occurred over the past twenty years in regards to government response to internal displacement. Country visits by the UN experts on IDPs—the Representatives of the Secretary-General on IDPs—have been instrumental to improving government response, in some instances leading governments to address internal displacement for the first time. Today, most governments understand their obligations and responsibilities to protect and assist IDPs; the challenge is often translating that understanding into concrete actions.

Elizabeth Ferris gave an overview of the Framework for National Responsibility, which was used to assess government response in each of the fifteen countries in the report (Afghanistan, The Central African Republic, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkey, Uganda and Yemen). The Framework outlines twelve minimum steps—or benchmarks—that governments can take to address the protection and assistance needs of internally displaced persons within their territory, from preventing displacement to appointing a focal point on IDP issues, to facilitating the work of the international community. She explained the methodology used in the study and described the challenges the authors faced in conducting the research. For example, basic data on various aspects of government response was lacking in many instances and it was often difficult to determine the impact of a particular government policy in addressing internal displacement. In addition to analyzing the response of the fifteen governments on each of the twelve benchmarks, the study included four extended case studies commissioned for this report: Afghanistan, Georgia, Kenya and Sri Lanka.  Ferris discussed some of the overall findings of the study, noted that the Framework had proven to be a useful assessment tool for examining national responses to displacement, and suggested a number of areas where further research is needed. 

Erin Mooney briefed the audience on benchmark seven—designating an institutional focal point on IDPs—and benchmark ten—supporting durable solutions for IDPs. Mooney noted that designating a governmental focal point for addressing internal displacement is important for clarifying institutional responsibilities and, therefore, for increasing governmental accountability.  Of the 15 countries assessed, all but one had designated a national institutional focal point for addressing internal displacement. She discussed some of the challenges institutional focal points often face, including a lack of funding and a lack of political clout which often challenge their ability to coordinate across government agencies. Benchmark ten, the achievement of durable solutions, was one of the most complex and politicized areas of government action, and is  arguably the one in which government commitment to addressing displacement becomes most apparent. Governments tend to emphasize return as the primary solution to displacement, but, in situations where return has occurred, there is usually little information about whether IDPs have in fact achieved a durable solution. Mooney discussed some of the challenges the fifteen governments faced in finding durable solutions, noting that in none of the countries have durable solutions to displacement been fully achieved.

Chareen Stark discussed the report’s findings on benchmark one—the prevention of arbitrary displacement—and the study’s overall recommendations. Given that the study assessed governments already experiencing large-scale displacement and, in most instances, multiple waves of displacement, Stark said it was obvious that all fifteen governments had failed to prevent displacement. There were three major limitations to governments’ ability to prevent displacement: many of the governments are themselves parties to conflict; many of the governments assessed do not exercise effective sovereignty over all of their territory, due to the presence of nonstate armed actors and/or foreign militaries; and all of the assessed countries face financial and human capacity limitations. She explained that the study found that nearly half of the countries assessed had developed some sort of preventive measures (at least on paper), including several governments that had taken measures to prevent displacement from natural disasters but not conflict. Stark discussed some of these laws, policies and institutional mechanisms as well as the challenges to their effective implementation. She also outlined the report’s recommendations to governments of countries with IDP populations, such as developing and implementing laws and policies in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and devoting adequate resources at the national and local levels.

Concluding the discussion, the panel responded to questions from the audience on issues such as incentives for governments to address internal displacement using the Framework for National Responsibility and challenges in data reporting and analysis.  Specific questions were also raised on benchmarks five (laws on internal displacement), six (policies on internal displacement), three (designating an institutional focal point for IDPs) and twelve (working with the international community).

Event Materials

• From Responsibility to Response Nov 2011doc

Editor's Note: This is the first part of a two piece series on internal displacement that originally appeared online in TerraNullius. The second part is available here.

The Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement recently released a study entitled "From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National Response to Internal Displacement." The study examined 15 out of the 20 countries with the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations—Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkey, Uganda and Yemen.

According to estimates, these 15 countries represent over 70 percent of the world’s 27.5 million conflict-induced IDPs. Wherever possible, we also tried to include government efforts to address internal displacement by natural disasters. But in this and the subsequent blog post, we will focus on our main general conclusions as well as particular issues around housing, land and property (HLP) rights that emerged from our analysis (see Part II of this posting).

The study looks at how governments have fared in terms of implementing 12 practical steps (“benchmarks”) to prevent and address internal displacement, as outlined in the 2005 Brookings publication entitled "Addressing Internal Displacement: A Framework for National Responsibility." The 12 benchmarks are as follows:

1. Prevent displacement and minimize its adverse effects.
2. Raise national awareness of the problem.
3. Collect data on the number and conditions of IDPs.
4. Support training on the rights of IDPs.
5. Create a legal framework for upholding the rights of IDPs.
6. Develop a national policy on internal displacement.
7. Designate an institutional focal point on IDPs.
8. Support national human rights institutions to integrate internal displacement into their work.
9. Ensure the participation of IDPs in decisionmaking.
10. Support durable solutions.
11. Allocate adequate resources to the problem.
12. Cooperate with the international community when national capacity is insufficient.

Stepping back from HLP issues (to be addressed in a subsequent set of comments in Part II of this guest posting), we drew several key observations on our overall findings.

The study found that political will was the main determining factor of response to internal displacement. Governments cannot always control the factors that cause displacement, or may themselves be responsible for displacement, but they can take measures to improve the lives and uphold the rights and freedoms of IDPs. Internal displacement due to con­flict derives from political issues, and all aspects of a government’s response to it therefore are affected by political considerations, including, for example, acknowledgment of displacement, registration and collection of data on IDPs, ensuring the participation of IDPs in decision-making, assistance and protection offered to different (temporal) caseloads of IDPs, support for durable solutions, which durable solutions are supported, and the facilitation of efforts by international organizations to provide protec­tion and assistance to IDPs.

While none of the governments surveyed was fully protecting and assisting IDPs, four stand out in particular—Colombia, Georgia, Kenya and Uganda—for implementing their responsibility toward IDPs while three others—Central African Republic, Myanmar and Yemen—had particular difficulties in fulfilling their responsibilities toward IDPs. In Myanmar, the obstacles were primarily political while in Yemen and the Central African Republic, as in many of the countries surveyed, the limitations appear to arise primarily from inadequate government capacity.

The other eight countries were somewhere in between. For example, some, such as Nepal, have demonstrated a significant commitment at one particular point in time but have failed to follow through. Others, such as Sri Lanka, have at times demonstrated blatant disregard for their responsibility and have moved swiftly to try to bring an end to displacement. Sudan, Pakistan, and to a certain extent, Turkey, have very problematic records with respect to preventing displacement in one part of the country yet have supported efforts to bring an end to displacement in others. In some cases, such as Afghanistan and Yemen, the continuing conflict and the role of nonstate actors (and in Afghanistan, the presence of foreign militaries as well) have made it difficult for the government to respond effectively to internal displacement.

Prevention of internal displacement is paramount, but is probably the most difficult measure to take and the least likely to be taken in the countries as­sessed, which all had large IDP populations. Given the scale of displacement in the fifteen countries surveyed, it was to be expected that these governments would not have been suc­cessful in preventing displacement. Nearly half of the fifteen countries assessed had adopted some preventive measures on paper, but all fifteen have fallen short of actually prevent­ing displacement in practice.

Moreover, many national authorities themselves have been or are perpetrators of violence or human rights abuses that have led to displacement, and many states foster a culture of impunity for alleged perpetrators of serious human rights violations. Further, the presence of foreign military forces and/or non-state armed actors limits the abil­ity of many states to exercise full sovereignty over their territory and therefore to prevent the conditions that drive people into displacement. Some countries have taken steps to prevent dis­placement due to natural disasters or develop­ment but not due to conflict, indicating that the former is perhaps less politically taboo and/or practically less difficult to implement than the latter.

Sustained political attention by the highest authorities is a necessary, though not suffi­cient, condition for taking responsibility for IDPs. Nearly all of the governments surveyed, at least at some point, have exercised their responsibility to IDPs by acknowledging the existence of internal displacement and their responsibility to address it as a national prior­ity, for example, by drawing attention to IDPs’ plight. However, government efforts to raise awareness of internal displacement through public statements was not always a useful indicator of a government’s commitment to upholding the fundamental human rights and freedoms of IDPs.

Among the five countries with laws on or related to internal displacement, there were notable limitations to the scope of the laws and gaps in implementing them. Legislation was quite comprehensive in scope in at least two cases and was narrow in others, address­ing specific rights of IDPs or a phase of dis­placement. Other countries lacked a national legislative framework on IDPs but had generic legislation relevant to IDPs. Still others had laws that violated or could violate the rights of IDPs. Laws on internal displacement must be viewed in the context of other legislation and administrative acts applicable to the general population (e.g., those related to documenta­tion, residency, housing, land and property, and personal status), which this study reviews to the extent possible, particularly in the case studies on Georgia, Kenya, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. In Africa, the region with the most IDPs, states have recognized in legally binding instruments the importance of addressing internal displace­ment by incorporating the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement into domestic legisla­tion and policy.

Many of the governments surveyed have adopted policies or action plans to respond to the needs of IDPs, but adequate implementa­tion and dissemination were largely lacking. Nine of the countries surveyed had developed a specific policy, strategy or plan on internal displacement, implemented to varying degrees; those in six of these countries were still active at the time of writing. In addition, at least two countries had national policies in draft form, and one country that does not recognize conflict-induced displacement had a plan for mitigating displacement by cyclones and a plan on disaster risk reduction, although it did not discuss displacement. While in some cases positive steps had been taken, by and large im­plementation of policies on internal displace­ment remains a challenge and has, in some cases, stalled. Available information indicates that efforts to raise awareness of IDP issues and policies have largely been inadequate.

It is difficult to assess governments’ com­mitment of financial resources to address internal displacement, but some trends were identified. Addressing internal displacement, especially over time, is a costly venture. While it was difficult to obtain a full picture of a coun­try’s expenditure on IDPs, several countries allocated funds to assist IDPs, including a few that had no national laws or policies on IDPs. In at least two countries, funds for assisting IDPs seemed to diminish in recent years. In many countries, difficulties arise at the district or municipal levels, where local authorities bear significant responsibility for addressing internal displacement but face many obstacles, including insufficient funds, to doing so. Allegations of corruption and misallocation of funds intended to benefit IDPs at certain points has been observed in some of the countries as­sessed. Some countries seem to rely on inter­national assistance to IDPs rather than national funds.

National human rights institutions (NHRIs) contribute invaluably to improving national responses to internal displacement in a number of countries. In recent years, an increasing number of NHRIs around the world have begun to integrate attention to internal displacement into their work. NHRIs have played an impor­tant role in raising awareness of internal dis­placement, monitoring displacement situations and returns, investigating individual complaints, advocating for and advising the government on the drafting of national policies to address inter­nal displacement, and monitoring and reporting on the implementation of national policies and legislation. In particular, the NHRIs of six of the countries surveyed stand out for their efforts to promote the rights of IDPs in their countries. Interestingly, almost all of their work with IDPs is funded by international sources, raising the question of whether national governments themselves should not be doing more to increase their funding of NHRIs in order to support their engagement with IDP issues.

International actors are valuable resources for efforts aiming to improve government response to IDPs. In many cases, the past Representatives of the UN Secretary-General (RSGs) mandated to study the issue of internal displacement (Francis Deng and his successor Walter Kälin) and the current UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (Chaloka Beyani) had exercised significant influence on governments in encouraging and supporting action on behalf of IDPs. Along with these actors, UNHCR and the Brookings Project on Internal Displacement have provided technical assis­tance to support governments’ efforts to de­velop national legal frameworks to ensure IDPs’ access to their rights.

Durable solutions: Return was the durable solution most often supported by the govern­ments assessed. The Framework for National Responsibility identifies three durable solu­tions—return, local integration and settlement elsewhere in the country. However, the fifteen countries surveyed herein reflect a global ten­dency to emphasize return, often excluding the other durable solutions. Yet for solutions to be voluntary, IDPs must be able to choose among them, and local integration or settlement else­where in the country may in fact be some IDPs’ preferred solution. Especially in situations of protracted displacement, those may be the only feasible solutions, at least in the near future.

The most difficult benchmarks to analyze were those whose underlying concepts are very broad and those for which data was seemingly not publicly available. Chief among these were the benchmarks on preventing internal displacement (Benchmark 1), raising national awareness (Benchmark 2), promoting the participation of IDPs in decisionmaking (Benchmark 9), and allocating adequate resources (Benchmark 11). Analysis on all other benchmarks also faced data constraints as in many cases data were outdated or incomplete or simply were not available. Nonetheless, we found that the twelve benchmarks all directed attention to important issues in governments’ responses to internal displacement.

We also found that while protection is central to the Framework, the issue is of such importance that there should be a benchmark explicitly focused on it—and specifically on protection as physical security, provided to IDPs during all phases of displacement. This benchmark would also underscore the responsibility of governments to protect the security of humanitarian workers engaged with IDPs.

Overall, the study found that the Framework for National Responsibility is a valuable tool for analyzing government efforts to prevent dis­placement, to respond to IDPs’ needs for protection and assistance and to support durable solutions. But this study also reveals certain limitations to using the Framework as an assessment tool, particularly in terms of accounting for the responsibility of nonstate actors; accounting for national responsibility for protection, particularly during displacement; and accounting for causes of displacement other than conflict, violence and human rights violations.

Editor's Note: This is the second part of a two piece series on internal displacement that originally appeared online in TerraNullius. The first part is available here.
 
This post continues our discussion of the study entitled "From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National Response to Internal Displacement" recently released by the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement.

Addressing housing, land, and property (HLP) issues is a key component of national responsibility. Principle 29 of the non-binding but widely accepted Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement emphasizes that competent authorities have a duty to assist IDPs to recover their property and possessions or, when recovery is not possible, to obtain appropriate compensation or another form of just reparation.

The 2005 Framework for National Responsibility – which set the benchmarks we applied in our current study – reaffirms this responsibility (in Benchmark 10, “support durable solutions”) and flags a number of the challenges that often arise, such as IDPs’ lack of formal title or other documentary evidence of land and property ownership; the destruction of any such records due to conflict or natural disaster; and discrimination against women in laws and customs regulating property ownership and inheritance. The Framework for National Responsibility stresses that, “Government authorities should anticipate these problems and address them in line with international human rights standards and in an equitable and non-discriminatory manner.”

The extent to which a government has safeguarded HLP rights, including by assisting IDPs to recover their housing, land, and property thus was among the indicators by which we evaluated the efforts of each of the 15 governments examined in our study. Our findings emphasized the importance of both an adequate legal and policy framework for addressing displacement related HLP issues and the role that bodies charged with adjudication and monitoring can play in ensuring implementation.

HLP Law and Policy Frameworks

One of the most encouraging signs of governments taking seriously their responsibility to address internal displacement has been the development, adoption and implementation in all regions of the world of specific laws and policies that respect the rights of IDPs. Some of the countries surveyed have developed laws, decrees, orders, and policies that protect IDPs’ HLP rights, but these measures are also not without their limits and challenges. A few examples are presented below.

In Colombia, while Law 387 on Internal Displacement (1997) stipulates the right of IDPs to compensation and restitution (Article 10), the government has been hard-pressed to establish measures enabling them to realize that right (see further, below). In Colombia, the constitutional complaint process – the acción de tutela petition procedure – has made the government accountable to IDPs and has influenced government policy toward IDPs, including the policy of allocation of government assistance such as housing subsidies.

In Georgia, the legal framework for IDP protection includes a property restitution law for IDPs from South Ossetia, adopted in 2007, which provided for the establishment of a Commission on Restitution and Compensation; however, this body never became operational and the status of the law is unclear following the August 2008 conflict. The State Strategy on IDPs, also adopted in 2007, protects IDPs against “arbitrary/illegitimate eviction” and sets out a large-scale program for improving the living conditions of IDPs in their place of displacement, all the while reaffirming their right to property restitution.[1]

Displaced families whose homes were destroyed or damaged during the August 2008 received $15,000 from the government to rebuild their homes, although many IDPs have held off reconstruction efforts due to concerns about insecurity. The RSG on IDPs recommended in 2009 the established of a comprehensive mechanism for resolving HLP claims for both the South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts. In addition, in 2010, Georgia adopted procedures for vacating and reallocating IDP housing, which, among other things, addresses those cases in which removal of IDPs from a collective center is ordered by the government and may require an eviction, and spells out safeguards for guaranteeing the right of IDPs.[2]

Iraq’s 2005 Constitution protects Iraqis against forced displacement (Article 44(2)). Through its Property Claims Commission, formerly the Commission on the Resolution of Real Property Disputes established by Order No. 2 (2006), Iraq has sought to recover property seized between 1968 and 2003, although significant gaps and challenges remain. For those internally displaced between 2006 and 2008, Prime Ministerial Order 101 (2008) sets out a framework for providing property restitution for registered IDPs with a view to encouraging and facilitating their return to Baghdad governorate, the origin of the majority of post-2006 IDPs and the location of the majority of post-2006 returnees. However, there have been few claims; many IDPs lack the necessary documentation, do not trust government institutions, fear retribution or cannot afford the requisite costs.[3]

In Afghanistan, where national authorities have not yet defined “internally displaced persons,” property and land rights of IDPs are either specifically addressed or generally implicated in substantive and procedural provisions found in a series of executive acts that have been issued since 2001, including the most IDP-specific of them, Presidential Decree No. 104 on Land Distribution for Settlement to Eligible Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons (2005). This decree sets forth a basic framework for distributing government land to both IDPs and returnees as a means of addressing their housing needs. However, IDPs seeking access to land are required to provide their national identity cards (tazkera) and documentation proving their internal displacement status—documentation which they may have lost. Moreover, the decree does not recognize other fundamental rights or needs of the internally displaced; it is valid only in areas of origin; and its implementation has been marred by inefficiency and corruption within the very weak ministry that is tasked with its implementation.

Although the 2006 peace agreement in Nepal  included a commitment to return occupied land and property and to allow for the return of displaced persons, four years after the peace agreement (and three years after the adoption of a national policy), between 50,000 and 70,000 people remained displaced.  Nearly half of the returnees interviewed by the Nepal IDP Working Group reported serious land, housing and property problems.  Of the more than 10,000 claims for compensation for property filed in 2007 only 2,000 families had received support to reconstruct or repair their houses by 2009.  It is widely reported that IDPs with non-Maoist political affiliations have been the least likely to recover land and property.

In Turkey, the government has yet to take full responsibility for displacement caused by its security forces against a largely Kurdish population. In its Law 5233 on Compensation of Damages That Occurred Due to Terror and the Fight against Terror (27 July 2004) and its Return to Village and Rehabilitation Program, displacement is defined in terms of “terrorism” or the “fight” against it. This law does not specifically focus on internal displacement, but it does benefit IDPs among other affected populations. Law 5233 and its related amendments and regulations compensate for “material damages suffered by persons due to terrorist acts or activities undertaken during the fight against terror” between 1987 and 2004. Compensation is provided for three types of damage: loss of property; physical injuries, disabilities, medical treatment, death and funerals; and inability to access property due to measures taken during “the fight against terrorism.”

According to the law, compensation is to be determined by damage assessment commissions (DACs) at the provincial level, with funding provided by the Ministry of the Interior. From 2004 to August 2009, the commissions received just over 360,000 applications. Of those, over 190,000 claims were decided: 120,000 were approved and the claimants awarded compensation; the remaining 70,000 were denied. Around $1.4 billion in compensation was awarded, of which close to $1.1 billion has been paid.[4] The existing legal and policy framework do not adequately address the obstacles to return, including the village guard system, insecurity and the presence of landmines and unexploded ordnance.

In Kenya, the government’s promotion of return included a National Humanitarian Emergency Fund for Mitigation and Resettlement of Victims of 2007 Post-Election Violence which was to meet the full costs of resettlement of IDPs, including reconstruction of basic housing, replacement of household effects and rehabilitation of infrastructure. But in practice, the government has been criticized for promoting return before conditions were safe. The government has also tended to focus on IDPs who own land and to attach durable solutions to land; there is no clear strategy for dealing with landless IDPs, such as squatters and non-farmers.

Awareness among IDPs as to their housing, land, and property rights under existing law – where there is law addressing those rights – is inadequate in many instances. For example, in Turkey, about half of IDPs surveyed in 2006 were not aware of their entitlements under the Return to Village and Rehabilitation Program or the Law on Compensation. [5]

National Human Rights Institutions and Constitutional Courts

In some cases, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and constitutional courts have a critically important role to play in supporting as well as in holding governments accountable to guarantee the rights of IDPs. In a number of the countries our study examined, the work of NHRIs on internal displacement has included a focus on HLP issues.

In Georgia, for example, the Public Defender has been actively monitoring and reporting on the country-wide housing program begun in 2009 and has raised concerns about evictions of IDPs and the quality of housing in relocation sites. The Public Defender’s office also has undertaken a study on the conditions of the hidden majority of IDPs living in private accommodation rather than in collective centers.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has reported on and raised concerns about the large number of IDPs living in urban slums and informal settlements and about the fact that many IDPs were unable to return to their homes due to disputes over land and property.

Constitutional courts have in some instances played a role in strengthening the national legal framework for protecting the property rights of IDPs. Notably, Colombia’s activist Constitutional Court, in its Decision T-821 in October 2007, ordered the government to ensure respect for IDPs’ right to reparation and property restitution. In January 2009, the Constitutional Court ordered the government to comprehensively address land rights issues and to establish mechanisms to prevent future violations.

Subsequently, the government has sought to ensure these rights by adopting in 2011 the historic and ambitious Law 1448, known as the Victims and Land Restitution Law. In this law, government acknowledges for the first time ever the existence of an internal armed conflict in Colombia, and recognizes as “victims” those individuals or communities whose rights were violated under international humanitarian law or international human rights law. The law regulates reparations for all victims of the armed conflict since 1985 – numbering over 5 million – including through land restitution or compensation for IDPs which is to occur over the next decade.

However, restitution of land does not guarantee returnees’ security and may even endanger people given that land disputes and seizures remain a driving force of displacement. Aiming to prevent further victimization of returnees as a result of insecurity and violence, the government established a new security body, the Integrated Center of Intelligence for Land Restitution (Centro Integrado de Inteligencia para la Restitución de Tierras, also known as CI2-RT) within the Ministry of Defense. Additional participants include the Office of the Vice President, the Ministry of Justice and Interior, the Department of Administrative Security (DAS), Social Action (Acción Social), Incoder, and organizations representing victims of violence. Time will tell how successful the implementation of this ambitious law will be.

In Georgia, the Constitutional Court has also played an important role by recognizing the rights of IDPs to purchase property without losing their IDP status or in any way jeopardizing their right to return.

Conclusion

Securing HLP rights for IDPs is, of course, a key component of finding durable solutions to displacement. The study found that land and property disputes are almost always sources or manifestations of lingering conflict and often an obstacle to IDPs’ free exercise of their right to return.  While some governments have made efforts to provide mechanisms for property restitution or compensation, those mechanisms have rarely been adequate to deal—at least in a timely manner—with the scale and complexity of the problem. National human rights institutions and constitutional courts can play a key role in holding governments accountable for HLP and other rights and freedoms of IDPs.

[1] Government of Georgia, State Strategy for Internally Displaced Persons–Persecuted Persons, Chapter V.

[2] The Standard Operating Procedures for Vacation and Reallocation of IDPs for Durable Housing Solutions (2010) (www.mra.gov.ge)

[3] IDMC, Iraq: Little New Displacement but around 2.8 Million Iraqis Remain Internally Displaced: A Profile of the Internal Displacement Situation, 4 March, 2010, p. 240 (www.internal-displacement.org)

[4] IDMC, Turkey: Need for Continued Improvement in Response to Protracted Displacement: A Profile of the Internal Displacement Situation, 26 October 2009, p. 12, citing correspondence with the government of Turkey, 17 September 2009 (www.internal-displacement.org)

[5] Hacettepe University, Institute of Population Studies, "Findings of the Turkey Migration and Internally Displaced Population Survey," press release, 6 December 2006, cited in IDMC, Turkey: Need for Continued Improvement in Response to Protracted Displacement: A Profile of the Internal Displacement Situation, 26 October 2009, p. 11 (www.internal-displacement.org)

Event Information

With a U.S. Administration still popular across Europe and a new Lisbon Treaty designed to enhance the diplomatic reach of the European Union, transatlantic relations should now be at their best in years. But this is clearly not the case, with the strategic partners often looking in opposite directions. While the United States channels its foreign policy attention on the war in Afghanistan, counterterrorism and nuclear non-proliferation, Europe is turning inward. Despite its ambitions, the European Union has yet to achieve the great global role to which it aspires, or to be the global partner that Washington seeks. Moreover, the Greek financial crisis has raised questions about the very survival of the European project.

On June 2, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings and the Heinrich Böll Foundation hosted experts and top officials from both sides of the Atlantic for the 2010 CUSE Annual Conference. Panelists explored critical issues shaping the future of transatlantic relations in the post-Lisbon Treaty era, including Europe’s Eastern neighborhood and the role Russia plays, and the impact of the Eurozone crisis.

After each panel, participants took audience questions.

Audio

• From the Lisbon Treaty to the Eurozone Crisis: A New Beginning or the Unraveling of Europe?
• From the Lisbon Treaty to the Eurozone Crisis: A New Beginning or the Unraveling of Europe?
• From the Lisbon Treaty to the Eurozone Crisis: A New Beginning or the Unraveling of Europe?

Transcript

• Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20100602_eurozone

Editor's Note: This blog post is part of The Primaries Project series, where veteran political journalists Jill Lawrence and Walter Shapiro, along with scholars in Governance Studies and the Campaign Finance Institute, examine the congressional primaries and ask what they reveal about the future of each political party and the future of American politics.

A great deal of attention has been paid to the existence of independent expenditure groups and to the billionaires who fund them. The Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, right wing billionaires in politics, and Tom Steyer, the newest left wing billionaire in politics, seem to have had nearly as much ink spilled on them as have the candidates and causes they endorse.  And no wonder. Americans are fascinated and worried about the question Darrell West poses in the second chapter of his new book Billionaires, “Can rich dudes buy an election?”

Tracking the sources and amounts of money in post Citizens United elections is a full time and complex job. Our hats go off to the Campaign Finance Institute who has recently completed the most extensive study ever of the role of independent expenditures in primary elections. Michael Malbin, Founding Director of the Center and author of the upcoming report on this year’s primaries, shows us just how big these groups, often funded by billionaires, have gotten.  In research focusing on independent spending in the 2014 congressional primaries, Malbin points out that in the 15 House races with the most independent expenditure money ($500,000 +) these expenditures counted for 76% as much as the candidates own campaign money. In Senate races, the independent expenditures accounted for 44% as much as the candidates own money.  Even the candidates themselves are worried about this trend since it often seems that outside groups can swamp a candidate’s own message.

Malbin also shows us why it is so hard to figure out what’s going on in an individual election. Only 49 of the 281 organizations that were around in the 2012 cycle spending money on behalf of congressional primary candidates were also around in 2014. That means that there were 232 new and different groups playing in 2014, posing challenges for the journalists and academics trying to track them.

The Campaign Finance Institute, however, has data on all these organizations from 2012 and 2014.  They have categorized them by ideology and, as the following chart shows, there are some interesting developments. For instance, while conservative independent expenditure groups remain the biggest spenders in the 2014 congressional primaries, their overall proportion of independent expenditures is down from 2012.  That year, conservative groups spent $40.5 million, nearly three quarters of total independent expenditures, compared to $9.3 million or 17 percent of total expenditures for Democrats.  In 2014, conservative groups upped their spending to $56.8 million, but their overall share of independent expenditures fell to 68% as liberal groups doubled their spending and increased their percentage of the total to 23%.

Even more surprising is the change in spending patterns within the Republican Party. As the following table shows, this really was the year when the establishment fought back. In 2012 anti-establishment spending by independent expenditure groups in congressional primaries constituted 59% of all such expenditures while spending by independent expenditure groups on behalf of establishment Republicans was only 36% of the total.  In two years, those numbers flipped.  In 2014, with control of the Senate at stake, the establishment mobilized independent expenditure groups which spent 55% of all the money spent by such groups while the anti-establishment groups spent only 37%.

There’s something for everyone in these findings. For the Democrats who have been on the defensive for much of this year but who have gotten through a primary season with few internal divisions, the increase in spending on their behalf and the sense that they will be able to run a good ground game in the key states where it really counts is a plus.

For the Republicans, the heavy spending by establishment groups has paid off in that they haven’t let weak candidates slip into the general election contest. They are probably as strong as they can be going into the fall campaign.

Nonetheless, tracking the money in this new election environment is a complex and full time job. And Darrell West’s question still hangs over us—“Can rich dudes buy an election?”

We have received many emails and calls in response to our blog last week about our campaign finance reform “Solutions Summit," so we thought we would share some pictures and quotes from the event. Also, Issue One’s Nick Penniman and I just co-authored an op-ed highlighting the themes of the event, which you can find here.

Ann Ravel, Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission and the outgoing Chairwoman kicked us off as our luncheon speaker. She noted that, “campaign finance issues [will] only be addressed when there is a scandal. The truth is, that campaign finance today is a scandal.”

(L-R, Ann Ravel, Trevor Potter, Peter Schweizer, Timothy Roemer)

Commenting on Ann’s remarks from a conservative perspective, Peter Schweizer, the President of the Government Accountability Institute, noted that, “increasingly today the problem is more one of extortion, that the challenge not so much from businesses that are trying to influence politicians, although that certainly happens, but that businesses feel and are targeted by politicians in the search for cash.” That’s Trevor Potter, who introduced Ann, to Peter’s left.

Kicking off the first panel, a deep dive into the elements of the campaign finance crisis, was Tim Roemer, former Ambassador to India (2009-2011), Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, (D-IN, 1991-2003) Member of the 9/11 Commission and Senior Strategic Advisor to Issue One. He explained that “This is not a red state problem. It’s not a blue state problem. Across the heartland, across America, the Left, the Right, the Democrats, the Republicans, Independents, we all need to work together to fix this.”

(L-R, Fred Wertheimer, John Bonifaz, Dan Wolf, Roger Katz, Allen Loughry, Cheri Beasley, Norman Eisen)

Our second panel addressed solutions at the federal and state level.  Here, Fred Wertheimer, the founder and President of Democracy 21 is saying that, “We are going to have major scandals again and we are going to have opportunities for major reforms. With this corrupt campaign finance system it is only a matter of time before the scandals really break out. The American people are clearly ready for a change. The largest national reform movement in decades now exists and it’s growing rapidly.”

Our third and final panel explained why the time for reform is now. John Sarbanes, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-MD) argued that fixes are in political reach. He explains, “If we can build on the way people feel about [what] they’re passionate on and lead them that way to this need for reform, then we’re going to build the kind of broad, deep coalition that will achieve success ultimately.”

(L-R in each photo, John Sarbanes, Claudine Schneider, Zephyr Teachout)

Reinforcing John’s remarks, Claudine Schneider, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (R-RI, 1981-1991) pointed out that “we need to keep pounding the media with letters to the editor, with editorial press conferences, with broad spectrum of media strategies where we can get the attention of the masses. Because once the masses rise up, I believe that’s when were really going to get the change, from the bottom up and the top down.”

Grace Abiera contributed to this post.

In his state of the union and his budget, the President spoke of the stagnation of middle class incomes. Whatever growth we have had has not been broadly shared.  More than 78% of the growth in GDP between 1979 and 2013 has gone to the top one percent. Even Republicans are beginning to worry about this issue although they have yet to develop concrete proposals to address it.

Slow Growth in Incomes

Middle class incomes were growing slowly before the recession and have actually declined over the past decade.   In addition, according to the New York Times, the proportion of the population with incomes between $35,000 and $100,000 in inflation-adjusted terms fell from 53% in 1967 to 43% in 2013.  During the first four decades this was primarily because more people were moving into higher income groups, but more recently it was because they have moved down the ladder, not up.  One can define the middle class in many different ways or torture the data in various ways, but there is plenty of evidence that we have a problem.

What to Do

The most promising approach is what I call “the second earner solution.”  For many decades now, the labor force participation rate of prime age men has been falling while that of women has been rising.  The entry of so many women into the labor force was the major force propelling whatever growth in middle class incomes occurred up until about 2000. That growth in women’s work has now levelled off.  Getting it back on an upward track would do more than any policy I can think of to help the middle class.

Imagine a household with one earner making the average wage of today’s worker and spending full-time in the job market.  That household will have an income of around $34,000. But if he (or she) has a spouse making a similar amount, the household’s income will double to $68,000. That is why the President’s focus on a second-earner credit of $500, a tripling of the child care tax credit, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, and providing paid leave are so important. These policies are all pro-work and research shows they would increase employment.

No Marriage = No Second Earner

One problem, of course, is that fewer and fewer households contain two potential workers.  So it would also help to bring back marriage or at least its first cousin, a stable cohabiting relationship.  My ideas on this front are spelled out in my new book, Generation Unbound. In a nutshell, we need to empower women to not have children before they have found a committed partner with whom to raise children in a stable, two-parent family. Whatever the other benefits of two parents, they have twice as much time and potentially twice as much income.    

Other Needed Responses

Shouldn’t we also worry about the wages or the employment of men?  Of course.  But an increase in, say, the minimum wage or a better collective bargaining environment or more job training will have far smaller effects than “the second earner solution.”  In addition, the decline in male employment is related to still more difficult problems such as high rates of incarceration and the failure of men to take advantage of postsecondary education as much as women have. 

Still the two-earner solution should not be pursued in isolation. In the short-term, a stronger recovery from the recession is needed and in the longer-term, more effective investments in education, research, infrastructure, and in labor market institutions that produce more widely-shared growth, as argued by the Commission on Inclusive Prosperity. But do we really expect families to wait for these long-term policies to pay off?  It could be decades. 

In the meantime, the President’s proposals to make work more appealing to existing or potential second earners deserves more attention.  

Each year millions of low- to moderate-income Americans supplement their income by claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) during tax season. Last year, 1 in 5 taxpayers claimed the credit and earned an average of nearly $2,400.

This tax season, some of those eligible for the EITC may also be able to claim, for the first time, a new credit created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to offset the cost of purchasing health insurance for lower-income Americans. It’s called the ACA premium tax credit.

To qualify for the ACA premium tax credit, filers need first to have an annual income that falls between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line (between $11,670 and $46,680 for a single-person household in 2014). Beyond the income requirements, however, filers must also be ineligible for other public or private insurance options like Medicaid or an employer-provided plan.

Why the tax credit overlap matters

Identifying the Americans eligible for both credits is important because it sheds light on how many still need help paying for health insurance even after the ACA extended coverage options.

In a recent study of the EITC-eligible population, Elizabeth Kneebone, Jane R. Williams, and Natalie Holmes estimated what share of EITC-eligible filers might also qualify for the ACA premium tax credit this year.

Below, see a list of the top 10 states with the largest overlap between filers eligible for the EITC and those estimated to qualify for the ACA premium tax credit.* Notably, none of these states has expanded Medicaid coverage to low-income families after the passage of the ACA.

Nationally, an estimated 7.5 million people (4.2 million “tax units”) are likely eligible for both the ACA premium tax credit and the EITC. Nearly 1.3 million of those tax units are from the following ten states.

1. Florida

Overlap: 22.5 percent / 405,924 tax units
State-based exchange? No Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

2. Texas

Overlap: 21.4 percent / 513,061 tax units
State-based exchange? No Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

3. South Dakota

Overlap: 20.5 percent / 15,124 tax units
State-based exchange? No Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

4. Georgia

Overlap: 19.8 percent / 186,020 tax units
State-based exchange? No Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

5. Louisiana

Overlap: 19.6 percent / 86,512 tax units
State-based exchange? No Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

6. Idaho

Overlap: 19.3 percent / 28,855 tax units
State-based exchange? Yes Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

7. Montana

Overlap: 18.9 percent / 18,138 tax units
State-based exchange? No Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

8. Wyoming

Overlap: 18.4 percent / 7,276 tax units
State-based exchange? No Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

9. Utah

Overlap: 18.1 percent / 42,284
State-based exchange? No (Utah runs a small businesses marketplace, but it relies on the federal government for an individual marketplace) Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

10. Oklahoma

Overlap: 18.0% / 63,045 tax units
State-based exchange? No Expanded Medicaid coverage? No

* For the purposes of this list, we measured the overlap in “tax units,” not people. One tax unit equals a single tax return. If a family of four together qualifies for the ACA premium tax credit, they would be counted as one tax unit, not four, since they filed jointly with one tax return.

Executive Summary

Census 2000 confirms that despite scant population growth in the 1990s, Kansas City remains at the core of a robust regional economy.

Population in Kansas City has changed little over the last two decades, and the city has dropped from 27th largest in the U.S. to 36th largest. Most neighborhoods in the city and its close-in suburbs failed to grow or actually lost population in the 1990s. Meanwhile, population boomed in the rest of the metro area, growing by a third since 1980. Today, only a quarter of the region's residents resides in Kansas City. Only a doubling of the city's immigrant population in the last decade forestalled greater population decline.

And yet, despite the stagnation of their city's population, residents' economic condition remained healthy. A high proportion of adults in Kansas City work, and employment is diversified among several industries. The city has a strong middle class, with gains in both moderate-income and high-income households in the 1990s. Real median income grew during the decade. Compared to other Living Cities, Kansas City's poverty rates remain low, its homeownership rates remain high, and its rental housing remains affordable. Still, significant income and educational attainment gaps by race and ethnicity point to opportunities to build a stronger minority middle class in Kansas City in the coming decade.

Along these lines and others, then, Kansas City in Focus: A Profile from Census 2000 concludes that:

• Kansas City lies at the heart of a rapidly decentralizing region. Kansas City's population grew nominally (1.5 percent) in the 1990s, after declining in the 1980s. The city itself was divided, however, with most neighborhoods in the southern half stagnating or losing population, and most in the northern reaches of the city gaining. Elsewhere in the metro area, population boomed by 16 percent in the 1990s. Outer parts of Johnson County (KS) and Jackson County (MO) grew rapidly, as did population in all suburban counties. Only one in four metropolitan residents lives in Kansas City today.

• The city's population is growing more diverse. Like most Midwestern cities, Kansas City's population remains predominantly white and black. The city lost white population in the 1990s, but gained residents of other races and ethnicities. International immigrants have contributed to the changing profile of the city and region. The number of foreign-born living in Kansas City more than doubled in the 1990s, and more than twice as many settled in the suburbs over the same period. What is more, the city's immigrant population itself is quite diverse; Mexico is the most common country of birth, but half come from countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa.

• Some parts of the urban core are attracting new residents, but others contain aging populations. With a little over 37,000 members, the 25- to 29-year-old population represents Kansas City's largest age group. These younger residents help account for the city's relatively small household size, and the significant degree of household turnover in neighborhoods around the downtown and northern parts of the city. Many neighborhoods in the city and inner suburbs, meanwhile, house significant shares of elderly residents. The growing representation of seniors is also reflected in the city's two largest household categories, childless couples and people living alone. Reversing a decline in the number of younger married-couple families in the city could be critical to maintaining neighborhood vitality and fiscal stability.

• Increasing educational attainment and high levels of work contribute to the economic success of most Kansas City residents. Unlike the trend in many other U.S. cities, Kansas City's income distribution actually "evened out" in the 1990s. Median household income in Kansas City grew at about the national average, and the poverty rate declined. The healthy economic profile of city residents owes to several factors. While unemployment has risen since Census 2000 was conducted, Kansas City's rate remains below the average for large cities. Likewise, high school and college degree attainment among city workers rank above national averages. Workers are also employed in a diverse set of industries throughout the region. Yet racial differences cut against these trends. As elsewhere, blacks and Hispanics in Kansas City significantly lag whites on educational attainment, and those gaps contribute to large disparities in household incomes by race and ethnicity.

• Kansas City is a "homeowner city," but some groups are not sharing in the benefits. Among the 23 Living Cities, Kansas City ranks fifth on its homeownership rate, which rose to 58 percent in 2000. The homeownership gap between whites and minority groups widened in the 1990s, however. The black homeownership rate in Kansas City did not increase at all over the decade, and the rate for Hispanics fell. Rents remain relatively affordable, however, and Kansas City ranks last among the 23 Living Cities in the share of renters who face housing cost burdens. While affordability may dissuade some renters from moving into homeownership, it may also present a chance for the city's families to save for ownership opportunities.

By presenting the indicators on the following pages, Kansas City in Focus: A Profile from Census 2000 is intended to give readers a better sense of where Kansas City and its residents stand in relation to their peers, and how the 1990s shaped the city, its neighborhoods, and the entire Kansas City region. Living Cities and the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy hope that this information will prompt a fruitful dialogue among city and community leaders about the direction Kansas City should take in the coming decade.

Kansas City Data Book Series 1
Kansas City Data Book Series 2

For more than a decade, government assistance to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan (the so-called AIP countries) has dominated United States aid efforts. And as the examples below illustrate, American institutions and mindsets found it extraordinarily difficult to adjust to aid in unsafe places. Cameron Munter draws on his experience as the head of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Mosul, Iraq in 2006 and as ambassador of the United States to Pakistan in Islamabad in 2011, with a description of U.S. reconstruction and state-building from which we may find lessons to consider in the future.

In 2006, when he went to Mosul as the first leader of the first PRT, the American civilian and military authorities in Baghdad painfully learned that the post-conflict situation would not correct itself. The undergrowth of our own bureaucratic structure prevented us from gaining a sophisticated understanding of our surroundings. Members of the PRT came and left after a few months, without passing on their hard-obtained knowledge. Local authorities quickly realized that the PRT had neither the money nor the firepower of the brigade commanders. And most of all, the guiding principles in place were still the creation of a kind of constitutional framework where political leaders, police, courts, businesspeople, and citizens would have institutions familiar to Americans, institutions that would work as we knew how to make them work.

Munter arrived in Pakistan at a time of great hope for U.S.-Pakistani relations. In 2011, in a series of meetings with the U.S. deputy secretary of state for resources and the head of USAID, Kerry-Lugar-Berman priorities took center stage: education, energy efficiency, job creation, special projects in the tribal areas, and public health. It is one thing to define a task and quite another to apply it to the specific context of a country in which security considerations prevent most USAID workers from even laying eyes on their projects. Overall, it seems the United States was much better at measuring its commitment to a prosperous, democratic Pakistan at peace with its neighbors by counting how much it spent and how fast rather than creating the proper relationship with those on the ground with whom it might have partnered.

Under these circumstances, what are lessons learned? When security is shaky, assistance is difficult. It may be that in situations like the AIP countries, we only have the capacity to engage in humanitarian aid and immediate reconstruction. If that is so, then the whole question of engagement in dangerous places is reopened: In a military setting, with military tasks, and thus a military system of organization, can civilian assistance succeed? Money spent is the way we measure commitment in such a setting, and that doesn’t bring the results we need.

Downloads

• Imagining assistance: Tales from the American aid experience in Iraq in 2006 and Pakistan in 2011

Indian and Israeli relations are getting even friendlier: Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Israel in January, and the trip is widely thought to precede higher level visits, including by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (he’d be the first Indian head of government to visit Israel). Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both also indicated that they plan to travel to India “soon.”

The foreign minister’s visit was part of the ongoing Indian effort not just to broaden and deepen India’s relationship with Israel, but also to make it more public. But the trip—not just to Israel, but to what the Indian government now routinely calls the state of Palestine—also highlighted the Modi government’s attempt to de-hyphenate India’s relations with the Israelis and Palestinians. 

What is the state of India’s relationship with Israel, the Modi government’s approach toward it, and this de-hyphenated approach? 

A blossoming friendship

Since India normalized relations with Israel in 1992, the partnership has developed steadily. The countries have a close defense, homeland security, and intelligence relationship—one that the two governments do not talk much about publicly. Shared concerns about terrorism have proven to be a key driver; so have commercial interests (including Israel’s quest for additional markets and India’s desire to diversify its defense suppliers, get access to better technology, and co-develop and co-produce equipment). India has become Israeli defense companies’ largest customer. Israel, in turn, has shot up on India’s list of suppliers. 

In the early 1990s, Israel—like the United States—did not really figure on India’s list of defense suppliers. However, between 2005 and 2014, it accounted for 7 percent (in dollar terms) of military equipment deliveries—the third highest after Russia and the United States. As Indian President Pranab Mukherjee recently noted, Israel has crucially come through for India at times “when India needed them the most” (i.e. during crises or when other sources have not been available, for example, due to sanctions). The president referred to the assistance given during the Kargil crisis in 1999 in particular, but there has also been less publicly-acknowledged help in the past, including during India’s 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. 

Beyond the defense and security relationship, cooperation in the agricultural sector—water management, research and development, sharing of best practices—might have the most on-the-ground impact, including in terms of building constituencies for Israel at the state level in India. Israeli ambassadors have indeed been nurturing this constituency and reaching out to the chief ministers of Indian states for a number of years. (Incidentally, India, for its part, has felt that the closer relationship with Israel has created a constituency for it in the United States.)

Economic ties have also grown: The two countries are negotiating a free trade agreement, and have been trying to encourage greater investments from the other. The success of Indian and Israeli information technology companies has particularly led to interest in collaboration in that sector. 

The governments have also been trying to increase people-to-people interaction through educational exchanges and tourism, with some success. Israeli tourism officials have highlighted the 13 percent increase in arrivals from India over the last year. And tourist arrivals to India from Israel have doubled over the last 15 years, including thousands of Israelis visiting after their compulsory military service. 

Let’s go public

The India-Israel relationship has developed under Indian governments of different stripes. It was normalized by a Congress party-led government and progressed considerably during the United Progressive Alliance coalition government led by the party between 2004 and 2014. However, while some ministers and senior military officials exchanged visits during that decade, there were not that many high-visibility visits—especially from India to Israel, with the foreign minister only visiting once. A planned 2006 trip by then Defense Minister Mukherjee was reportedly cancelled because of Israeli military operations in Gaza and then the Lebanon war. The last Israeli prime minister to visit India was Ariel Sharon in 2003, and no defense minister had ever visited despite those ties. 

The Israeli ambassador has talked about the relationship being “held under the carpet.” More bluntly, in private, Israeli officials and commentators have said that India has treated Israel like a “mistress”—happy to engage intimately in private, but hesitant to acknowledge the relationship in public. The explanations for this have ranged from Indian domestic political sensitivities to its relations with the Arab countries.

[I]n private, Israeli officials and commentators have said that India has treated Israel like a “mistress”—happy to engage intimately in private, but hesitant to acknowledge the relationship in public.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government took office in May 2014 with Modi at its helm, there was a belief that the partnership with Israel would be a priority and more visible. Relations under the BJP-led coalition government between 1998 and 2004 had been more conspicuous. When in opposition, BJP leaders had visited Israel, and also been supportive of that country in election manifestos and speeches. 

As chief minister of the state of Gujarat, Modi himself had expressed admiration for Israel’s achievements, including “how it has overcome various adversities to make the desert bloom.” Traveling there in 2006 with the central agricultural minister, he also helped facilitate trips for politicians, business leaders, and farmers from his state to Israel. His government welcomed Israeli investment and technological assistance in the agricultural, dairy, and irrigation sectors. And, at a time when Modi was not welcome in many Western capitals, Israelis reciprocated: Businesses and government engaged with him, with Israeli ambassadors and consul generals from Mumbai meeting with him long before European and American officials did so. Thus, Modi’s elevation to prime minister was welcomed in Israel, as was the appointment as foreign minister of Swaraj, a former head of the India-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group.

However, the Modi government’s response to the Gaza crisis in summer 2014 left many perplexed and some of its supporters disappointed. The Indian government initially sought to avoid a debate on the crisis in the Indian parliament, on the grounds that it did not want “discourteous references” to a friend (Israel). After opposition complaints, there was a debate but the government nixed a resolution. In its official statements, the Modi government consistently expressed concern about the violence in general—and, in particular, both the loss of civilian life in Gaza and the provocations against Israel—and called for both sides to exercise restraint and deescalate. Yet, it then voted in support of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution that condemned Israel, a move that left observers—including many in the BJP base—wondering why the government didn’t instead abstain. 

Since then, however, the Modi government has moved toward the expected approach. The first sign of this was Modi’s decision to meet with Netanyahu on the sidelines of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in 2014—despite reported hesitation on the part of some in the foreign ministry. Since then, there have been a number of high-level visits and interactions (and Twitter exchanges), including a few “firsts.” This past October, Pranab Mukherjee, for example, became the first Indian president to travel to Israel, where he declared the state of the relationship to be “excellent.” 

The Israeli ambassador to India has observed the “high visibility” the relationship now enjoys. Also noticed more widely was India abstaining in a July 2015 UNHRC vote on a report criticizing Israeli actions in the 2014 Gaza crisis. Indian diplomats explained the vote as due to the mention of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the resolution, but observers pointed out that India has voted for other resolutions mentioning the ICC. Israeli commentators saw the abstention as “quite dramatic;” the Israeli ambassador expressed gratitude. Palestinian officials, on the other hand, expressed “shock” and criticized the vote as a “departure.” 

In the defense space, cooperation is only growing: The Indian government moved forward on (delayed) deals to purchase Spike anti-tank missiles and Barak missiles for its navy; it recently tested the jointly-developed Barak 8 missile system, along with Israel Aerospace Industries; and an Indian private sector company has reportedly formed a joint venture with an Israeli company to produce small arms. Cooperation is also continuing in the agricultural sector, with 30 centers of excellence either established or planned across 10 Indian states. More broadly, the two governments are seeking to facilitate greater economic ties, as well as science and technology collaboration. 

There have been questions about why Modi hasn’t visited Israel yet, despite the more visible bonhomie. But, in many ways, it made sense to have the Indian president take the first leadership-level visit during this government. Mukherjee’s position as head of state, as well as the fact that he was a life-long Congress party member and minister, helped convey to both Indian and Israeli audiences that this is not a one-party approach. This point was reinforced by the accompanying delegation of MPs representing different political parties and parts of the country. For similar reasons, it would not be surprising if there was a Rivlin visit to India before a Netanyahu one. 

De-hyphenation? 

The deepening—and more open—relationship with Israel, however, hasn’t been accompanied by a U-turn on the Indian government’s policy toward Palestine. What the Modi government seems to be doing is trying to de-hyphenate its ties with Israel and Palestine. Previous governments have also tried to keep the relationships on parallel tracks—but the current one has sought to make both relationships more direct and visible, less linked to the other, while also making it clear that neither will enjoy a veto on India’s relations with the other. 

The deepening—and more open—relationship with Israel, however, hasn’t been accompanied by a U-turn on the Indian government’s policy toward Palestine.

The Modi government doesn’t demure from referring to the “state of Palestine” rather than “the Palestinian Authority.” It held the first-ever Foreign Office consultations with the Palestinians last spring, and the Indian foreign ministry made it a point to release separate press releases for the president’s and the foreign minister’s trips to Israel and Palestine. The Indian president became the first foreign head of state to stay overnight in Ramallah. Modi met with Mahmoud Abbas, whom the Indian government refers to as the “president of the state of Palestine, on the sidelines of both the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York and the climate change summit in Paris in 2015. The Indian foreign minister met with Abbas in 2014 in New York, and again in Ramallah on her visit. During their trips, both she and the Indian president also went to the mausoleum of Yasser Arafat (who the BJP in the past called “the illustrious leader of the Palestinian people”).

The government has reiterated India’s traditional position on a two-state solution, indicating its belief in an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. It voted in favor of the resolution on raising the Palestinian flag at the United Nations, and has continued to sign on to BRICS declarations “oppos[ing] the continuous Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Territories.” In Ramallah, Sushma Swaraj emphasized that India’s support for Palestinians remained “undiluted.” 

The continuity on this front is not just driven by historic and domestic political factors, but also by India’s broader balancing act in the region. Even as India’s relations with Israel have deepened, it has maintained—and even enhanced—its relations with Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Modi has welcomed the emir of Qatar, visited the UAE, and met with Iran’s Hassan Rouhani. The first-ever Arab-India Cooperation Forum ministerial meeting also took place in January. It would not be surprising if the Indian prime minister visited Saudi Arabia this year or there were high-level visits exchanged between Delhi and Tehran. The government has emphasized its “strategic intent and commitment to simultaneously enhance relations with the Arab world as well as Israel, without allowing it to become a zero sum game.” And, overall, the Israelis, Palestinians, and GCC countries have not pushed for Delhi to make a choice. 

The de-hyphenated approach, in turn, potentially gives Indian policymakers more space to take India’s relationship with Israel further. But, as was evident during the Indian president’s visit to the region, it hasn’t been problem-free and it has not been feasible to keep the two relationships entirely insulated. An upsurge in violence reportedly caused Israel to nix a proposal for Mukherjee to visit the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. There was also some heartburn about the Israeli delay in clearing 30 Indians' computers destined for an India-Palestine Centre for Excellence in Information and Communication Technology at Al-Quds University in Ramallah, as well as its refusal to allow communications equipment to be transferred. In the Israeli press, there was criticism of the president’s lack of mention of Palestinian violence. The Indian president and the foreign ministry also found themselves having to explain the president’s remark in Israel that “religion cannot be the basis of a state.”

There have been other differences between India and Israel as well, notably on Iran (something officials have tended not to discuss publicly). There might be other difficulties in the future, stemming, for example, from: negative public and media reaction in India if there’s another Israel-Palestine crisis; the stalled free trade agreement negotiations; potential Israeli defense sales to China; renewed questions about defense acquisitions from Israel; or the behavior of Israeli tourists in India. But the relationship is likely to continue to move forward, and increase in visibility, including with visits by Rivlin, Netanyahu, and Modi—potentially before the 25th anniversary of the two countries establishing full diplomatic relations on January 29, 2017.

While much of the outside world has focused on the current wave of violence in Israel and the West Bank, far less attention is paid to the causes behind it and the context in which it is occurring. In meetings last month in Ramallah and Jerusalem with a range of Palestinian politicians, journalists, and analysts, as well as with senior U.S. officials, it was clear that the attacks reflect the deepening anger and despondency among Palestinians.

The current violence is largely despair-driven, but remains individualistic and politically directionless. Palestinians use different terms to describe the current violence. Popularly, and in most local media, it is known as the “Jerusalem Intifada.” But unlike previous Palestinian uprisings, this latest wave of violence lacks both political organization and clear political demands. 

The fact that so many young Palestinians are willing to risk almost certain death in order to carry out otherwise ineffective stabbing attacks on Israelis points to a deep sense of hopelessness and despair. It’s not only that Israeli settlement expansion, home demolitions, land confiscations, and movement restrictions continue to rob Palestinians of their land, livelihoods, and dignity; it’s that Palestinians now must endure Israel’s seemingly endless occupation without any of the “safety nets” they traditionally have fallen back on: the peace process is dead, Arab regional support and solidarity has evaporated, and their political leaders (both secular and Islamist) are ineffective and increasingly discredited. 

In short, Palestinians feel a deep sense of abandonment by the international community, their fellow Arabs, and even their own leaders. Although domestic political considerations as well as Abbas’ own waning credibility have constrained the leadership’s ability to disavow the violence outright, the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to work quietly with the Israelis to keep the situation under control. The main question now, particularly for U.S. officials, is how long this PA security coordination with Israel can continue given mounting public opposition and the precipitous decline in international aid, which according to the World Bank is down by roughly 60 percent.

As confidence in Abbas’ leadership declines, Palestinian political stagnation and dysfunction is likely to continue. Since a public opinion poll published last September found that an unprecedented two-thirds of Palestinians wanted Abbas to resign, popular frustration with the Palestinian leader seems only to have grown. Many Palestinians lament what they see as the transformation of their national movement from groups and leaders dedicated to national liberation to a ruling class with special privileges (VIP status, travel, etc.) and a stake in the status quo. Even American officials seemed alarmed by the extent to which the PA is now perceived as a “collaborationist” government by ordinary Palestinians. 

At the same time, Abbas’ leadership style and decision-making are also alienating much of the political elite, including within his own Fatah movement. Several Palestinian officials were privately critical of Abbas. Others have been more open in their criticism, including former West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub, who recently railed against Abbas and his inner clique in a lengthy interview on Palestinian TV. 

Much of the internal frustration with Abbas has to do with recent leadership appointments as well as what many see as his growing paranoia and personal vendettas against perceived rivals like Salam Fayyad, Yasser Abed-Rabbo, and his arch-nemesis, Mohamed Dahlan, the now-exiled former Gaza security chief. Both of these underscore the growing anxiety over the lack of clarity regarding a future succession process (on which I will have more to say in a subsequent post). Many also voiced skepticism about Abbas’ current diplomatic strategy, which is focused on building support for an international peace conference. While most Palestinians support internationalization, and virtually no one supports a return to U.S.-led peace negotiations, there are doubts as to whether Abbas’ international efforts are rooted in a broader strategy. 

The lack of strategic thinking is also fueling frustration over the ongoing stalemate with Hamas in Gaza. Indeed, many view Abbas as the primary obstacle to Gaza reconstruction and progress toward reconciliation with Hamas. Despite Hamas’ clear weakness since 2013, Abbas has been loath to give Hamas anything it could claim as a political concession and is equally reluctant to inherit responsibility for Gaza’s myriad social, economic, and security problems, for which he currently has no solutions. 

[T]here is a growing feeling, both within Fatah and beyond, that things are unlikely to change internally (and perhaps even diplomatically) until Abbas has left the scene.

Consequently, there is a growing feeling, both within Fatah and beyond, that things are unlikely to change internally (and perhaps even diplomatically) until Abbas has left the scene. At the same time, despite the growing frustration with Abbas, most are not eager to accelerate his departure. As I have written elsewhere, the absence of credible alternatives has given Abbas a sort of “legitimacy by default.” This may explain Abbas’ otherwise inexplicable complacency and his sense, as I was repeatedly told, that time is on his side.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers face their own set of equally daunting political, economic, and security challenges. Although I did not visit Gaza or meet with any Hamas representatives, both figured prominently in most of my discussions. Hamas continues to face serious financial problems as a result of the virtual elimination of its tunnels network and the closure of the Rafah border crossing. The scarcity of resources, a major factor in Hamas’ decision to pursue reconciliation with the PA in 2014, is also fueling tensions within the movement. Whereas Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, seeks to rebuild its military capabilities and restore its ties with Iran, its political leadership is equally keen to avoid another military confrontation with Israel and hopes to capitalize on diplomatic openings with Turkey and Saudi Arabia. 

The main security threat to Hamas rule comes from jihadi groups, most notably Jaysh al-Islam in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai-based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, both of which have pledged allegiance to ISIS and regard Hamas (as well as its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood) as apostates. Despite occasional tit-for-tat attacks, at the moment neither Hamas nor the jihadis appear eager for a major fight. The potential for escalation remains, however, particularly if jihadi groups decide to exploit internal discontent within Hamas or force its hand militarily by launching rocket attacks on Israel. Such internal instability, along with the slow pace of reconstruction and already abysmal economic and humanitarian conditions in Gaza, highlights the ever-present danger of yet another devastating war between Israel and Hamas. 

In the end, while the outside world’s preoccupation with the current wave of violence is understandable, merely condemning ad hoc violence by Palestinians while failing to address the deeper, institutionalized violence of the Israeli occupation is both morally dishonest and politically untenable.

The breakthrough therapy designation (BTD) program was initiated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2012 to expedite the development of treatments for serious or life-threatening illness that demonstrate “substantial improvement” over existing therapies. The program has since become a widely supported mechanism for accelerating patient access to new drugs. As of March 2015, FDA has received a total of 293 requests for BTD. However, it has granted just  82 (28%), which indicates an ongoing lack of clarity over what exactly meets the criteria for the designation.

On April 24, the Center for Health Policy at Brookings convened a public meeting to explore the designation’s qualifying criteria and how FDA applies those criteria across therapeutic areas. Panelists used real-world and hypothetical case studies to frame the discussion, and highlighted major considerations for the application process, the FDA’s evaluation of the evidence, and the key factors for acceptance or rejection. The discussion also identified strategies to ensure that qualifying criteria are well understood. Here are the five big takeaways:

1.  The BTD program is viewed positively by drug companies, researchers, advocates, and others 

Across the board, participants expressed enthusiasm for the BTD program. Industry representatives noted that their experience had been extremely positive, and that the increased cooperation with and guidance from FDA were very helpful in streamlining their development programs. Receiving the designation can also raise a drug company’s profile, which can facilitate additional investment as well as clinical trial patient recruitment; this is particularly important for smaller companies with limited resources.

Patient and disease advocates were likewise supportive, and expressed hope that the early lessons learned from successful breakthrough therapy approvals (which have been mostly concentrated in the oncology and antiviral fields) could be translated to other disease areas with less success. However, while BTD is an important tool in expediting the development of new drugs, it is just one piece of broader scientific and regulatory policy landscape. Accelerating the pace of discovery and development of truly innovative new drugs will depend on a range of other factors, such as developing and validating new biomarkers that can be used to measure treatment effects at an earlier stage, as well as establishing networks that can streamline the clinical trial process. It will also be important to develop effective new approaches to collecting, analyzing, and communicating information about these treatments once they are on the market, as this information can potentially be used by FDA, providers, and patients to  further improve prescription drug policy and medical decision-making.

2.  BTD requests far outnumber those that actually meet the qualifying criteria

Since the program began, less than 30 percent of requests have received BTD designation. A substantial majority were denied at least in part due to either a lack of data or problems with the quality of the data, or some combination of the two. For example, some sponsors requested the designation before they had any clinical data, or submitted the request using clinical data that was incomplete or based on flawed study designs. Many requests also failed to meet the Agency’s bar for “substantial improvement” over existing therapies.

One reason for the high denial rate may be a lack of a clear regulatory or statutory bar that could be used as a definitive guide for sponsors to know what is needed to qualify for the designation. BTD denials are also confidential, which means that sponsors effectively have nothing to lose by submitting a request. Going forward, manufacturers may need to exercise more discretion in deciding to request the designation, as the process can be resource- and time-intensive for both sides.

3.  There is no single threshold for determining what defines a breakthrough therapy

About 53 percent of the 109 total BTD denials were due at least in part to the fact that the drug did not represent a substantial improvement over existing therapies. During the day’s discussion, FDA and sponsors both noted that this is likely because the criteria for BTD are inherently subjective. In practice, this means there is no clear threshold for determining when a new therapy represents a “substantial improvement” over existing therapies. Designation decisions are complex and highly dependent on the context, including the disease or condition being targeted, the availability of other treatments, the patient population, the outcomes being studied, and the overall reliability of the data submitted. Given the multiple factors at play, it can be difficult in some cases to determine when a new product is potentially “transformational” as opposed to “better,” especially for conditions that are poorly understood or have few or no existing treatments. In making its determinations, FDA considers the totality of the evidence submitted, rather than focusing on specific evidentiary requirements.

4.  Early communication with FDA is strongly recommended for BTD applicants

Roughly 72 percent of the BTD denials related at least in part to trial design or analysis problems, which led several people to suggest that sponsors engage with FDA prior to submitting their request. Though there are several formal mechanisms for interacting with the agency, informal consultations with the relevant review division could help sponsors to get a better  and much earlier sense of what kind of data FDA might need. This early communication could both strengthen viable BTD requests and reduce the number of frivolous requests.

5.  FDA may need more resources for implementing the BTD program

INTRODUCTION

In an earlier policy brief, Where is the Learning? Measuring Schooling Efforts in Developing Countries, we drew attention to what was labeled “the global learning crisis.” While tremendous progress has been made over the past couple of decades to get tens of millions of additional children to enroll in school, progress in improving learning outcomes has been considerably less impressive. Although, shockingly, comprehensive learning outcome data are not available for most of the developing world, the many small scale, local or, in some cases, national studies that have been done show a dismal picture. For instance, Uwezo, an East African initiative, found that in Tanzania, only 44 percent of students in Grade 4 were able to read a basic story from Grade 2. Similarly, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) facilitated by Pratham found that in rural India, less than half of Grade 4 students were able to do basic subtraction. These examples demonstrate the gravity of “the global learning crisis” as students fail to master competencies appropriate for their grade level, hindering the development of life skills and success in further schooling, as well as performance in the labor market.

With about 61 million children in the developing world still not yet in school, it is too early to declare victory on the “enrollment agenda”. But we would do a disservice to the 250 million children around the world who fail to reach Grade 4 or attain minimum learning standards, if we don’t step up efforts to improve learning outcomes.

This policy brief is part of a larger effort to link resources in the education sector with outcome measures. As we have documented elsewhere, few countries systematically collect comprehensive financial data on education, although fortunately an increasing number of initiatives is trying to address this issue by producing, for instance, National Education Accounts (NEAs). When the focus of the sector changes from enrollment to enrollment plus learning, efforts to better grasp the size and use of financial resources should evolve accordingly. For instance, much learning takes place outside of the classroom, especially in the early years. For NEAs to be a useful tool for adjusting the allocation of scarce resources, the “learning” sector should be defined more broadly than the education or “schooling” sector. We will address this and related issues in a subsequent policy brief.

Once our focus becomes enrollment plus learning, we have to broaden our view and look at the entire environment in which a child develops skills, starting with the households in which children are born. It has beenknown for many decades and throughout the world, that among the best predictors of future school performance are some basic household characteristics, such as income and mother’s education level.

Data from international assessments also show a relationship between income and educational performance, exemplified by intra and intercountry results. In Colombia, average Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) math scores at Grade 8 for the richest quintile of students were close to 100 points higher than those from the poorest quintile. On the other hand, the difference in average scores between the poorest quintile in the United States and the richest quintile in Colombia was about 50 points. Income is not the only predictor of success, as exemplified in Peru, where children whose mothers have completed primary school and whose maternal language is Spanish rather than an indigenous language, have a greater probability of reaching the appropriate school grade for their age. In Kenya, Uwezo found that the higher their father’s educational attainment, the more likely children were able to read a story at Grade 3 or attend extra tutoring sessions.

In addition, the larger environment (such as the village or the urban neighborhood) in which the young child grows up also has a major and lasting impact. In Tanzania, urban students in Grade 3 are three times more likely than their rural counterparts to meet standards in literacy and numeracy. Related to the impact of the larger environment, data from Nigeria suggest that girls are more disadvantaged in school attendance, as parents may be reluctant to send girls to school because of perceived fears for their safety while traveling and concerns about the physical strength required for walking the distance.

Clearly, especially in the early years, most learning takes place outside of the classroom. Consequently, children who grow up in deprived circumstances will start life with a disadvantage leading to a lack of learning in the early grades, which will have lifetime effects.

In the next section, we will summarize the evidence that the early years (ages 0 to 5) are crucial for subsequent learning achievements. From this evidence we conclude that many of the problems with learning outcomes in the developing world (and in many developed countries) need to be addressed well before school age. Before delving into what happens in schools, we explore the relationship between enrollment, learning and dropout. As the crux of this brief is to lay out the evidence on what contributes to learning, we must acknowledge the factors leading to low enrollment and dropout. Next, we turn our attention to what happens in schools and what can be done to improve these activities, as well as try to summarize the evidence about the relationship between specific school-based inputs and learning outcomes. As it turns out, this evidence is, in many cases, rather feeble. Therefore, we will first focus on school-level inputs that are necessary for a good learning environment, i.e. without which we cannot expect any learning to take place. Most of these inputs are rather obvious, but they are worth mentioning. Subsequently, we will discuss additional inputs that have proven to contribute to learning outcomes in some cases, but not in others. Clearly how these inputs are applied matters.

Next, we address factors that contribute to learning outside of a formal environment, after which we review issues in health and nutrition that are closely linked to learning outcomes. We then review the need for the collection and dissemination of learning assessments in order to impact further improvements in these areas and we try to answer the question: what are the building blocks for an education sector that promote learning? Finally we explore needs for future research in learning.

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Globalization has been hugely beneficial to Asia. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, and China have reaped lasting benefits from worldwide investment flows, knowledge exchanges, and rapid economic growth. And while globalization undoubtedly made the rich even richer, the poor also benefitted.

Several Asian economies saw the emergence of a large middle class and the virtual elimination of poverty. The rural poor received higher wages after finding better quality manufacturing jobs in urban centers. And with improvements in technology and expanded trade, there was optimism about job prospects. In ethnically diverse societies such as Malaysia, globalization contributed significantly to the reduction of racial tensions rather than exacerbate them, contrary to what is happening in the West.

There is no question that the West has also benefited from globalization. The United Kingdom and the United States have seen huge gains in the services sector, especially in financial services. However, the accompanying income inequality is of a different hue than in Asia. Younger, better educated workers located in cosmopolitan urban centers such as New York and London have seen a phenomenal increase in their income. On the other hand, older, less educated workers in the rusting industrial belts of northern England and America have lost their jobs to manufacturers overseas. Instead of jobs with good growth prospects enjoyed by several generations in the past, the quality of jobs has deteriorated and there is little hope among the rust belt’s working class that this situation can be turned around. Worst, there is a perception that politicians don’t care. The recent voting patterns in the U.S. and the U.K. are a clear reflection of this despondence.

How did Asia achieve a shared prosperity from globalization with consistent domestic political support while the rich countries have struggled and are suffering the political blowback? 

The answer may lie in the heavy investment made by Asian governments in human capital (education and health) to prepare the workforce to take advantage of the high wage manufacturing jobs created by globalized investment. This was complemented by public investment in infrastructure to continue to attract foreign investment. The fiscal deficits associated with large public investment in human capital and physical infrastructure were tolerated because the political and economic benefits of preparing the workforce for new jobs were considered worthwhile objectives.

Both the U.S. and the U.K, in contrast, have underinvested in infrastructure and in “skilling up” the labor force to make the transition to new and better jobs from the ones lost to lower wage workers in Asia.  In the U.K, it happened under the watch of the incumbent conservative government. While presenting to Parliament the result of the recent referendum to the European Union, Prime Minister David Cameron spoke proudly of leaving behind a sound economy resting on the pillar of a sharp fiscal retrenchment—low taxes and even lower public expenditure. One result of this “sound” economy is that a large number of people are stuck in dead-end jobs and are looking for opportunities to vent their frustration.

In the U.S., the Obama administration has been hemmed in by the recalcitrant Republican Congress. Badly needed public investment in health and education to prepare workers and an overdue upgrade of infrastructure to attract investment have been thwarted by a Congress wedded to fiscal austerity. This has prolonged the pain of transition to new jobs.

The long and painful transition to productive jobs has resulted in the clamor for reneging on globalization commitments. This is misplaced because protecting jobs that are best done elsewhere is not possible without putting curbs on investment. That would be moving towards a world that globalizes misery. There is thus no alternative to a proactive government that eases the transition to new jobs in rich countries.

Of course, Asia had the advantage of preparing its work force for known job streams. Rich countries, on the other hand, have to discover new productive jobs. However, we do know that discovery is more likely if education standards improve, physical infrastructure is cutting edge, and science and research are well-funded.  

Rich countries don’t have to give up on manufacturing as a source of employment. Germany has shown the way to creating high-end manufacturing jobs in a rich-country setting. It has a highly skilled work force that produces technology-intensive products which generate a large trade surplus. There is little support in Germany for reneging on global commitments.

Dying cities, dead-end jobs, and a seemingly uncaring government feed into the perception that living standards will continue to fall. Demagogues exploiting ethnicity point the finger at immigrants and have succeeded in directing rich-country worker ire at them. This is a far cry from the democratic vision rich democracies should aspire to and is not in any away a solution to these problems.  The protest should be aimed, instead, at elected governments to play their role in facilitating the transition to the next generation of jobs.     

The world has paid heavily for Europe’s nationalistic ambitions—colonial subjugation of Africa and Asia and the two world wars are the most egregious examples. The EU is an attempt to tame those impulses by seeking to cooperatively address common challenges instead of competing for narrower nationalistic objectives. The dissolution of the EU and the weakening of other multilateral institutions because of rich countries’ failure to rise up to the globalization challenge would be truly retrogressive. 

With conflicts in the Middle East continuing unabated, refugees continue to flow out of several war-torn countries in massive numbers. The question of whether to admit more refugees into the United States has not only been a source of debate among Washington policymakers, it has also become a central question within the U.S. presidential race. Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami conducted a survey on American public attitudes toward refugees from the Middle East, in particular from Syria, Iraq, and Libya. Below are several key findings from the poll and a download link to the survey's full results.

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• Poll: American attitudes on refugees from the Middle East
• Poll Presentation
• Key Findings
• Refugee Questionnaire

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series on the Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project, which aims to measure access to and usage of financial services among individuals who have historically been disproportionately excluded from the formal financial system. To read the first annual FDIP report, learn more about the methodology, and watch the 2015 launch event, visit the 2015 Report and Scorecard webpage.

Convenient access to banking infrastructure is something many people around the world take for granted. Yet while the number of people outside the formal financial system has substantially decreased in recent years, 2 billion adults still do not have an account with a formal financial institution or mobile money provider.¹

This means that significant opportunities remain to provide access to and promote use of affordable financial services that can help people manage their financial lives more safely and efficiently.

To learn more about how countries can facilitate greater financial inclusion among underserved groups, the Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) sought to answer the following questions: (1) Do country commitments make a difference in progress toward financial inclusion?; (2) To what extent do mobile and other digital technologies advance financial inclusion; and (3) What legal, policy, and regulatory approaches promote financial inclusion?

To address these questions, the FDIP team assessed 33 indicators of financial inclusion across 21 economically, geographically, and politically diverse countries that have all made recent commitments to advancing financial inclusion. Indicators fell within four key dimensions of financial inclusion: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory commitment, and adoption of selected traditional and digital financial services.

In an effort to obtain the most accurate and up-to-date understanding of the financial inclusion landscape possible, the FDIP team engaged with a wide range of experts — including financial inclusion authorities in the FDIP focus countries — and also consulted international non-governmental organization publications, government documents, news sources, and supply and demand-side data sets.

Our research led to 5 overarching findings.

1. Country commitments matter.

   Not only did our 21 focus countries make commitments toward financial inclusion, but countries generally took these commitments seriously and made progress toward their goals. For example, the top five countries within the scorecard each completed at least one of their national-level financial inclusion targets. While correlation does not necessarily equal causation, our research supports findings by other financial inclusion experts that national-level country commitments are associated with greater financial inclusion progress. For example, the World Bank has noted that countries with national financial inclusion strategies have twice the average increase in the number of account holders as countries that do not have these strategies in place.

2. The movement toward digital financial services will accelerate financial inclusion.

   Digital financial services can provide customers with greater security, privacy, and convenience than transacting via traditional “brick-and-mortar” banks. We predict that digital financial services such as mobile money will become increasingly prevalent across demographics, particularly as user-friendly smartphones become cheaper² and more widespread.³

   Mobile money has already driven financial inclusion, particularly in countries where traditional banking infrastructure is limited. For example, mobile money offerings in Kenya (particularly the widely popular M-Pesa service) are credited with advancing financial inclusion: The Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database found that the percentage of adults with a formal account in Kenya increased from about 42 percent in 2011 to about 75 percent in 2014, with around 58 percent of adults in Kenya having used mobile money within the preceding 12 months as of 2014.

3. Geography generally matters less than policy, legal, and regulatory changes, although some regional trends in terms of financial services provision are evident.

   Regional trends include the widespread use of banking agents (sometimes known as correspondents)⁴ in Latin America, in which retail outlets and other third parties are able to offer some financial services on behalf of banks,⁵ and the prevalence of mobile money in sub-Saharan Africa. However, these regional trends aren’t absolute: For example, post office branches have served as popular financial access points in South Africa,⁶ and the GSMA’s “2014 State of the Industry” report found that the highest growth in the number of mobile money accounts between December 2013 and December 2014 was in Latin America. Overall, we found high-performing countries across multiple regions and using multiple approaches, demonstrating that there are diverse pathways to achieving greater financial inclusion.

4. Central banks, ministries of finance, ministries of communications, banks, non-bank financial providers, and mobile network operators have major roles in achieving greater financial inclusion. These entities should closely coordinate with respect to policy, regulatory, and technological advances.

   With the roles of public and private sector entities within the financial sector becoming increasingly intertwined, coordination across sectors is critical to developing coherent and effective policies. Countries that performed strongly on the country commitment and regulatory environment components of the FDIP Scorecard generally demonstrated close coordination among public and private sector entities that informed the emergence of an enabling regulatory framework. For example, Tanzania’s National Financial Inclusion Framework⁷ promotes competition and innovation within the financial services sector by reflecting both public and private sector voices.⁸

5. Full financial inclusion cannot be achieved without addressing the financial inclusion gender gap and accounting for diverse cultural contexts with respect to financial services.

   Persistent gender disparities in terms of access to and usage of formal financial services must be addressed in order to achieve financial inclusion. For example, Middle Eastern countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan have demonstrated a significant gap in formal account ownership between men and women. Guardianship and inheritance laws concerning account opening and property ownership present cultural and legal barriers that contribute to this gender gap.⁹

   Understanding diverse cultural contexts is also critical to advancing financial inclusion sustainably. In the Philippines, non-bank financial service providers such as pawn shops are popular venues for accessing financial services.¹⁰ Leveraging these providers as agents can therefore be a useful way to harness trust in these systems to increase financial inclusion.

To dive deeper into the report’s findings and compare country rankings, visit the FDIP interactive. We also welcome feedback about the 2015 Report and Scorecard at FDIPComments@brookings.edu.

¹ Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Leora Klapper, Dorothe Singer, and Peter Van Oudheusden, “The Global Findex Database 2014: Measuring Financial Inclusion around the World,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 7255, April 2015, VI, http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2015/04/15/090224b082dca3aa/1_0/Rendered/PDF/The0Global0Fin0ion0around0the0world.pdf#page=3.

² Claire Scharwatt, Arunjay Katakam, Jennifer Frydrych, Alix Murphy, and Nika Naghavi, “2014 State of the Industry: Mobile Financial Services for the Unbanked,” GSMA, 2015, p. 24, http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SOTIR_2014.pdf.

³ GSMA Intelligence, “The Mobile Economy 2015,” 2015, pgs. 13-14, http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/GSMA_Global_Mobile_Economy_Report_2015.pdf.

⁴ Caitlin Sanford, “Do agents improve financial inclusion? Evidence from a national survey in Brazil,” Bankable Frontier Associates, November 2013, pg. 1, http://bankablefrontier.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/BFA-Focus-Note-Do-agents-improve-financial-inclusion-Brazil.pdf.

⁵ Alliance for Financial Inclusion, “Discussion paper: Agent banking in Latin America,” 2012, pg. 3, http://www.afi-global.org/sites/default/files/discussion_paper_-_agent_banking_latin_america.pdf.

⁶ The National Treasury, South Africa and the AFI Financial Inclusion Data Working Group, “The Use of Financial Inclusion Data Country Case Study: South Africa – The Mzansi Story and Beyond,” January 2014, http://www.afi-global.org/sites/default/files/publications/the_use_of_financial_inclusion_data_country_case_study_south_africa.pdf.

⁷ Tanzania National Council for Financial Inclusion, “National Financial Inclusion Framework: A Public-Private Stakeholders’ Initiative (2014-2016),” 2013, pgs. 19-22, http://www.afi-global.org/sites/default/files/publications/tanzania-national-financial-inclusion-framework-2014-2016.pdf.

⁸ Simone di Castri and Lara Gidvani, “Enabling Mobile Money Policies in Tanzania,” GSMA, February 2014, http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Tanzania-Enabling-Mobile-Money-Policies.pdf.

⁹ Mayada El-Zoghbi, “Mind the Gap: women and Access to Finance,” Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, 13 May 2015, http://www.cgap.org/blog/mind-gap-women-and-access-finance.

¹⁰ Xavier Martin and Amarnath Samarapally, “The Philippines: Marshalling Data, Policy, and a Diverse Industry for Financial Inclusion,” FINclusion Lab by MIX, June 2014, http://finclusionlab.org/blog/philippines-marshalling-data-policy-and-diverse-industry-financial-inclusion.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series on the 2015 Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) Report and Scorecard, which were launched at a Brookings public event, “Measuring Progress on Financial and Digital Inclusion,” on August 26^th. Previous posts have highlighted five key findings from the 2015 FDIP Report, explored groundbreaking financial inclusion developments in India, and examined the financial inclusion landscape among FDIP countries in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

Today’s post highlights the 2015 Scorecard findings for five of FDIP’s nine African countries: Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Malawi. To learn more about the remaining FDIP African countries, read Amy Copley and Amadou Sy’s recent post on Brookings’s “Africa in Focus” blog.

Rwanda: Significant financial inclusion progress over time, but room for expansion remains

• While Rwanda and Uganda were among the bottom four FDIP countries in terms of GDP in current US dollars as of 2013, both countries tied for 4th place on the overall FDIP scorecard, buoyed by their national commitment to and progress toward financial inclusion. For example, Rwanda has a comprehensive action plan for financial inclusion featured in the country’s Financial Sector Development Program (now in its second phase) and, as noted in the 2014 Maya Declaration, set up a working group to monitor the implementation of the program. As part of its commitment to promoting financial inclusion, Rwanda set a numeric target to increase access to formal financial services from 21 percent of the country’s adult population (as benchmarked in the 2008 FinScope survey) to 80 percent by 2017; it has since increased its goal to 90 percent by 2020. The National Bank of Rwanda serves as the country’s Maya Declaration signatory.
• On the mobile side, Rwanda received a higher score than Uganda for the percentage of unique mobile subscribers, achieving a score of “2” (out of 3 possible points), rather than Uganda’s “1.” Rwanda also scored higher than Uganda in terms of 3G mobile network coverage by population, receiving a “3” rather than Uganda’s “2.” Both countries received the highest scores possible for the mobile money deployment and offerings indicators in the scorecard (e.g., existence of bill payment and international remittance options through mobile money). Rwanda was one of the first countries in Africa to support mobile money cross-border remittances, enabling Tigo subscribers to transfer funds to counterparts in Tanzania.
• Rwanda performed strongly on the regulatory environment dimension of the 2015 FDIP Scorecard, ranking third. A 2012 International Finance Corporation (IFC) Mobile Money Scoping report praised Rwanda for its “highly proactive government” that instituted a comprehensive framework for e-payments, driven by its aim to facilitate a cashless financial ecosystem by 2017. Rwanda’s regulatory environment facilitates both mobile operator-led mobile money services and bank-led mobile banking models. As noted in the 2015 FDIP Report, a national ID is widely available, and specific provisions catering for tiered KYC requirements are underway as part of the draft e-payments legislation for non-bank entities.
• On the adoption front, Uganda received higher scores than Rwanda, ranking 6th in contrast to Rwanda (10th). Among the FDIP countries, Rwanda tied for the highest score in terms of the savings at a formal financial institution but did not receive top scores for any of the other 14 adoption indicators. The relatively low levels of formal financial services adoption should not discount the progress that has been made — as of 2014, the World Bank’s Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database found that takeup of formal accounts had increased to about 42 percent of adults  — but in an absolute sense, Rwanda still has room for growth.
• With respect to further opportunities for improvement, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)’s “Global Microscope 2014: The enabling environment for financial inclusion” report noted that some existing consumer protection issues in Rwanda are expected to be addressed in part by a financial consumer protection law expected to be fully implemented by 2016. Advancing platform interoperability could further incentivize adoption of digital financial services: According to the National Bank of Rwanda, interoperability across mobile money transfer services is in process, but not yet complete.

Uganda:Fairly robust mobile money adoption, but improvements regarding consumer protection and usage are key

• As noted above, Uganda tied with Rwanda for 4th place overall on the 2015 FDIP scorecard. A 2014 financial inclusion report by the Bank of Uganda (Uganda’s Maya Declaration signatory) noted on page iv that in 2011, the Bank of Uganda “adopted a new strategy for financial inclusion based on four pillars: financial literacy, financial consumer protection, financial innovations, and financial services data and measurement.” Like Rwanda, FinScope surveys have been carried out fairly regularly in Uganda, most recently in 2013. These financial services surveys help to identify areas of strength and room for improvement in terms of access to and usage of formal financial services among different demographics.
• On the mobile side, Uganda’s mobile capacity — specifically, its percentage of unique mobile subscribers and 3G mobile network coverage by population — could be improved. Regarding the latter indicator, Uganda’s score was among the bottom five FDIP countries (along with Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia, also featured in this post). Still, Uganda’s mobile money adoption rates are quite robust: Uganda received a score of “2” for all mobile money account-related indicators under the adoption dimension, with the exception of the percentage of adults who pay bills regularly through a mobile phone, which achieved the top score of “3.”
• On the regulatory side, mobile money guidelines were developed in 2013 to provide some clarity to the industry. However, since these guidelines are not binding in the way that more formal regulations are, developing formal regulations could help ensure greater customer protection and clarity within the market. Uganda does not have a payments law to enable the Bank of Uganda to issues licenses to electronic money institutions, and only banks and other institutions regulated under the Financial Institutions Act can provide retail payment services. As noted in the 2015 FDIP Report, amendments to the Financial Institutions Act and the Micro-Finance and Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, along with new draft agency banking guidelines, are underway to facilitate agent banking.
• In terms of availability and adoption of financial services, a Helix Institute report published in 2014 noted that the products and services offered by agents in Uganda were somewhat limited. Expanding the services offered — such as credit, savings, and insurance — could provide individuals with more opportunities to increase their wealth. These services must be offered with careful regard to consumer protection. Uganda achieved 6th place on the adoption dimension of the scorecard, boosted by its above-average takeup of mobile money compared to other FDIP countries.
• In terms of next steps, moving away from a reliance on basic deposit and withdrawals conducted “over-the-counter” to encourage a greater diversity of offerings and services could strengthen the utility of mobile money for customers. However, providers will also have to build trust in digital financial services, particularly in light of ongoing issues with service down-time and recent fraud scandals such as the recent case against several former employees of MTN charged with defrauding the compnay of over $3 million.

Tanzania: Significant strides in regulatory environment and mobile money adoption, with further growth likely to follow

• Tanzania ranked 12th overall on the FDIP scorecard. As noted in the 2015 Report, Tanzania has demonstrated strong leadership in terms of its national-level commitment to promoting financial inclusion, which has contributed to its enabling regulatory environment for digital financial services. For example, Tanzania launched a National Financial Inclusion Framework in 2013, which contains a quantified target of 50 percent financial inclusion by 2016. These factors will likely drive greater financial inclusion in the future by facilitating the development and adoption of innovative, appropriate, and accessible products for previously underserved communities. However, quantitative data available as of 2015 regarding Tanzania’s overall mobile capacity and adoption of formal financial services indicate that room for growth remains.
• In terms of mobile capacity, Tanzania’s mobile money providers have been noted for offering an array of innovative products, including mobile operator Tigo’s interest-bearing mobile money service. Tanzania’s recent (and quite rare) implementation of interoperable mobile money platforms was also highlighted in the 2015 Report and Scorecard. However, as measured by 2015 GSMA Intelligence data, Tanzania’s score for the percentage of 3G network coverage by population was among the lowest of the FDIP countries, and its rate of unique subscribership was below the FDIP average.
• Tanzania’s regulatory environment has been lauded for enabling a diverse array of entities to offer competitive formal financial services. As noted in the 2015 FDIP Report, the Bank of Tanzania Act was amended in 2006 to permit non-bank entities to offer payment services, and the 2007 Electronic Payment Schemes Guidelines were used to enable mobile network operators to offer payment services. In 2013, agent banking guidelines were issued, and in March 2015, the National Payment Systems Act was passed by Tanzania’s parliament. These various regulations have provided the space and clarity for a variety of providers to enter the digital financial services market.
• On the adoption front, Tanzania has undoubtedly made great strides in terms of advancing mobile money adoption, even outnumbering the total number of mobile money transactions made in Kenya (according to figures noted by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor in March 2015). However, in terms of the percentage of adults with a mobile money account, there was a difference of over 25 percentage points between Kenya and Tanzania as of 2014, according to the 2014 Global Findex.
  Out of 3 possible points achievable per indicator on the adoption dimension, Tanzania received 2 points for the adoption of mobile money accounts among adults, rural individuals, women, and adults making utility bill payments. However, Tanzania received a score of “1” for the other 11 adoption indicators. As a point of reference, Kenya received a full 3 points for each of the mobile account-related indicators on the adoption dimension, and it tied or exceeded Tanzania’s scores for the other adoption indicators.
• Moving forward, we fully anticipate that Tanzania’s increasingly competitive and robust mobile money environment, combined with strong coordination and financial inclusion leadership among the public and private sectors, will drive greater adoption of formal financial services.

Zambia: Commitment to increasing equity in access to financial services, but usage of available services is limited

• Zambia was ranked 14th overall on the 2015 FDIP Scorecard. As with three of the other countries featured in this post — Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda — Zambia achieved a score of 100 percent for country commitment. The Bank of Zambia serves at the country’s Maya Declaration signatory and houses the secretariat for Zambia’s Financial Sector Development Plan. As one of the Bank of Zambia’s Maya Declaration commitments, the country set a goal of ensuring access to financial services for at least half of its adult population by the end of 2016. As of 2014, the “gender gap” in terms of account ownership between men and women was about 5 percentage points in Zambia, according to the Global Findex, making Zambia among the five FDIP countries with the smallest disparity in terms of access to finance by gender. Still, account ownership among women was only about 33 percent in 2014; Zambia’s first lady, Esther Lungu, has emphasized the importance of promoting financial inclusion among women.
• In terms of mobile capacity, Zambia received a score of “2” for both the percentage of unique mobile subscribers and percentage of 3G mobile network coverage by population, as measured by the 2015 GSMA Intelligence database. Zambia received top scores for the other mobile capacity indicators, which focused on the number of mobile money deployments and the type of offerings. However, while about 62 percent of adults owned a mobile phone in Zambia as of 2014, according to a 2014 country brief, only about 5 percent of adults used their mobile phone to pay bills or send or receive money — about 11 percentage points below the average for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Regarding the country’s regulatory environment, Zambia finalized a draft framework on branchless banking in 2013 and has adopted a tiered approach to KYC requirements for e-money wallets. As noted in the 2015 FDIP Report, draft e-money directives are also undergoing review and are expected to include provisions regarding interoperability. Zambia began working toward a new financial inclusion strategy in advance of expiration of the Financial Sector Development Plan in June 2015, which may inform the direction of future regulatory initiatives.
• Challenges to the formal financial services sector in Zambia include high interest rates, fees, and other costs associated with banking. Further, a 2011 report noted that low literacy rates and high poverty levels have posed challenges to takeup of formal financial services. Efforts to expand access to financial services beyond brick-and-mortar banks have been quite successful, as demonstrated by the greater density (in terms of points of service) of mobile money agents than traditional banks in Zambia as of 2013. As of 2014, mobile money agents accounted for about 45 percent of all financial access points in the country.
• In the near future, Zambia is expected to finalize and issue draft e-money directives and approve draft branchless banking regulations. Increasing usage of more extensive financial services could help individuals reap the full benefits of mobile money — as noted in the FinScope 2015 findings, mobile money customers primarily use the service to send and receive money, purchase airtime, or pay bills.

Malawi: Limited infrastructure constrains adoption, but forthcoming regulations may enhance digital financial ecosystem

• Malawi ranked 19th overall on the 2015 FDIP Scorecard. Among the 21 FDIP countries, Malawi has the lowest GDP in current US dollars, according to the 2013 World Development Indicators database. Despite economic and infrastructural barriers, Malawi has engaged in a variety of efforts to promote digital financial services such as mobile money, including through its participation in the Alliance for Financial Inclusion and the creation of its Mobile Money Coordination Group.
• Regarding the mobile capacity dimension of the 2015 Scorecard, Malawi received the highest number of possible points for its deployment offerings. However, Malawi had the second-lowest rate of unique mobile subscribership among the 21 FDIP countries and the lowest score for the extent of 3G mobile network coverage by population, as measured by data provided in the 2015 GSMA Intelligence database. Expanding mobile networks and facilitating mobile subscribership could boost Malawi’s mobile money environment by increasing access to and incentivizing use of mobile services.
• In terms of Malawi’s regulatory environment, the 2011 Mobile Payment System Guidelines were developed to permit mobile network operators to provide mobile money services. Interoperability has been identified as an objective in these Mobile Guidelines, and the recently launched National Switch may facilitate interoperability. Draft e-money regulations developed by the Reserve Bank of Malawi (the country’s Maya Declaration signatory) are expected to be officially recognized by the Ministry of Finance in 2015; these regulations are anticipated to replace the Mobile Guidelines. As noted in the 2015 FDIP Report, a Payment Systems Bill was finalized in February 2015 and expected to be enacted in December 2015. This bill is expected to help provide greater clarity regarding oversight arrangements for payment services.
• Malawi received a score of “1” for each of the adoption indicators, which placed it among the three lowest-scoring countries for the adoption dimension of the 2015 Scorecard. Financial infrastructure in Malawi is very limited, which constrains adoption of formal financial services. For example, the 2014 International Monetary Fund Financial Access Survey found that there were only about 3 commercial bank branches per 1,000 km2 and per 100,000 adults in Malawi.
• Moving forward, the new regulations described above may even the playing field between banks and non-banks, both in terms of e-money and agent banking, and will permit tiered KYC for e-money service providers. Increasing competition among providers could enhance the diversity of available financial services offerings, which may in turn drive adoption.

Technically, all of the Star Wars films occur a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but there are countless gadgets featured in the films that human beings in this galaxy can find here on Earth. Here are a handful of gadgets you will see this weekend when the seventh Star Wars film, "The Force Awakens," blasts into theaters.

Drone surveillance

The evil Galactic Empire has long employed drones and machines to do their dirty work. Way back when the empire was just a glint in Darth Sidious' eyes, his merciless apprentice Darth Maul used autonomous drones to search the desert landscape of Tatooine for fugitive Jedi. Later, when Darth Vader tirelessly searched the galaxy for Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance, he sent similar autonomous drones to countless worlds such as the ice planet Hoth.

Sure, the Empire may call them droids, but on the planet Earth these instruments are essentially remote drones you might see flying in cities or around your neighborhood. In the U.S. the use of unmanned drones to aid law enforcement is on the cutting edge of technology and sparks a spirited debate among privacy advocates. Should fear law enforcement as we would a Sith lord and thus burden them with a warrant-based, technology-centric approach to drone surveillance that might curtail the beneficial use of drones?

Gregory McNeal wrote last year in a Brookings report that a property rights-centric approach with limits on surveillance would best appease privacy advocates and law enforcement, enabling drones to protect privacy in ways even manned surveillance can't achieve. By crafting simple, duration based surveillance legislation, law enforcement would only be permitted to surveil a person for a limited amount of time. Additionally, data retention guidelines could limit the amount of time that surveillance would be accessible to law enforcement.

"Legislators should reject alarmist calls that suggest we are on the verge of an Orwellian police state," McNeal writes, as privacy advocates almost always invoke the the novel 1984 when technology makes surveillance more widespread and pervasive.

As McNeal points out, the police state is hardly as nefarious as Darth Vader, so sensible legislation may be enough in this case to keep law enforcement from falling to the dark side.

Holography

In the first Star Wars film, Princess Leia recorded a short holographic message for Obi-Wan Kenobi asking for his help delivering the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance. The droid R2-D2 recorded the message almost as succinctly as many of use record short videos on our cell phone. But when can we expect to send and receive holographic messages ourselves?

Barring some laughable election night hologram shenanigans on CNN, there have been some notable uses of holography in this galaxy. In 2012, the late rapper Tupac Shakur took the stage at the Coachella Festival with contemporaries Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. At the 2014 Billboard Music Awards, Michael Jackson performed on stage—five years after his death. These holograms were made possible by artful projections and reflections, creating convincing illusions suitable only for crowded concert halls. The technology is especially popular in South Korea where K-Pop performers regularly "perform" at virtual concerts to adoring fans.

But a bona fide hologram? Researchers at Swinburne University this year used lasers and a specialized graphene mesh to project 3D objects in the air very much like you would see in Star Wars. As TIME Magazine reported, "It’s not quite Princess Leia-quality, and researchers say it has a long way to go before commercialization, but it’s a step."

BB-8 Droid

Since the first teaser for the new Star Wars films, fans have had questions about the new droid character BB-8. Rather than resort to computer animation to bring the droid to life, director J.J. Abrams and Lucasfilm designers sought to produce a live prop that could portray the droid on film.

The filmmakers demoed the droid on stage at Comic Con to the roar of audience applause and delight—"It was the first official confirmation that BB-8 was not a CG creation, but rather, a practical effect."

The use of practical effects in "The Force Awakens" is a return-to-form for the filmmakers who have shunned the special effects and digital artistry of the Star Wars prequel trilogies and instead embraced the kinds of practical effects and puppetry that made the original trilogy so beloved.

The droid BB-8 even has a cousin here on Earth—the robotic ball toy Sphero. Inventors Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson have adapted their smartphone-controlled spherical toy into a BB-8 toy that performs many of the same practical effects the screen version of BB-8 does in "The Force Awakens."

As the new sequel trilogy continues, filmmakers are sure to wow audiences with amazing technologies—some we may even recognize from planet Earth.