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Working paper 2026.02
Patrick Rached, Dimitri Renmans, Pacifique Mwene Batu, Samuel Lwamushi Makali, Marc Bourgeois and Elisabeth Paul

Ce document analyse les politiques de protection sociale et de couverture santé universelle (CSU) en République démocratique du Congo, en examinant leur gouvernance, leurs instruments et leurs modalités de financement. Il met en évidence les défis structurels liés à la fragmentation institutionnelle, au financement et à l’accès équitable aux soins, ainsi que leurs implications pour la mise en œuvre de la CSU. 

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Working paper 2026.01
Imran Farooq, George Mavrotas and Danny Cassimon

This paper shows that political regime changes in Pakistan alter fiscal behavior by increasing current spending and reliance on foreign loans, while the fiscal impact of foreign aid depends critically on whether aid is grants or loans and whether it is temporary or permanent, with important implications for aid design and debt sustainability.

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Working paper 2025.13
Imran Farooq, George Mavrotas and Danny Cassimon

This study examines how temporary and permanent foreign aid—both grants and loans—affect Pakistan’s fiscal behaviour between 1973 and 2020. It finds that aid type and duration significantly shape revenue mobilisation, expenditure patterns, and borrowing, with policy implications favouring grants and debt relief over loans to avoid aid fungibility and support sustainable fiscal adjustments.

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Working paper 2025.12
Wikus Kruger and Danny Cassimon

This paper explores how reliance on foreign currency in African power project financing—especially through Independent Power Producers (IPPs)—creates systemic currency risk due to revenue-debt mismatches, with traditional solutions like sovereign guarantees proving increasingly unsustainable. It examines local capital markets, evolving Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) models, and innovative responses such as local currency PPAs and FX risk tools like TCX, proposing a shift toward a fiscally responsible, locally grounded investment approach for a just energy transition.

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Working paper 2025.11
Patrick Rached, Dimitri Renmans, Marc Bourgeois and Elisabeth Paul

This briefing note, produced as part of the SPRING (Policy Supporting Programme - Social Protection and Inclusive Growth) programme, aims to present Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Social Protection (SP), clarifying certain complex aspects and providing useful bibliographical resources. Although it focuses on Central and East Africa, in particular the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, it is part of a wider reflection on social protection and inclusive growth.

​Working paper 2025.10
Albert Nkuku Malukisa

Ce document analyse les raisons pour lesquelles les réformes de l’administration publique en République démocratique du Congo peinent à produire des résultats durables. Il met en lumière l’impact des rivalités ethniques, de l’économie informelle et du clientélisme politique, qui perpétuent une fragmentation administrative et une réforme de façade maintenue par une « politique de l’autruche » à tous les niveaux de l’État.

Working paper 2025.09
Elie Lunanga, Nik Stoop, Marijke Verpoorten and Sébastien Desbureaux

This study examines electricity demand in conflict-affected North Kivu, DRC, revealing that demand is highly variable and hard to predict, complicating mini-grid planning. It highlights how the success of mini-grids in fragile settings may rely more on coordinated demand-building strategies than on accurate demand forecasting.

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​Working paper 2025.08
Frank Ahimbisibwe

This article examines the gap between Rwanda’s 2014 refugee law and its actual treatment of refugees, attributing the discrepancy to authoritarian governance, military actions abroad, and strained international relations.

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Working paper 2025.07
Espérant Mwishamali Lukobo, Sara Geenen, Sarah Katz-Lavigne

Depuis l'obligation légale de regrouper les mineurs en coopératives, ces dernières sont devenues des acteurs clés de la gouvernance minière artisanale en RDC, leur pouvoir s'affirmant notamment dans le contexte du boom du cobalt et des normes internationales. Cet article examine cette montée en puissance en mettant en lumière leur rôle de portiers sur les sites miniers et l’émergence d’une gouvernance verticale.

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Working paper 2025.06
Philippe Kabunga Dunia, Sara Geenen, Francine Iragi, Anuarite Bashizi

Cette étude examine le rôle des acteurs associatifs dans la protection sociale des exploitants miniers artisanaux en RD Congo, mettant en lumière la diversité des structures impliquées, qu'elles soient formelles (coopératives) ou informelles (petits comités). Elle souligne également les tensions entre ces organisations et les exploitants, certains percevant les coopératives comme des instruments d’extorsion ou de captation par les élites.

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Working paper 2025.05
John Paul Corpus and Danny Cassimon

Net capital inflows negatively affect the manufacturing sector's employment share in ASEAN-4 countries, with the adverse impact mainly driven by non-FDI inflows like portfolio investment and debt. However, FDI inflows positively influence manufacturing output, highlighting the need for policymakers to consider the composition of capital inflows in their industrialization strategies.

Working paper 2025.04
Sara Geenen and Sarah Katz-Lavigne

Les initiatives transnationales de diligence raisonnable définissent le risque sans tenir compte des expériences des mineurs, notamment l’incertitude économique et leurs mécanismes de solidarité. Ce papier analyse leur précarité pour mieux comprendre leur réalité quotidienne.

Working paper 2025.03
Sarah Katz-Lavigne, Sara Geenen, Hadassah Arian

Certaines initiatives internationales visant à assainir les mines de cobalt artisanales en RDC restent discrètes pour gérer les risques perçus et éviter l'exposition aux controverses. Les entreprises minières et fabricants d’automobiles s’auto-invisibilisent tout en influençant le secteur via des ONG et coopératives locales.

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Working paper 2025.02
Patrick Rached, Dimitri Renmans, Marc Bourgeois and Elisabeth Paul

Cette note de synthèse, réalisée dans le cadre du programme SPRING (Policy Supporting Programme - Social Protection and Inclusive Growth), vise à présenter la Couverture Santé Universelle (CSU) et la Protection Sociale (PS), en clarifiant certains aspects complexes et en proposant des ressources bibliographiques utiles. Bien que centrée sur l'Afrique centrale et de l'Est, notamment la RDC, le Rwanda et l'Ouganda, elle s'inscrit dans une réflexion plus large sur la protection sociale et la croissance inclusive.

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Working paper 2025.01
Berta Fernández Nuez

This paper explores data justice through the lens of the capability approach, examining how data's construction and use impact individual wellbeing and justice. By challenging traditional, emotionally detached frameworks, it proposes more humanistic, sensorium-driven methods for data representation that embrace diverse, inclusive ways of knowing and being.

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Stylianos Moshonas, Tom De Herdt, Kristof Titeca, Paulin Balungwe Shamavu
Working paper 2024.10

Cet article examine le système fragmenté et informel des compléments de salaire dans la fonction publique congolaise, en analysant leurs moteurs, leur répartition entre les ministères et leur impact sur la gouvernance. Basé sur un travail de terrain approfondi, il montre comment ces compléments façonnent l'économie politique de la rémunération et la dynamique interne de la bureaucratie publique.

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Stylianos Moshonas, Tom De Herdt, Kristof Titeca, Paulin Balungwe Shamavu
Working paper 2024.09

This paper examines the fragmented and informalised system of salary supplements in the Congolese civil service, analysing their drivers, their distribution across ministries and their impact on governance. Based on extensive fieldwork, it shows how these supplements shape the political economy of remuneration and the internal dynamics of the public bureaucracy.

Dag Boutsen, Carl Bourgeois, Ruben D’hont and Mac C. Mugumaoderha
Working paper 2024.08

This working paper introduces La très grande maquette as the first visual model to pragmatically explore Bukavu's projected urban expansion, contextualizing its growth challenges and potential through historical and architectural analysis.

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Oswald Koussihouede, Sahawal Alidou and Damase Sossou
Working paper 2024.07

This study examines how data-driven, ICT-based teacher allocation can improve the quality and equity of primary education in Senegal, using machine learning to evaluate different teacher transfer mechanisms. While student performance improved across all simulations, it came at the cost of equity, with regional-level teacher transfer schemes being more effective than national-level ones in balancing quality improvement and minimizing inequality.

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Franck Mugisho Zahinda, Liliane Nabintu Kabagale, Christian Byaombe, Francine Iragi Mukotanyi, Mac Cubaka Mugumaoderha et Dag Boutsen
Working paper 2024.06

Cette étude examine les défauts de construction et erreurs d’aménagement à Bukavu, révélant qu'ils sont principalement causés par le manque d'espace, la mauvaise qualité des matériaux, l'absence d'études géotechniques et l'utilisation de techniciens non qualifiés. Ces problèmes entraînent des conflits coûteux et chronophages entre propriétaires, locataires, entrepreneurs et autorités locales, nécessitant des mesures pour améliorer la qualité de vie des habitants.

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Bossissi Nkuba, Liliane Nabintu Kabagale, Serge Mukotanyi Mugisho, Bitagirwa Ndele, Gracia Kabilambali, Didier Mugisho et Franck Mugisho Zahinda
Working paper 2024.05

Cette étude analyse le coût écologique de l'extraction et de l'utilisation de matériaux de construction à Bukavu, révélant des impacts environnementaux significatifs tels que la déforestation et la pollution de l'eau. Malgré la faible consommation de matériaux en raison de la pauvreté, le non-respect des lois environnementales aggrave les risques pour la santé et l'écosystème. Les acteurs de la construction, bien conscients de ces effets néfastes, restent impuissants, soulignant la nécessité de politiques favorisant la réutilisation des matériaux pour une construction durable.

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Francine Iragi Mukotanyi, Philippe Dunia Kabunga, Naomi Mputu, Joseph Bahati Mukulu, Marie-Rose Bashwira
Working paper 2024.04

Cette étude explore la demande croissante de matériaux de construction due à l'urbanisation et à la croissance démographique, particulièrement en Afrique subsaharienne, et cartographie les acteurs de cette chaîne de valeur. Elle analyse la gouvernance, la réglementation, les risques et contraintes du secteur, et souligne ses avantages économiques pour les participants, contribuant ainsi à la réduction de la pauvreté.

Olivier Igugu, Elvis Amani Zihalirwa, Espoir Kanene, Jean-Claude Katanga et Dag Boutsen
Working paper 2024.03

Cette étude analyse les facteurs des constructions artisanales et spontanées à Bukavu, leurs conséquences, et propose des méthodes pour améliorer les conditions de vie des occupants. Elle met en lumière le rôle de divers acteurs dans le secteur de la construction et discute des implications pour l'urbanisme et l'architecture, en présentant des projets innovants pour relever les défis urbains et environnementaux.

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Sara Geenen, Christelle Balegamire, Divin-Luc Bikubanya, Philippe Dunia Kabunga, Sarah Katz-Lavigne, Naomi Nabami, Bossissi Nkuba
Working paper 2024.02

Cette étude examine la littérature sur le travail dans le secteur de la construction et sa chaîne d'approvisionnement, en se concentrant sur les pays moins industrialisés, pour identifier les tendances et les lacunes existantes. Il servira de point de départ pour une étude future sur le secteur de la construction à Bukavu, RDC, en mettant en lumière la vulnérabilité des travailleurs due à leur statut informel, migratoire et éducatif.

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Divin-Luc Bikubanya, Sara Geenen, Bossissi Nkuba, Mac Mugumaoderha Cubaka et Dag Boutsen
Working paper 2024.01

Cette étude examine les modèles de construction et d’urbanisation en RDC avant, pendant et après la colonisation belge jusqu’à la fin des années 80, en mettant en lumière l'impact des politiques économiques coloniales et la dynamique de l'industrialisation sur l’urbanisation fragmentée de Bukavu. Il souligne l'importance de revitaliser les entreprises industrielles pour que les matériaux de construction contribuent véritablement au développement urbain.

​Cette série de working papers (2024.01 - 2024.06) est le produit d’un projet de collaboration interuniversitaire, financé par le VLIR-UOS (Conseil Interuniversitaire Flamand) et exécuté par l’Université d’Anvers et la KULeuven en Belgique, et l’Université Catholique de Bukavu (UCB) avec le Centre d’Expertise en Gestion Minière (CEGEMI) en République Démocratique du Congo. Plus d'info sur le projet: /handmade-urbanism​

Frank Ahimbisibwe
Working paper 2023.06

Rwanda enacted its first laws regarding refugees in 1966 and 1984, primarily for Rwandan refugees returning from exile, but later developed comprehensive legislation in 2001 and 2006 to address refugees from other countries, ultimately passing the Law Relating to Refugees in May 2014, aligning with international and regional obligations, though some gaps remain in addressing issues like environmental refugees, appeals mechanisms, and the role of immigration authorities in asylum applications.

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Frank Ahimbisibwe and Cedric M. Nkiko
Working paper 2023.05

The paper discusses how the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has taken on a significant role in responding to forced migration in the Horn of Africa, aligning with international frameworks, but faces challenges like the non-legally binding nature of its declarations, capacity gaps, and limited member state consultations, which could threaten its efforts in addressing forced migration.

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Sarah Katz-Lavigne, Hadassah Arian, Raphaël Deberdt and Sara Geenen
Working paper 2023.04

This working paper provides an overview of the numerous ethical supply chain initiatives implemented in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to address human rights concerns and conflict-related issues associated with mineral extraction, particularly focusing on tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold, copper, and cobalt, with a theoretical emphasis on the participation of small-scale producers in transnational mineral supply chain initiatives.

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Mollie Gleiberman
Working paper 2023.03

This paper explores the idea that Effective Altruism is being used as a vehicle to promote transhumanism as the natural progression of global aid and development, by mainstreaming it through its rebranding as a humanitarian effort and embedding it within the EA movement.

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Kristof Titeca
Working paper 2023.02

The paper explores how global inequalities impact North-South academic partnerships and identifies four frictions affecting such partnerships: asymmetries, tension between academic and developmental goals, balancing international standards and local needs, and differing political economies. It also reflects on how these frictions affect IOB's relations with its partner institutes and suggests ways to reduce inequalities.

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Nash Tysmans, Sara Dewachter, Nathalie Holvoet, et al. 
Working paper 2023.01

Using a collaborative, multi-perspective team approach to evaluate the impact of a development studies’ programme is beneficial for learning, accountability, and the evaluation process itself. 

Kristof Titeca and Albert Malukisa Nkuku
Working paper 2022.07

This paper discusses the politics of football in Kinshasa, with a particular focus on the ways this manifested itself during the regime of Joseph Kabila. 

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Sara Dewachter, Mariluz Salgado, Nathalie Holvoet, Eva Wuyts and Wanda Casten
Working paper 2022.06

This paper examines whether master’s in development studies are adhering to the ‘leaving no one behind’ pledge of the SDGs. 

InforMining. An in-depth study of informalization in global gold production  ( | | )​

Eugenia Robles Mengoa, Boris Verbrugge, Sara Geenen, Divin-Luc Bikubanya, Beverly Besmanos and Rafael López Valverde
Working papers 2022.03 - 2022.05

This series of papers is part of the project ‘InForMining. An in-depth study of informalization in global gold production’ funded by the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO). The project has two main objectives: (1) to study informalization processes in the global gold production system and (2) to study their effects on workers. We studied the question of informal labour in mining areas in three countries across three continents: Peru in Latin America, the Philippines in Asia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Africa.

Catherine Van den bosch and George Mavrotas
Working paper 2022.02

Remittances are an important source of development finance, particularly in recent years due also to increased migration flows at global level. The recent COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a sudden drop of remittances and an alarming aspect of the pandemic is that it particularly affected female migrants. Despite the importance of gender for remittance sending and usage, research about international migration and remittances insufficiently takes into account its role. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to partially fill this gap in the relevant literature

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Danny Cassimon, Olusegun Fadare and George Mavrotas
Working paper 2022.01

The Sustainable Development Goal 2 to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” has received a lot of attention in recent years as part of the 2030 Agenda. At the same time, there exists a complex interaction between institutions, capital flows, and food and nutrition security. In this paper we estimate a series of dynamic panel data models to examine the impact of governance quality and capital flows (in the form of ODA, FDI, Portfolio Equity and Remittances) on food security, nutrition security and undernourishment by using panel data for 25 SSA countries over the period 1996 to 2018.

Transformations dans l'exploitation de l'or au Sud-Kivu, RD Congo

​Série de publications
Working papers 2021.04-2021.10

Cette série de working papers est le produit de deux projets de recherche, et d’une équipe de chercheurs. Les recherches ont été conçues comme une recherche collaborative, avec une implication active des membres dans toutes les étapes de la recherche, de la conception jusqu’à l’écriture.

Mollie Gleiberman
Working paper 2021.03

This paper is part of a wider effort IOB initiated last year – under the mandate of the previous Bureau of IOB - to question its “DNA” in view of rethinking its academic activities, particularly in the field of education.

Dennis Essers and Danny Cassimon
Working paper 2021.02

When the COVID-19 pandemic added to already elevated debt vulnerabilities in low-income countries, the G20 launched the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) and the Common Framework for Debt Treatments beyond the DSSI, which have provided limited relief so far. For several countries, deeper and more wide-ranging debt treatments will likely be needed to secure future debt sustainability. This paper looks at the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, the largest and most comprehensive debt relief effort for low-income countries to date, as a potential reference point for the 2020s.

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Sara Geenen, Anuarite Bashizi, Elie Lunanga, Philippe Dunia Kabunga, Alain Ntibonera Mushagalusa, Eustache Kuliumbwa and Joseph Bahati Mukulu
Working paper 2021.01

Ce rapport s'inscrit dans le cadre d'un projet financé par le Fonds Scientifique Flamand (FWO) qui a été initié en 2017 et clôturé en 2019. Le projet était initié et coordonné par prof. Sara Geenen, affiliée à l’ Institut de Politique de Développement (IOB) de l’ Université d’Anvers en Belgique et au Centre d’Expertise en Gestion Minière (CEGEMI) de l’Université Catholique de Bukavu en République Démocratique du Congo.

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Kristof Titeca
Working paper 2020.07

This analysis focuses on a consistent claim which is made among many actors in the DRC: that the LRA was invited, and supported, by the Congolese authorities. This analysis reviews this claim, by zooming in on the available evidence, such as the circumstances in which the rebel group arrived in the country. 

Hester Postma and Sara Geenen
Working paper 2020.06

This paper reports on a case study of the most widely used traceability and due diligence programme for 3T minerals (tin, tungsten and tantalum), the International Tin Supply Chain Initiative (). It studies the concrete implementation of the programme in Rwanda, and addresses the key question whether and how this non-state actor (in this case a non-profit organization implementing a due diligence programme) can hold private actors (in this case upstream supply chain actors that are members of the programme) to account.

Filip Reyntjens
Working paper 2020.05

On July 3, 2020 the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the December 21, 2018 decision of the investigating judges Herbaut and Poux, dismissing, for lack of sufficient evidence, the case regarding the missile attack, on April 6, 1994, against the plane of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana. This decision meant the abandonment of proceedings against nine suspects close to the current RwandanPresident, Paul Kagame.

Filip Reyntjens
Working paper 2020.04

Le 3 juillet dernier, la chambre d’instruction de la cour d’appel de Paris a confirmé le non-lieu prononcé le 21 décembre 2018 par les juges d’instruction Herbaut et Poux dans l’affaire de l’attentat, le 6 avril 1994, contre l’avion du président rwandais Juvénal Habyarimana. Cette décision signifie l’abandon des poursuites engagées contre neuf proches de l’actuel président rwandais, Paul Kagame.

Sébastien Desbureaux, Audacieux Kaota, Elie Lunanga, Nik Stoop, Marijke Verpoorten
Working paper 2020.03

Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is currently facing two major infectious disease outbreaks: Covid-19 and Ebola Virus Disease. The results in this paper show that different infectious disease outbreaks can have very different effects, largely unrelated to case numbers of the disease.

Frank Ahimbisibwe
Working paper 2020.02

Uganda hosts refugees and asylum seekers from neighboring countries and the region. Uganda passed the Refugees Act in 2006 which has been praised world wide as being a progressive law that meets international protection standards. However, there is a discrepancy between the provisions of the Act and the country’s practice.

Je-Al Burguillos, Danny Casimon
Working paper 2020.01

This study explores the key factors that affected the deepening of financial inclusion across the 17 regions of the Philippines from 2013-2017.

Christian Senga, Danny Cassimon and Thomas Kigabo
Working paper 2019.05

This study investigates the influence of government borrowing through international capital markets on investment dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). 

Cassandra Vet, Danny Cassimon and Anne Van de Vijver
Working paper 2019.04

It is widely recognized that international corporate taxation holds a distributional bias towards advanced economies and that developing countries only play a marginal role in tax governance-making. 

Habtamu Beshir and Jean-François Maystadt
Working paper 2019.03

Food insecurity is pervasive and highly seasonal in Ethiopia. In this study, we investigate the effect of seasonal food insecurity on child development. 

Françoise Toyi et Stef Vandeginste
Working paper 2019.02

Après la réforme constitutionnelle du 7 juin 2018, le Burundi s’apprête à une réforme de sa législation électorale en vue des élections générales de 2020. En janvier 2019, le Conseil des Ministres a adopté un projet de loi portant révision du Code électoral du 3 juin 2014. Les auteurs mettent l’accent sur la conformité du projet de loi avec la Constitution du 7 juin 2018, avec les traités internationaux en matière des droits de l’homme qu’a ratifiés le Burundi et avec l’Accord d’Arusha pour la Paix et la Réconciliation au Burundi du 28 août 2000.

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Imane Bendra
Working paper 2019.01

For years, Morocco’s migration policy has adopted a security approach towards irregular migration through the containment, mistreatment and deportation of migrants. However, on 9 September 2013 the government announced a new National Strategy for Immigration and Asylum (NSIA). The article looks at the reasons behind the change in Morocco’s migration policy. 

Anne Van de Vijver, Danny Cassimon, Peter-Jan Engelen
Working paper 2018.12

We analyze the fight against aggressive corporate tax planning from a Real Option Theory perspective, in order to find an explanation for the difficult shift of companies’ aggressive tax planning strategies to more responsible tax behavior. Moreover, we suggest additional public policy interventions against aggressive tax planning based on Real Option Theory insights. 

Els Lecoutere and Bjorn Van Campenhout
Working paper 2018.11

This article estimates the impact of intrahousehold cooperation on household welfare and household public goods provision, using the random encouragement for an intervention intended to stimulate cooperation as an instrument, among smallholder coffee farming households in Uganda and Tanzania.

Francine Iragi Mukotanyi
Working paper 2018.10

Compté parmi les provinces riches en gisements miniers de la RDC, le Sud-Kivu a d’abord connu l’exploitation industrielle de ses minerais avant d’expérimenter l’émergence d’une exploitation minière artisanale, ausée par des situations des guerres et des conditions socioéconomiques difficiles qui ont poussés plusieurs personnes à s’y lancer dans l’espoir d’y tirer un revenu capable de répondre à leurs besoins.

Christina Murray, Eric Alston and Micha Wiebusch
Working paper 2018.09

Proposed changes to presidential term limits are almost always highly contested, and have attracted international and regional attention from many external actors including governmental organizations (IGOs), and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs). A central question that faces these external actors is the extent to which it is legitimate to take a position in presidential term limit debates. 

Key Words:  Presidential Term Limits; United Nations; African Union; Organization of American States; Venice Commission; NGO; International IDEA; international institutions

Stefaan Marysse and Kelbesa Megersa
Working Paper 2018.08

In this study, we explore if claims of ‘good’ (improving) economic governance are factual in DRC, particularly over the 2003-2016 period. We analyze the role of institutional reforms (mainly those of former P. M. Matata Ponyo) for gains in economic governance and how this compares to failures in basic functions of the state. We show how recent gains in economic growth and contentions of ‘good’ governance (in public institutions, big projects, etc.) overlap a ‘real’ governance composed of competitive clientelism and elite capture. In this regard, we document a list of major reforms and the ‘resistance’ to such reforms posed by the political elite.

Els Lecoutere
Working Paper 2018.07

Does increased cooperation between spouses in agricultural households lead to more efficient farming? This working paper describes an experiment in Uganda in which were given either couple seminars or randomly encouraged for an intensive coaching package or did not receive any treatment.

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Els Lecoutere
Working Paper 2018.06

This study investigates the impact of participatory intrahousehold decision-making, introduced through a randomly encouraged intensive coaching package and less intensive awareness raising couple seminars, in agricultural households in Uganda on intrahousehold cooperation and sharing behaviour measured in a lab-in-the-field experiment.

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Frank Ahimbisibwe
Working Paper 2018.05

This article looks at the major refugee protection challenges that confront Uganda. It further addresses some of the emerging opportunities which if seized could provide effective protection to the refugees. Finally, the paper concludes with policy implications.

Wim Marivoet, Tom De Herdt and John Ulimwengu
Working Paper 2018.04

Ce document s’appuie sur deux séries de données sur le budget des ménages (2005 et 2012) pour présenter une proposition d’analyse intégrée des changements les plus récents en matière de bien-être et de pauvreté en République Démocratique du Congo (RDC).

Albert Malukisa Nkuku and Kristof Titeca
Working Paper 2018.03

This paper analyses in detail the governance of urban markets in Kinshasa. By unpacking the complex relations of power which underpin these markets, the paper shows how informality is used as an instrument of accumulation by a variety of actors, which try to gain access to the revenue generated by the markets.   

Wim Marivoet, Tom De Herdt and John Ulimwengu
Working Paper 2018.02

Relying on two rounds of household budget data (2005 and 2012), this paper presents a proposal for an integrated analysis of the most recent changes in welfare and poverty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Stylianos Moshonas
Working Paper 2018.01

Over the past fifteen years, the DRC has been engaged in a vast process of state reconstruction and reform, with significant support provided by donors. Partly due to an inimical political context, though, until 2012 donor-sponsored attempts at civil service reform and retirement remained limited and proved largely inconclusive. Since then, a series of encouraging steps have been taken with regards to administrative reform: the launching of the key reform of bancarisation in 2011, a revised civil service reform strategy supported by the World Bank in 2013. This paper provides an overview of the politics of HR management and payroll reform in the DRC, in order to situate the dynamics behind current civil service and payroll reform initiatives.

Nadia Molenaers, Gervais Rufyikiri and Stef Vandeginste
IOB Working Paper 2017.14

Between the first post-conflict elections (2005) and the crisis that was occasioned by the 2015 electoral process, Burundi underwent evolutions of both remarkable progress and substantial setbacks in different dimensions of governance

Els Lecoutere and Eva Wuyts
IOB Working Paper 2017.13

This study investigates the impact of introducing participatory intrahousehold decision-making on the empowerment of women in agricultural households in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Ugandan coffee farming households.

Supplemental files

Sarah K. Thontwa, Tom De Herdt, Wim Marivoet and John Ulimwengu
IOB Working Paper 2017.12

How have people’s livelihoods evolved recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)? Many observers are not too shy to come up with an answer to this question. All these voices ultimately refer to official data sources on people’s livelihoods in the DRC. In this paper we focus more in particular on survey data on the DRC.

Chika Charles Aniekwe
IOB Working Paper 2017.11

African elections are usually highly contested and competitive because of the winner takes all making of most of the political systems on the continent. Since the third wave of democracy (Huntington, 1991), due to the competitive nature of these elections, attention is usually focused on making these elections peaceful and often relatively credible.      

Gertrude Kazoviyo
IOB Working paper 2017.10

Ce papier essaie d’analyser quelques discours tenus par les acteurs politiques burundais autour du processus de paix d’Arusha1 en général et du partage du pouvoir en particulier. L’objet de cette analyse est de dégager les attitudes de principaux locuteurs politiques burundais sur ce processus, destiné à trouver des solutions à un conflit qui dure des dizaines d’années.

Frank Ahimbisibwe
IOB Working paper 2017.09

Uganda hosts refugees from neighboring countries including Rwanda. According toUNHCR, by the end of 2016, Uganda was the 5th and 1st top refugee hosting country in the world and Africa respectively.

Frank Ahimbisibwe
IOB Working paper 2017.08

Uganda hosts refugees from neighboring countries including Rwanda. According to UNHCR, by the end of 2016, Uganda was the 5th and 1st top refugee hosting country in the world and Africa respectively. It hosted over 900,000 refugees.

Frank Ahimbisibwe
IOB Working paper 2017.07

Uganda is a host country to refugees from neighboring countries including Rwanda. By the end of 2015, Uganda was the 8th and 3rd top refugee hosting country in the world and Africa respectively with around 512,968 refugees on its soil.

Frank Ahimbisibwe
IOB Working paper 2017.06

Uganda hosts refugees from neighboring countries including Rwanda. By May 2017, Uganda was the second refugee hosting country in the world, with over 1.2 million refugees.

Stef Vandeginste and René-Claude Niyonkuru
IOB Working paper 2017.05

L’article 299 de la Constitution du 18 mars 2005 impose certaines limites au pouvoir de réviser la Constitution. Il protège des valeurs auxquelles une révision de la Constitution ne peut pas porter atteinte.

Article 299 of the Constitution of 18 March 2005 imposes certain limitations on the power to revise the Constitution. It protects certain values which cannot be infringed upon through a constitutional amendment.

Monica Schuster, Liesbet Vranken and Miet Maertens
IOB Working paper 2017.04

Employment in high-value agro-export sectors has been recognized to entail the potential to contribute to poverty reduction in rural areas of developing countries. 

Frank Ahimbisibwe
IOB Working paper 2017.03

The paper analyzes the challenge of physical (in) security of Rwandan refugees in Nakivale and Oruchinga settlements, South Western Uganda. The paper is largely based on the views of the refugees themselves.

Keywords: Rwandan refugees, physical security, Nakivale, Oruchinga, Uganda, Rwanda

Stef Vandeginste
IOB Working paper 2017.02

Préface: Exit Arusha, un projet de livre.

Cette esquisse de manuscrit constitue la première étape d’un trajet qui doit mener à la publication d’un livre concernant l’usage et, surtout, le déclin du partage du pouvoir comme instrument de promotion de la paix et de la démocratie au Burundi. Cette esquisse offre un résumé des principaux arguments qui seront développés dans les différents chapitres du livre à écrire.

Stef Vandeginste
IOB working paper 2017.01

Preface: Exit Arusha, the book project.

This manuscript outline is the first step on a journey towards the publication of a book on the use - the rise and, more importantly, the fall - of power-sharing as an instrument of peace and democracy in Burundi. The outline summarizes the main arguments to be developed in each of the book chapters.

Dimitri Renmans, Elisabeth Paul and Bruno Dujardin
IOB working paper 2016.14

We approach Performance-Based Financing (PBF) through the lenses of the Principal-Agent theory to critically analyse PBF and elucidate the principal elements, main challenges and possible pitfalls. 

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Jan Pronk
IOB working paper 2016.13

This paper is based on an invited lecture at the occasion of the opening of the academic year at IOB, University of Antwerp (September 12, 2016)

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Gervais Rufyikiri
IOB working paper 2016.12

Depuis son accession au pouvoir après les élections de 2005, le CNDD-FDD a été constamment critiqué pour la mauvaise gouvernance du Burundi tandis que le comportement de ses dirigeants faisait penser à une continuité des pratiques du maquis. 

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Gervais Rufyikiri
IOB working paper 2016.11

Since its accession to power following the 2005 elections, the CNDD-FDD has been continuously criticized for Burundi governance setbacks while its leaders’ behavior suggested a maquis practice continuity. 

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Nik Stoop, Janvier Kilosho Buraye, Marijke Verpoorten
IOB working paper 2016.10

Le site des mines d’or de Kamituga au Sud-Kivu, est caractérisé par une coexistence tendue entre Banro, une multinationale minière basée au Canada, et un grand nombre de mineurs artisanaux qui opèrent dans les concessions de la compagnie. 

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Nik Stoop, Janvier Kilosho Buraye and Marijke Verpoorten
IOB working paper 2016.09

The gold mining site of Kamituga in South-Kivu, is characterized by a tense co-existence between Banro, a Canadian mining company, and a large number of artisanal miners who operate in the company’s concessions.

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Gervais Rufyikiri
IOB working paper 2016.08

This study contributes to understanding the extent of corruption in Burundi, and its consequences for political and economic governance.

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Gervais Rufyikiri
IOB working paper 2016.07

L’objectif de la présente étude est de contribuer à la compréhension de l’ampleur de la corruption et de ses conséquences sur la gestion politique et économique au Burundi. Il ressort de notre analyse que la corruption au Burundi pendant ces dix dernières années était très forte et systémique.

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Miet Kuppens
IOB working paper 2016.06

Increasing pressure on governments to demonstrate accountability and transparency has contributed to a multiplication of social accountability initiatives that aim to improve public accountability by strengthening civic engagement and good governance through a myriad of tools such as citizen monitoring or SMS-based complaint systems.

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Sara Geenen
IOB working paper 2016.05

This report is part of my research project (FWO postdoctoral fellowship) on ‘hybrid governance in mining concessions in Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’, which proposes to study the impact of transnational mining companies’ activities in African mining areas in a novel fashion.

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Saudia Rahat and Nathalie Holvoet
IOB working paper 2016.04

This paper contributes to the dialogue on monitoring and evaluating climate change programs by examining the existing literature as it pertains to the core requirements of a generic M&E system and highlighting the nuances for monitoring and evaluating climate change programs.

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Marijke Verpoorten and Bert Ingelaere
IOB working paper 2016.03

We study the changes in inter-ethnic trust in Rwanda, in the period 1989-2011, bracketing genocide and other forms of violence. We rely on a combination of quantitative and narrative analysis of over 400 individual life histories in which inter-ethnic trust was systematically coded.

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Els Lecoutere and Laurence Jassogne
IOB working paper 2016.02

Conceptualising smallholder farming households as collective action institutions, that make interrelated decisions about investment, resource use and allocation in a common household farm, may contribute to understanding widely observed uncooperative outcomes, such as yield gaps, gender gaps in productivity, suboptimal or Pareto inefficient sustainable intensification and climate change adaptation.

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Stef Vandeginste
IOB working paper 2016.01

The Arusha Agreement of 28 August 2000 is an important stake of the ongoing crisis in Burundi. This paper analyses Burundi’s Arusha Agreement based achievements and suggests how they may be better protected through existing but strengthened institutional mechanisms.

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Chiara Franco, Marco Sanfilippo and Adnan Seric
IOB Working paper 2015.09

The role of backward linkages between foreign and local firms is considered as a crucial factor to favour the economic development of a country. This work tries to unveil its different dimensions with respect to the Vietnamese case.

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Stef Vandeginste
IOB Working paper 2015.08

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The Arusha Agreement is an important stake of the ongoing crisis in Burundi. This paper analyses the Arusha based achievements and suggests how they may be better protected through existing but strengthened institutional mechanisms.

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Christina Mwivei Shitima
IOB Working Paper 2015.07

River basin resources contribute in diverse ways in the livelihoods of rural people in Tanzania. People living around these areas depend on small scale agriculture, subsistence forestry, artisanal fishing, livestock keepings, artisanal mining and small-scale trade as sources of livelihoods.

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Danny Cassimon, Tom De Herdt and Karel Verbeke
IOB working paper 2015.06

In this paper, we assess to what extent large-scale debt relief, irrevocably granted to DRC in 2010 after a decade long bumpy process, has impacted on post-conflict reconstruction, governance and public service delivery in the country, more particularly in the education sector.

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Mathias De Roeck and Ronan Van Rossem
IOB Working paper 2015.05

The conceptualization and measurement of the range of political regimes in-between authoritarianism and democracy is characterized by many shades of grey. After the end of the Cold War, scholars formulated numerous new political regime typologies, commonly presented as diminished subtypes of democracy and authoritarianism and as transitional rather than stable institutional forms. Correspondingly, scholars collected data to develop new longitudinal and cross-national measures of political regimes.

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Joachim De Weerdt and Kalle Hirvonen 
IOB Working paper 2015.04

AbstractOver the past two decades, more than half the population in our sample of rural Tanzanians has migrated out of their home-communities. We hypothesize that this powerful current of internal migrants is changing the nature of traditional institutions such as informal risk sharing. Mass internal migration has created geographically disperse networks, on which we collected detailed panel data. By quantifying how shocks and consumption co-vary across linked households we show that, while both migrants and stayers insure negative shocks to stayers, there is no one in the network who insures the migrants’ negative shocks. While migrants do share some of their positive shocks, they ultimately end up nearly twice as rich as those at home by 2010, despite practically identical baseline positions in the early nineties prior to migration. Taken together, these findings point to migration as a risky, but profitable endeavour, for which the migrant will bear the risk and also reap most of the benefit. We interpret these results within the existing literature on risk-sharing and on the disincentive effects of redistributive norms.  

JEL codes: O12, O15, O17, R23Keywords: internal migration, risk, insurance, institutions, Africa, tracking data

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Lara Cockx and Nathalie Francken
IOB Working paper 2015.03 

This paper investigates the discrepancy between the vast natural resource wealth and the relatively low spending on human development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Our results show a robust, significant inverse relationship between natural resource dependence and public health spending, and natural resource dependence and public education spending over time. The effects remain significant after controlling for income, aid, the age structure of the population, and the quality of institutions. Moreover, we find a particularly strong resource curse effect of oil on social spending. Despite the mounting burden on MENA‘s economic development models due to significant population growth and the pressing need for diversification, countries have been unable or unwilling to convert natural resource wealth into increased social spending. Governments should be strongly encouraged to manage their natural wealth in an accountable and equitable manner that follows international best practice. Correct taxation of natural resource, and especially, oil wealth should provide the governments with adequate budgets to fund a desirable level of public health provision. Finally, the equity of distribution of education spending could be improved. 

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Lara Cockx and Nathalie Francken 
IOB Working paper 2015.02 

This paper contributes to a new line of research in the resource curse literaturethat addresses the link between resource wealth and fiscal policy by empirically investigating  the relationship between natural resource dependence and public education spending. Using a large panel dataset of world countries covering the period from 1995to 2009, we find robust evidence of a public education spending resource curse. The adverse effect of natural resource dependence on public education expenditures relative to GDP remains significant after controlling for additional covariates such as income, aid, and the age structure of the population. Our results further confirm the existence of indirect effects of resource dependence through a deterioration of government accountability and the crowding-out of more skilled-labour intensive sectors in the economy. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the resource curse effect on the government prioritization of education mainly stems from point-source natural resources. Our results have important implications for managing natural resource wealth in developing countries, as they could achieve particularly high returns by investing resource revenues in public goods such as education. While this paper underlines the importance of institutions and government accountability, our results also raise questions on the role of the extractives industry. The oil, gas and mining industry should consider increasing funding for education through Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives in this sector or through other innovative channels of development finance.

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Chika Charles Aniekwe and Daniel Egiegba Agbiboa 
IOB Working paper 2015.01 

In May 1999, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, made an epochal transition to democratic civilian rule following roughly thirty-three years of military dictatorship. Since 1999, Nigeria has held four successive elections, which have all been (more or less) undermined by electoral violence. Despite this recurrent and disturbing trend of electoral violence, few works have attempted to systematically engage with three key questions: why is electoral violence a recurrent phenomenon in Nigeria? Why have there been so few constitutional provisions to mitigate its recurrence? What lessons can be learned from Nigeria’s turbulent electoral past, especially with regards to the role of civic engagement? These are the core questions this paper seeks to address. This paper draws its data primarily from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)-Electoral Violence Education and Resolution (EVER) programme, with which the authors were actively involved during the 2007 and 2011 general elections inNigeria. To balance any inconsistencies, data derived from a content analysis of IFES reports and cumulative observations will be triangulated and cross-validated with reports of different Election Observation Missions to Nigeria (1999-2011), as well as reports from local and international observation teams and key International NGOs working in the areas of elections and democracy in Nigeria, including National Democratic Institute (NDI), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and International Republican Institute (IRI). The paper thus argues that as Nigeria prepares for 2015 elections, important lessons should be adapted from the IFES-EVER project to ensure robust civic engagement in preventing and mitigating electoral related violence. The use of electoral support networks, link with Nigerian police and other security agencies, constant engagement and information sharing between INEC and all relevant stakeholders as well as biweekly reportage and publication of incidents of electoral violence with names of perpetrators will go a long way in preventing and mitigating incidents of electoral violence in Nigeria 2015 General Elections. Furthermore, crucial attention should also be paid to Nigerian legal and constitutional provisions on electoral violence with the view to reviewing the standards and level of sanctions to perpetrators.

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Kelbesa Megersa and Danny Cassimon 
Working paper 2014.11 

AbstractThe paper investigates whether differences in public sector management quality affect the link between public debt and economic growth in developing countries. For this purpose, we primarily use World Bank’s institutional indices of public sector management (PSM). Using PSM thresholds, we split our panel into country clusters and make comparisons. Our linear baseline regressions reveal a significant negative relationship between public debt and growth. The various robustness exercises that we perform also confirm these results. When we dissect our dataset into ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ county clusters using public sector management scores, however, we find different results. While public debt still displayed a negative relationship with growth in countries with ‘weak’ public sector management quality, it generally displayed a positive relationship in the latter group. The tests for non-linearity shows evidence of an ‘inverse-U’ shape relationship between public debt and economic growth. However, we fail to see a similar significant relationship on country clusters that account for PSM quality. Yet, countries with well managed public sectors demonstrate a higher public debt sustainability threshold. 

Keywords: public debt, economic growth, public sector management, developing countriesJEL Classification: E62, F34, H63, H83, O11

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Fekadu Nigussie Deresse and German Calfat 
Working paper 2014.10 

The “minimalist” approach that once dominated microfinance outreach in the past is now a fading memory. A growing number of studies are suggesting a more “integrative” approach to support the marginalized and ultra-poor households. This study highlights the impact of the integrated programs-Village Saving and Loan Association (VSLA) and Productive Safety Net Programs (PSNP)-in Sekota district, Northern Ethiopia on consumption expenditure of households. Endogenous Switching Regression model is fitted to minimize threats of self-selection bias, unobserved characteristics and heterogeneity effect. The result reveals that self-selected participant in the integrated program has a significant and positive impact on monthly consumption expenditure compared with the random participants and non-participants.

Keywords: Endogenous switching regression, Productive Safety Net Programme, Self-selection bias, Village Saving and Loan Association, Ethiopia.

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German Calfat, Pedro Moncarz, Sergio Barone and Ricardo Descalzi 
Working paper 2014.09 

Argentina, like other land abundant country, benefited greatly from the increase in the prices of agricultural commodities. However, and in despite of the benefits at the macro level, with a large share of the population with low and medium-low incomes, the increase in agricultural commodity prices has the potential to hurt an important part of the population through a raise in the prices of the consumption basket of households, especially those that constitute the food-basket. The ex-ante evidence shows that this is expected to be the case. A less obvious channel, through changes in factor incomes would be more beneficial to the middle income households. Overall, losses range between 5.5 and 10% of initial household expenditure, with poorer households being the most negatively affected.

JEL Codes: F10, F13, F14, F16, I30.Keywords: trade, commodity prices, poverty, Argentina.

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Dennis Essers, Hans Blommestein, Danny Cassimon, Perla Ibarlucea Flores 
Working paper 2014.08 

This paper studies the current state and drivers of the development of government local currency bond markets (LCBMs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region whose progress in developing such markets has only recently received attention in the literature. We argue that well-developed LCBMs could reduce countries’ exposure to external shocks; help wash away or reduce ‘original sin’; facilitate the mobilisation of domestic savings; and may have important financial, macroeconomic and institutional spill-over effects. With detailed information collected from various sources the paper first shows that quite a number of African countries have made significant strides in this area. Increasingly, governments in the region issue fixed-rate local currency bonds with tenors of ten years and more on a regular basis. This does not imply all is well. We find that LCBMs in Africa often have low liquidity, feature very few corporate securities and generally have relatively narrow investor bases dominated by commercial banks. The second part of the study presents new results on the drivers of LCBMs based on an econometric analysis of new panel data collected by the OECD. Our results indicate that LCBM capitalisation in selected African countries is negatively correlated with governments’ fiscal balance and relatively high inflation, and positively related to common law legal origins, better institutional quality and strong democratic political systems.  

Keywords: public debt; local currency bonds; Sub-Saharan Africa

JEL codes: H63; O16; O55

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are personal and do not represent the views of the organisations the authors are affiliated with. Any remaining errors are those of the authors only.

Stef Vandeginste
Working paper 2014.07 

Conformément au Code électoral en vigueur au moment de la déclaration de candidature aux élections de 2010, le dossier des candidats aux élections communales, législatives, sénatoriales et présidentielles devait contenir une attestation de bonne conduite, vie et moeurs. Des poursuites judiciaires en cours contre les candidats constituaient un obstacle pour obtenir une telle attestation, ce qui avait des conséquences majeures sur la recevabilité de leur candidature. Suite à l’entrée en vigueur du nouveau Code électoral du 3 juin 2014, l’attestation de bonne conduite, vie et moeurs ne sera plus requise des candidats aux élections présidentielles, législativeset sénatoriales en 2015. L’extrait du casier judiciaire ne concerne que les condamnations et ne peut pas être refusé aux candidats poursuivis en justice. Les personnes placées en détention préventive sont frappées d’incapacité électorale temporaire, ce qui les rend inéligibles. La CENI devrait clarifier et justifier – sinon corriger - la déclaration de son porte-parole par rapport à la recevabilité des candidatures des opposants politiques poursuivis en justice.

Danny Cassimon, Peter-Jan Engelen, Luc Van Liedekerke
Working paper 2014.06 

In this paper, the process for firms to decide whether or not to invest in corporate social responsibility is treated from a real option perspective. We extend the Husted (2005) framework with an important extra parameter that allows us to understand the timing of CSR investment and explain why some companies drag their feet over CSR investments. Our model explicitly allows for the impact of the opportunity cost of delaying the CSR investment decision, providing firms with tools to determine the optimal moment of exercising the CSR investment option. We illustrate our timing model through a case study and analyze governmental support strategies for CSR from a real options perspective.

Keywords: Real options, CSR, stakeholder management, reputational risk,  optimal timingJEL classification: D81,G13, G31, M14, K42

Patricia Bamanyaki
Working paper 2014.05 

It is widely acknowledged that gender inequality impedes the attainment of development objectives. Specific to the health sector, inequality is evidenced through excess mortality of females and differences in life expectancy that are contrary to biological norms (Stotsky, 2006). Citizen-led gender-responsive budget initiatives have been undertaken in various sectors to promote gender equality in public resource allocation and utilization and to improve transparency and accountability in public service delivery. Thus far, existing literature on the effectiveness and impact of different kinds of gender-responsive budget initiatives is mostly policy-oriented or practitioner-oriented, and is largely descriptive; while empirical literature has focused on evaluating specific interventions rather than sectors.

This paper focuses on the health sector in Uganda and explains an approach to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of citizen-led gender-responsive budget initiatives at local government level, taking due consideration of the question of causality. First, the paper adopts the theory-based evaluation approach to describe the causal step process and underlying assumptions that link citizen-led gender-responsive budget initiatives to the outcome of gender equality in health outcomes. Next, the paper proposes the use of theory-testing process-tracing methods to investigate whether the causal theory and mechanism leading to the outcome were present in the case and functioned as predicted. The paper further proposes evaluation of the counterfactual using congruence methods to enhance the internal validity of the mechanism, by ascertaining that no alternative explanations are more congruent in leading to the outcome than the theorised mechanism.

Besides providing empirical evidence of the effectiveness and impact of citizen-led gender-responsive budget initiatives, the approach proposed in this paper enables the identification of specific stages along the causal chain that impede the achievement of the intended goal of gender equality in health outcomes.

Keywords: Citizen-led, gender-responsive budgeting, theory-based evaluation, theory-testing process-tracing

Stef Vandeginste
Working paper 2014.04

Dans le débat concernant l’éventuelle candidature à un mandat présidentiel supplémentaire des présidents en exercice au Burundi, en République démocratique du Congo et au Rwanda, on observe une tendance  de la part d’acteurs politiques et diplomatiques à appeler au respect de la Constitution. Appliquée au cas du Burundi, l’analyse juridique présentée dans ce papier montre que d’importants défis peuvent se poser en ce qui concerne la mise en application de la norme constitutionnelle consacrant le principe de la limitation du nombre de mandats que peut exercer un président de la République. Cette norme n’aura, en toute probabilité, aucun effet au moment de l’évaluation de la recevabilité de l’éventuelle candidature de Pierre Nkurunziza aux élections présidentielles de 2015 par la Commission électorale nationale indépendance (CENI). La seule procédure qui, avant les élections, permettrait de jeter de la lumière sur l’éligibilité de Pierre Nkurunziza au scrutin présidentiel serait celle d’une demande d’interprétation de la Constitution adressée à la Cour constitutionnelle par Pierre Nkurunziza lui-même ou par d’autres requérants issus de son parti politique, le CNDD-FDD (Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie – Forces de défense de la démocratie). Dans ces circonstances, un renvoi à la Constitution, aussi louable soit-il, ne remplace pas le choix essentiellement politique à faire.

Liesbeth Inberg and Nathalie Holvoet
Working paper 2014.03

Since the nineties more attention has been paid to the gender dimension in development. Through the 1995 Being Declaration and Platform for Action and various policy documents of the OECD/DAC the shift from a Women in Development (WID) approach to a Gender and Development (GAD) approach has been internationally spread. Within the GAD approach the need to integrate a gender dimension in all different phases (diagnosis, planning, implementation, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation) (= vertical gender mainstreaming) of interventions in different sectors (=horizontal mainstreaming) is emphasised. In line with the 1995 Being declaration and Platform for Action and similar to the majority of bilateral and multilateral donors, Belgium has adopted a gender mainstreaming strategy. In order to take stock of and analyse the effective implementation of the gender mainstreaming strategy and its effects on the ground, the Belgian´s Special Evaluation Office of International Cooperation has recently (July 2013) commissioned an evaluation. The focus of the evaluation is both on headquarters and a selection of five case study countries. This working paper presents a selection of the first findings of the head quarters evaluative exercise and identifies several strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and challenges.

Katrien Van Aelst 
Working paper 2014.02 

This working paper briefly compares statistical, economic and anthropological views of the household, and describes the main determinants of intrahousehold bargaining and decision-making powers. Next, it discusses the shortcomings of the economic household models: their lack of attention to social norms and the non-bargaining area (i.e. the possibility of latent decision-making or non-decision-making). Additional insights in the Tanzanian household context are gained, through empirical evidence from the academic literature and the Tanzanian Demographic and Health Surveys; as well as from the country’s legislation. 

Lara Cockx and Nathalie Francken 
Working paper 2014.01 

This paper extends the concept of the resource curse by studying whether and through which transmission channels natural resource wealth affects social spending. Even though the availability of vast natural capital reserves has commonly been linked to the neglect of human development, most of the literature has continued to focus on economic performance. This paper is the first to empirically explore the link between natural resource wealth and public health expenditures in light of the hypothesis that the availability of resource wealth as a source of unearned state income enhances state autonomy, which leads to policies that fail to prioritizehuman development. Using a large panel dataset of world countries covering the period from 1991 to 2010, we find a robust, significant inverse relationship between natural resource dependence, and even abundance, and public health spending over time. The effect remains significant after controlling for state autonomy, volatility, and other factors. These findings have implications for national authorities as well as the extractive industry. Governments should be made accountable for natural resource wealth and correct taxation could provide additional resources, earmarked for health. The extractive industry could increase their investments in sustainable Social Corporate Responsibility operations, specifically in the health sector.

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Bert Ingelaere
Working paper 2013.13 

The  objective of this paper is the document the research process underlying a study on the Rwandan transition. An extensive documentation of the research process is needed (although rarely systematically undertaken) in order to understand or assess rigor (scientific and empirical) and reflexive activities deployed in the achievement of the study results. The underlying source of inspiration to do so are questions of validity that guide social science research as such. As a consequence, trustworthiness and phronesis are central concerns due to the particular epistemological intake and research strategy adopted. The paper describes the fieldwork activities, choice and use of research techniques, the reflective process guiding design and analysis, and provides an overview of the data. The paper documents five main research principles underlying and guiding the study: immersion, iteration, multi-sitedness, mixing methods and diachrony. Two main research techniques are discussed in detail: systematic observation activities and a life history approach. A detailed overview of the nature of the available data as well as a reflection on issues of epistemology and ontology concludes.

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Dennis Essers
Working paper 2013.12 

This paper studies individual-level labour market transitions and their determinants in South Africa during the zenith and aftermath of the global financial and economic crisis using 2008-2010/11 panel data from the National Income Dynamics ��������Ƶ (NIDS) and matched cross-sections of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) over 2008Q1-2012Q4. We uncover considerable movement in South African labour markets over the crisis period. Chances of continued employment significantly vary along gender, age and education levels and between different sorts of occupations and sectors of employment. Although we do find time variation in the economic significance of some of these explanatory variables, it remains difficult to link this variation directly to the evolution of South Africa’s economy over the course of the crisis.

JEL classifications: F61; G01; J64

Keywords: global financial crisis; labour markets; employment; survey data; South Africa

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Marijke Verpoorten and Romain Houssa 
Working paper 2013.11 

The inability of Benin to comply with EU standards led to a ban on its shrimp exports. The ban had a negative impact on the exporting firms, the fishmongers and the artisanal fishermen, even several years after it was lifted. Exports did not revive because local and international institutions failed to resolve the sector’s increased perceived riskiness and its inadequate financial and technical resources. For the fishermen, the impact of the ban persisted because they were locked in the fishery sector, and the local shrimp demand could not fully compensate for the loss of the EU market.

Keywords: EU food safety standards, Aid for Trade, export ban, shrimp, Benin.

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Danny Cassimon, Dennis Essers and Achmad Fauzi 
Working paper 2013.10

This paper systematically reviews recent experience with debt-for-development swaps in Indonesia, the only debtor country where the number of such operations could warrant its qualification as a genuine government debt relief and development finance policy. First, we show that the 11 swaps Indonesia has signed with its bilateral creditors since 2002 perform rather erratically across four criteria: the increase of resources at the country and/or government budget level; the increase of resources for intended sector purposes; whether, taken together, these swaps ease debt burdens; and the extent of their alignment with government policy and systems. Second, the paper finds little evidence of learning on the Indonesian side. We believe Indonesia can take a more proactive stance in negotiating the economic terms underlying its debt swaps and suggest concrete ways to do so in future swap deals.

Key words: external public debt, debt relief, debt swaps, development aid, IndonesiaJEL codes: H63; F34; F35

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Nadia Molenaers, Robrecht Renard and Anna Gagiano
Working paper 2013.09 

The perennial lamentation since the inception of the aid business has been fragmentation: too many donors carrying relatively small amounts of money to too many different interventions in too many different countries(Easterly and Pfutze 2008: 2; Acharya et al.2006; Frot and Santiso 2010, 201). Such fragmentation produces high burdens on the recipient and is even considered to undermine institutional performance ((Djankov et al.2009; Knack and Rahman 2007). NGOs are part and parcel of the fragmentation problem, be only due to their sheer number: around 40 000 NGOs are internationally active (UNDP 2000).Better coordination would reduce fragmentation (OECD 2005; Easterly 2007) and since the Paris Declaration (PD) of 2005, the international donor community has recognized donor coordination and increased specialization as tools to combat fragmentation. Such coordination should encompass an intensified cooperation between civil society organizations and governments (OECD 2005, 2008). But how can this complementarity between governmental donors and NGOs be realized? And what should complementarity look like if diversity, heterogeneity and autonomy lie at the heart of the NGO-sector? Should NGOs from a given donor country be brought in line with the bilateral strategy? Should NGOs harmonize with each other? And where should this harmonization take place? In the home country or in the field? 

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Nadia Molenaers, Anna Gagiano, Lode Smets and Sebastian Dellepiane 
Working paper 2013.08 

IntroductionSince the turn of the millennium the aid business has witnessed an important shift in the conceptualization and practice of aid delivery. The move towards harmonized and aligned approaches, including the need to make aid more predictable and flexible, introduced the budget support modality. Budget support (BS) was designed as a financing modality to support poverty reduction efforts, which was to be used quite selectively. Only countries with a good policy environment and a government demonstrably committed to poverty reduction were to be granted this flexible aid modality. Ownership was considered key because experience had shown that conditionality, particularly the kind that refers to reforms or policy changes which carry some political sensitiveness, tend to be ineffective. In reality a lot of donors started to channel parts of their aid through this fashionable new millennium flavoured aid modality without being particularly selective. As a result, aid predictability was put under strain almost immediately because donors started to use BS suspensions as a sanctioning mechanism whenever a ‘troubling’ event in the recipient country was considered a (potential) ‘breach’ in the trust relation between donor and recipient. ‘Troubling’ events could range from corruption scandals, human rights violations or electoral fraud to seemingly more ‘prosaic’ onsets like the late production of a key report. Since a number of suspensions were directly linked to regime issues, BS suspensions were thus tied in with the use of political conditionalities and served as a stick to lever for change (Hayman 2011; Molenaers et al 2010; Faust et al 2012).

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Kelbesa Megersa and Danny Cassimon
Working paper 2013.07 

Currency crises, generally defined as rapid depreciations of a local currency or loss of foreign exchange reserves, are common incidents in modern monetary systems. Due to their repeated occurrence and severity, they have earned wide coverage by both theoretical and empirical literature. However, unlike advanced and emerging economies, currency crises in low-income countries have not received due attention. This paper uses the signals approach developed by Kaminsky et al. (1998) and assesses currency crisis in Ethiopia over the time frame January 1970 to December 2008. Using the Exchange Market Pressure Index (EMPI), we identify three currency crisis episodes that coincide with the liberalisation following the fall of Ethiopian socialism, the Ethio-Eritrean border conflict, and the zenith of the global financial crisis. The timing shows the importance of both local and international dynamics. More macro-economic indicators picked up the first crisis in a 24 month signalling window, compared to the latter two. Three categories of indicators were used: current account, capital account and domestic financial sector. None of the capital account indicators were significant based on the noise-to-signal ratio rule. One possible explanation for this might be the weak integration of the Ethiopian economy with global capital markets.

Key words: Currency crisis, financial crisis, early warning systems, signals approach, Ethiopia

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Omer Ka​mbale Mirembe
Working paper 2013.06 

According to the Congolese government, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) realized good macroeconomic performance over the past few years. It is now entering economic and social development phase. But what is the reality behind such optimism? Does economic growth contribute to poverty reduction in the DRC? We find that notwithstanding significant achievements with regard to the macroeconomic framework, there has not been poverty reduction in the DRC. Explanatory factors include the sectoral composition of growth and weaknesses in implementation of redistributive policies.

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Glaister Leslie and Nathalie Holvoet
Working paper 2013.05 

Despite the acknowledged importance of capacity development to developing countries achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and one quarter of global aid going to this purpose, there is little evidence of progress in this area. There are many reasons for this, of which one is the ineffective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of capacity development. This paper therefore explores how donors can better monitor and evaluate capacity development interventions in developing countries. This was largely done by creating, for potential use by donors, a conceptual framework for M&E of capacity development that bricolaged key elements of existing M&E frameworks identified in academic literature. Using a capacity development project implemented by the Belgian Development Agency (BTC) in Rwanda, this framework was tested and adjusted where necessary.

The testing process demonstrated that the bricolaged framework adequately captured most organizational areas that must be addressed for capacity to develop, as well as most reported changes to capacity itself. The subsequent inclusion of other elements in the framework resulting from the testing process further improved the framework’s power. This conceptual framework can be integrated into the logical framework, which is currently the most common tool that donors use to plan, monitor and evaluate capacity development projects. Piloting of this framework is recommended, however, to further validate this paper’s findings.

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Omer Kambale Mirembe 
Working paper 2013.04 

This paper attempts to explain how importers, clearance agents and customs officers respond to ongoing customs administration reforms in the DRC. Customs reforms include computerization, single desk system and pre-shipment inspection. The DRC case reveals that the reforms as norms are indeed implemented, but they have not eradicated some ‘mispractices’. Actors involved adapt their practices within the framework of the reforms.

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Nathalie Holvoet, Liesbeth Inberg and Susan Sekirime 
Working paper 2013.03 

In the context of the Paris Declaration and sector wide approaches (SWAps), the need to invest in well-functioning national health sector monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems is widely acknowledged. Regardless of the approach adopted, an important first step in any strategy for capacity development is to diagnose the quality of existing systems or arrangements, taking into account both the supply and demand sides of M&E. As no standardized M&E diagnostic instrument currently exists, we invested in the development of an assessment tool for sector M&E systems. In order to counter the criticism that M&E is often narrowed down to a focus on technicalities, our diagnostic tool assesses the quality of M&E systems according to six dimensions: i) policy; ii) indicators, data collection and methodology; iii) organisation (further divided into iiia: structure, and iiib: linkages); iv) capacity; v) participation of non-government actors; and vi) use of M&E outputs. We have applied this checklist to M&E arrangements in e.g. the education and health sectors of Uganda. The outcomes of these two assessments are compared in this paper. As we aim to explore the underlying institutions and contextual factors that influence M&E in Uganda, and more specifically M&E in the education and health sectors, we draw upon the insights from the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to structure our analysis

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Nathalie Holvoet and Liesbeth Inberg 
Working paper 2013.02 

The recent (draft) decision of the 2012 Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recognises that a more balanced representation of women from developed and developing countries in the UNFCCC process is important in order to create climate policies that are responding to the different needs of men and women in national and local contexts (UNFCCC, 2012). In the context of the UNFCC, countries that are most vulnerable to climate change list their priority adaptation projects in National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs). Guidelines for drafting NAPAs have been made gender-sensitive drawing upon equality, effectiveness and efficiency arguments. More specifically, climate change affect men and women differently and therefore, policies and programmes that do not take into account the particular needs and capacities of both men and women will fail to be effective and may even worsen the already existing male bias. Against this background of increased acknowledgement of the importance of gender mainstreaming in climate change policies, we aim at confronting rhetorics with reality. Our study investigates to what extent and in what way the 31 available Sub Sahara African NAPAs integrate a gender dimension into the different phases (diagnosis, selection of projects, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation) of the NAPA cycle and the different sectors that are especially related to climate change (in addition to the energy sector, these are the agriculture, forestry, water and sanitation and health sectors). Additionally, we also analyse the degree of participation of women and gender experts in diagnosis and decision-making as well as the gender sensitivity of the format used for participation . The findings of the gender scan among others demonstrate that there is a decline in gender-sensitivity throughout the cycle, which is particularly outspoken when translation priorities into budgets and indicators. Next, processes have been more gender sensitive than the actual content of NAPAs which hints at the fact that the gender actors around the table in NAPA decision making have not always been able to influence the content of the NAPAs. This could among others be related to a low track record of these gender actors in the area of climate change. Local climate change experts on the other hand often lack operational ‘gender’ tools and approaches which are framed in their own terminology. When it comes to an integration of issues in climate change budgets, our study suggests that the insights, approaches and tools of gender budgeting could be particularly useful. 

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Danny Cassimon and Dennis Essers 
Working paper 2013.01 

This paper critically reviews three decades of official creditors’ debt relief practice in Sub-Saharan Africa from a novel angle, i.e. along debt relief’s similarities with other aid modalities. We show that debt relief is a true ‘chameleon’ which mimics different sorts of aid, from traditional project aid to multi-year general budget support. The ‘colour’ of this chameleon depends on the embedded conditionality, alignment and the budgetary resource effect of particular debt relief interventions. We argue that characterising debt relief from an aid modality perspective is helpful in better understanding its widely varying performance track record and holds important policy lessons for designing future operations. 

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Dennis Essers and Danny Cassimon
Working paper 2012.12 

This paper starts from the concept of ‘original sin’ to demonstrate that the development of local currency bond markets remains a priority for Sub-Saharan African countries, both as a prevention mechanism against external shocks and to exploit growth-boosting investment opportunities. We present evidence suggesting that in Sub-Saharan Africa, as in other developing country regions, original sin (at least in its domestic form) is today less prevalent than it used to be. An increasing number of African governments now issue non-indexed local currency bonds with tenors of 10 years and more on a regular basis. This is not to say that all is well.

African bond markets often lack liquidity, feature few corporate securities, and have a narrow investor base of commercial banks. Many more hurdles remain to be taken, by African countries themselves and the international community, if we are to further wash away original sin.

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Martin Prowse and Zerihune Berhane Weldegebriel 
Working paper 2012.11

Ethiopia is vulnerable to climate change due to its limited development and dependence on agriculture. Social protection schemes like the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) can play a positive role in promoting livelihoods and enhancing households’ risk management. This article examines the impact of the PSNP by using Propensity Score Matching to estimate the effect on income diversification. The results show receiving transfers from the PSNP, on average, increases natural resource extraction (one component of off-farm income). While these results should be treated with caution, they suggest the PSNP may not be helping smallholders diversify income sources in a positive manner for climate adaptation. The article concludes by arguing for further investigation of the PSNP’s influence on smallholders’ adaptation strategies.

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Omer Kambale Mirembe 
Working paper 2012.10 

During the 1960s and 1970s, many African states chose a means of infrastructure development that was focused largely on the public sector. However, the debt crisis, the substandard performance of public enterprises and poor governance caused many of them to experience socio-economic failure. During the 1980s, proposed recovery solutions included a significant reduction in public expenditure, resulting in a reduction or even suspension of the production of certain public goods and services.

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Peter A.G. van Bergeijk 
Working paper 2012.09 

This paper deals with the outlook for the interrelated issues of global economic governance and the efficacy of development policies. These are relevant issues in view of the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). My main point is that the formulation of the post-2015 MDGs will have to recognize the new geopolitical and geoeconomic realities that follow from the unprecedented growth of the so-called emerging markets since the 1990s. These economies do still have many characteristics of developing countries especially in remote and rural areas, but at the same time have very large modern sectors that compete successfully on the world markets. These successes are reflected in their sharply increasing shares in Gross Planet Product. Indeed, given the current growth slow-down in the advanced economies and the decoupled (and continuing) growth in the so-called BRIICS-countries (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa) it is likely that 2015 will mark the historic fact that the developed countries no longer have a majority share in global production (Figure 1). It is therefore clear that the emerging markets will have (and, indeed, should have) a much more substantial role in global governance structures, including the international organizations. The issue at stake is whether this is favorable or unfavorable for global governance. Moreover, it is pertinent to investigate the implications of the changing economic conditions and to seek ways to make the best use of the new geopolitical and geoeconomic realities.

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Stef Vandeginste 
Working paper 2012.08 

On 8 July 2011, the Supreme Court of Burundi annulled the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Bujumbura of 11 February 1998 which convicted to death Pierre Nkurunziza, currently President of the Republic. The analysis of the Supreme Court judgment shows, first of all, that the criminal responsibility of the Head of State is poorly regulated under Burundian law. Secondly, the paper concludes that, in all likelihood, the conviction of Pierre Nkurunziza bythe Court of Appeal of Bujumbura was indeed procedurally grossly irregular. However, although seen from a procedural angle justice has been done, several reasons explain why in the general perception justice has not been seen to be done. These relate essentially to the perceived lack of independence of Burundi’s judiciary and the instrumentalisation of the judicial process to serve political interests. In fact, the procedure may well have been inspired by electoral motivations. However, our analysis also finds that the Supreme Court judgment should not prevent Burundi’s future transitional justice mechanisms from investigating the same case.

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Omer Kambale Mirembe 
Working paper 2012.07 

La république démocratique du Congo (RDC) est dans un processus de décentralisation. Sa constitution consacre aux entités territoriales décentralisées (ETD) la libre administration et l’autonomie de gestion de leurs ressources. Il s’agit des villes, des communes, et des chefferies ou secteurs. Il est dès lors important de s’intéresser au champ fiscal des ces entités qui constitue le principal vivier de leurs ressources propres. Nous utilisons l’expression « fiscalité locale » dans un sens large de taxation locale incluant les impôts, taxes, redevances et droits payés par les contribuables locaux aux administrations locales. Si les provinces disposent d’un certain nombre d’actes imposables en vue de leur autonomie financière, les entités territoriales décentralisées disposent de peu de ressources propres. Parmi les composantes de leur fiscalité locale on retrouve les taxes sur les activités marchandes principalement la taxe annuelle relative à la délivrance de la patente. La fiscalité locale est destinée à financer les entités territoriales décentralisées ; mais elle est évidemment insuffisante. Comme le fait remarquer Gérard Chambas (2001 :11), malgré le vif intérêt pour la décentralisation en Afrique, les collectivités locales disposent des ressources locales faibles. 

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Omer Kambale Mirembe 
Working paper 2012.06 

Public finance literature generally deals with key issues of the fiscal process, public revenue and expenditure (MUSGRAVE R.A., 1969:797). The allocative function is one of the main fiscal tasks of government. Public resources are assigned for the provision and financing of public services. One of the budgetary principles of public finance, the non-assignment rule, prohibits earmarking of a type of public income to finance specific expenditure. All the resources are to be channelized to the Treasury which finances public spending. Then taxpayers should not know for what specifically government uses revenue they had paid. Generally, traditional public finance states that government consumption and investment expenditures are funded from the general budget. According to the article 7 of the Law of July 13th, 2011 all public resources of the DRC finance the total expense without any allocation of their product to a particular spending.

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Jason Moyer Lee and Martin Prowse 
Working paper 2012.05

This article applies a global value chain framework to tobacco in Malawi. It illuminates how cigarette manufacturers govern the chain and control first-tier suppliers: the leaf merchants. Due to credence and litigation concerns, manufacturers have become obsessed with leaf integrity. Contract farming offers merchants the ability to meet manufacturers’ compliance and traceability requirements. It also offers an opportunity for process and product upgrading by smallholders, but threatens to exclude poorer growers. The article concludes by outlining current contractual practices and the possible role of third parties in this rapid institutional evolution. 

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Tanvir Mahmud and Martin Prowse 
Working paper 2012.04 

This article seeks to draw possible lessons for adaptation programmes in Bangladesh by examining whether Cyclone preparedness and relief interventions are subject to corrupt practices. Based on a random sample survey of 278 households, three focus-group discussions and seven key-informant interviews, the article investigates the nature and extent of corruption in pre- and post-disaster interventions in Khulna district before and after Cyclone Aila in May 2009. Ninety nine percent of households reported losses from corruption. Postdisaster interventions (such as food aid and public works schemes) suffered from greater levels, and worse types, of corruption than pre-disaster interventions (such as Cyclone warning systems and disaster-preparedness training). Using an asset-based wealth index created using principal component analysis, the article assesses if corruption affected wealth quartiles differently. Ultra-poor households were affected more by corruption in pre-disaster interventions than wealthier households. In contrast, the wealthiest quartile was affected more by corruption in certain post-disaster interventions, in particular public works and non-governmental interventions.

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Stef Vandeginste
Working paper 2012.03 

Presidential elections are likely to be held in Burundi in July 2015. Like in several other African countries, a debate has arisen around the eligibility of the incumbent  president at the next presidential elections. This paper offers a legal analysis of the constitutionality of a possible candidacy of President Nkurunziza in 2015. A twofold perspective is adopted. On the one hand, attention is paid to the presidential term limit laid down in the Constitution (including to the provision possibly allowing for a third term). On the other, an analysis is made of the impact of (currently applicable and draft) transitional justice legislation on the possible candidacy of President Nkurunziza. The paper reveals the major impact of the legal (in particular constitutional) status of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement of August 2000. It also highlights the crucial role of the Constitutional Court in clarifying several of the unanswered issues highlighted throughout the paper. More generally, the case-study addressed in this paper shows the complexity of the important linkages between post-conflict elections, peace accords, power-sharing and transitional justice.

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Dennis Essers 
Working paper 2012.02 

While some developing countries appear to have been largely unaffected by the Great Recession that originated in advanced economies, others took a severe blow in 2008-2009. A number of recent studies have attempted to explain the observed heterogeneity of developing country growth performances during the latest global financial and economic crisis by linking it to pre-crisis macro-economic and financial country features - with rather mixed success. In this newly emerging body of research, surprisingly little attention has, however, been paid to institutional differences between countries, and the variation in political institutional arrangements more particularly. The current paper takes a first shot at bridging this hiatus by gauging

the impact of democracy on the crisis growth of developing countries. From a theoretical point of view, and as suggested in the political economy literature, democracy could be either growthretarding or growth-enhancing in times of economic crisis, the overall effect ultimately being an empirical question. Using a cross-section sample of more than 100 non-advanced countries and controlling for a range of macroeconomic, financial and standard institutional factors as well as pre-crisis trends, we find evidence suggesting that, on the whole, democratic country features are negatively correlated with growth performance during the 2008-2009 global crisis. Our findings are seemingly robust to the use of various sets of controls, different estimators, several country subsamples and alternative measures of democracy and crisis growth.

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Marie Krizelda Songco, Nathalie Holvoet and Liesbeth Inberg 
Working paper 2012.01 

The evaluation of the Paris Declaration (PD) is one of the most important and challenging evaluative undertakings of the past decade in the aid sector. The PD evaluation commissioned by the OECD/DAC Evaluation Network consists of a set of independent crosscountry and donor evaluations which were carried out in two phases. The scope and importance of this evaluation makes it a particularly suitable subject for a meta-evaluation. Our 'evaluation of the evaluation’ complements the official meta-evaluation of the synthesis report in that it assesses all country evaluation reports available in English (15 out of 21 reports) using the OECD/DAC Evaluation Quality Standards. Two research questions are central in our undertaking: Is the quality of the country evaluation reports good enough to be included in the synthesis report? Do the reports properly comply with the evaluation framework to permit comparison of evaluation across countries? The findings of the meta-evaluation demonstrate that comparability of country evaluation reports is satisfactory. The quality of evidence, however, is questionable, due to various limitations and constraints that plagued several country evaluations. Therefore, the inclusion of some of the country reports in the evaluation synthesis report is questionable.

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Robrecht Renard and Karel Verbeke 
Working paper 2011.11 

Only flows to countries that are on the DAC list of recipients can be labelled Official Development Assistance (ODA). The countries on that list however are a mixed bag. Based on a World Bank classification, the DAC list for instance includes Burundi, with an income per capita in 2009 of $150, and Brazil, with an income per capita in 2009 of $ 8840. Burundi, on this count, is 59 times poorer than Brazil. And there is not just income. Burundi is small, landlocked, politically and institutionally unstable, with an unimpressive record in terms of economic growth, a modest player in Africa and an insignificant player in the world. Brazil by contrast is huge, rich in natural resources, technologically sophisticated, growing fast, ambitious, and a major player on the world scene. Recently, it has even started to think about setting up its own aid agency (The Economist, 2011a). How more heterogeneous can one get? One can pick similar contrasting pairs from the DAC list, such as DRCongo and China, or Niger and India. How much aid, in pursuit of which development objectives, addressing which constraints in which sectors, using which modalities and channels: surely no single strategy can fit such dissimilar realities. What constitutes a sensible donor strategy in one country may be very inadequate in another. A differentiated strategy is called for.

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Martin Prowse 
Working paper 2011.10 

During the past century tobacco production and marketing in Nyasaland/Malawi has undergone periods of dynamism similar to changes since the early 1990s. This article highlights four recurrent patterns. First, estate owners have either fostered or constrained peasant/smallholder production dependent on complementarities or competition with their estates.  Second, rapid expansion of peasant/smallholder production has led to three recurrent outcomes: a large multiplier effect in tobacco-rich districts; re-regulation of the marketing of peasant/smallholder tobacco by the (colonial) state; and, lastly, concerns over the supply of food crops. The article concludes by arguing that whilst the reform of burley tobacco production and marketing in the 1990s engaged with the first two issues, it may have benefitted from paying greater attention to the latter two issues as well.

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Martin Prowse 
Working paper 2011.09 

This article conducts a value chain analysis of smallholder burley tobacco production in Malawi for the 2003/04 and 2009/10 agricultural seasons.  The comparison suggests in 2003/04 smallholder profits from growing burley were limited by two main factors: first, the practices of leaf merchant companies on the auction floors who operated as a cartel (and governed the burley supply thread); and secondly, by inefficient marketing arrangements. By the 2009/10 season the rents, governance and systemic efficiency within the supply thread had changed considerably: there was greater competition on the auction floors largely due to direct state intervention (which increased growers' net margins in nominal terms), improvements in marketing arrangements, tighter state regulation (including the introduction of minimum prices for grades of burley) and increased systemic efficiency (through a rapid expansion of contract farming). The article concludes by highlighting some of the opportunities and threats that this form of vertical integration poses smallholder growers.

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Marijke Verpoorten 
Working paper 2011.08 

Rich measures of micro-level violent conflict intensity are key for successfully providing insight into the legacy of civil war. Yet, the debate on how exactly conflict intensity should be measured has just started. This paper aims to fuel this awakening debate. It is demonstrated how existing and widely available data-population census data - can provide the basis for a useful measure of micro-level conflict intensity: a fine Wartime Excess Mortality Index (WEMI). It is argued that the proposed measure is particularly well suited for studying the legacy of civil wars that are characterized by a large death toll and by different forms of violence. The measure is illustrated for the case of Rwanda and it is shown that, in a straightforward empirical application of the impact of armed conflict on schooling, the estimated impact varies widely across WEMI and a large set of alternative conflict intensity measures for Rwanda. While the conflict intensity measure proposed in this paper requires further study and one probably needs a combination of various methodologies, this finding suggests the need for a careful understanding of what underlies the different measures and methodologies in use.

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Marijke Verpoorten 
Working paper 2011.07

More than 200 years after its first publication, the Malthusian thesis is still much debated, albeit in a modified form. Rather than predicting a global catastrophe, most neo-Malthusians stress the local character of the relationship between population pressure, natural resource scarcity, and conflict as well as its dependency on the socio-political and economic context. This softened version of Malthus thesis has received little empirical support in cross-country studies.In contrast, a number of sub-national analyses have provided some evidence for local conditional Malthusian catastrophes, although "catastrophe" is a big word since these studies have largely focused on low-intensity violence. This article adds to the small body of sub-national studies, but focuses on a high-intensity conflict, the Rwandan genocide. In particular, it provides a meso-level analysis of the relation between population pressure and the intensity of violence measured by the death toll among the Tutsi across 1,294 small administrative units. The results indicate that the death toll was significantly higher in localities with both high population density and little opportunity for young men to acquire land. On the one hand, this finding can be interpreted as support for the neo-Malthusian thesis. On the other hand, it is possible that another mechanism played, i.e. in densely populated areas it may have been relatively easy for the elite to mobilize the population, because of dependency relations through the land and labor market. Alternatively, in densely populated areas, there may have been more lootable assets, and the violence may have been opportunistic rather than driven by need or by fear.An earlier version of this paper was presented at a LICOS/CRED seminar in Leuven and the CSAE conference in Oxford. I received helpful comments from Giacomo De Luca, Nils Petter Gleditsch, Romain Houssa, Pieter Serneels and Henrik Urdal. I am indebted to Bert Ingelaere for bringing the Gacaca data to my attention. I owe thanks to the Rwandan National Service of Gacaca Jurisdiction and the Rwandan National Census Service for making available the data used in this study. All errors and opinions expressed remain my own.

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Danny Cassimon, Martin Prowse, Dennis Essers 
Working paper 2011.06 

As one of Kyoto’s three flexibility mechanisms for reducing the cost of compliance, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows the issuance of Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits from offset projects in non-Annex I countries. Whilst much attention has focused on the widespread use of the mechanism by China and India, the complex project cycle, and the lack of convincing baselines, little attention has been paid to the financing of CDM projects. In this paper we assess the extent to which CDM projects with public bodies should utilise debt swaps as a form of finance. The paper does this through analysing the use of a debt swap between Uruguay and Spain within a CDM wind farm project in Uruguay. The paper assesses this transaction according to a simple framework by which debt swaps can be evaluated: whether it delivers additional resources to the debtor country and/or debtor government budget; whether it delivers more resources for climate purposes; whether it has a sizeable effect on overall debt burdens (thereby creating ‘indirect’ benefits); and whether it adheres to the principles of alignment with government policy and systems (key elements within the new aid approach). 

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Stef Vandeginste
Working paper 2011.05 

Over the past decade, the African Union (AU) had put in place an important normative framework to promote constitutional rule and, in particular, orderly constitutional transfers of power in its member states. Through its Peace and Security Council (PSC), the AU has actively opposed, including through the use of sanctions, unconstitutional changes of government. As a key element of its policy, the PSC systematically advocates a return to constitutional order as a remedy for unconstitutional changes of government. Free and fair elections are an important element in the PSC policy of legitimating a new constitutional and political order. However, while opposing unconstitutional means of obtaining or transferring power, the AU has been generally supportive of the use of power-sharing agreements as an instrument of negotiated conflict settlement. Most power-sharing agreements are not in accordance with the prevailing constitutional order and, as part of a larger peace agreement, often contain new constitutional blueprints. This dual policy of, on the one hand, opposing certain types of unconstitutional changes of government, in particular military coups, and, on the other, advocating power-sharing agreements in the absence of a regulatory framework or normative guidance on such agreements poses an obvious challenge for the consistency of AU policy. Insofar as the AU wishes to nurture a culture of constitutionalism in its member states, it might benefit from developing policy guidelines about how to enhance the legitimacy of a new constitutional order - and of the political regime exercising political authority – be it in the aftermath of a coup or as a result of power-sharing.

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Johan Bastiaensen and Peter Marchetti
Working paper 2011.04 

From the being a poster child of microfinance development, Nicaragua became one of the nightmares for the industry. The negative influence on the countries' repayment culture of the Non-Payment Movement, ambiguously related to the new Sandinista government, is typically blamed for the crisis. A closer analysis, however, reveals that features of the mainstream microfinance policies in Nicaragua are possibly more to blame for the crisis than the political turmoil, which opportunistically seems to have taken advantage of the underlying problems. Overfunding of regulated MFI-banks and promotion of excessive competition, in particular of these banks with the non-regulated MFIs, led to reckless lending and created over-indebtedness. Gradual professionalization and conventionalization also led to the erosion of social embeddedness –once at the core of the Microfinance revolution- and left MFI weak in the face of political challenges. And the obsession with profitability and 'finance only' implied higher interest rates and left many poorer clients with little or negative impact, lending credibility to the accusation of usury. While the Non-Payment Movement could be understood as a Polanyian countermovement to the problems created by market development, its ultimate political objectives however seem to offer only dubious perspectives for future inclusive economic development.

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Nathalie Holvoet and Liesbeth Inberg 
Working paper 2011.03 

With the aim to promote aid effectiveness that ultimately contributes to development, changes in aid policies and instruments have been propagated over the last decade. The 2005 Paris Declaration (PD) and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), which set out a reform agenda around the principles of ownership, harmonisation, alignment, results-orientation and mutual accountability, are illustrations of the growing consensus in this respect. While the rationale for a gender sensitive PD may easily be built upon equality, effectiveness and efficiency arguments, gender is hardly mainstreamed into the PD and its implementation. In a previous study (see Holvoet and Inberg 2009) we explored how the changing aid architecture unfolds opportunities and challenges for gender mainstreaming policies and gender equality and empowerment objectives. This paper zooms in on the case of Tanzania, one of the donor darlings, and studies how opportunities and challenges materialise on the ground. It analyses how various actors, including government, civil society and donors, are handling gender mainstreaming in the realm of ongoing changes in aid policies and instruments.

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Nathalie Holvoet and Liesbeth Inberg 
Working paper 2011.02 

Within the context of the 2005 Paris Declaration (PD) and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) recipient countries have committed themselves to setting up transparent results-oriented reporting and assessment frameworks, while donors are expected to use these frameworks and to collaborate with recipients in order to strengthen recipient countries' systems. However, progress in this area is slow: only three out of 54 countries in the 2008 PD Survey had adequate results-oriented frameworks. Donors, from their side, are reluctant to rely on systems which are only partially developed, which simultaneously blocks the further elaboration and maturing of recipient systems. Progress at sector level is generally stronger and particularly within health and education sectors where, in the context of Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps), several initiatives have been taken to strengthen monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems. Prior to strengthening an M&E system it is important to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system, taking both M&E supply and demand sides into account. This working paper analyses the M&E system in the health sector of Niger and focuses on issues of policy, methodology, organisation (structure and linkages), capacity, participation of actors outside government and use of M&E outputs. The assessment of the M&E system in Niger's health sector shows a mixed picture of a partially developed system. When taking into account that Niger is one of the least developed countries in the world, with very weak scores on many health indicators, this outcome is more positive than expected. The very prominent role of donors might possibly be related to the scores obtained. The authors of this working document, however, argue that if M&E system strengthening is to a large extent pushed from the outside (donors) and not motivated through an internal M&E demand and supply side (both from within as well as outside government), it is likely that the outputs of the system as well as their use will be weak.

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Ben D'Exelle and Nathalie Holvoet 
Working paper 2011.01 

This paper examines the relation between gender and network formation in rural Nicaragua. Applying dyadic regression techniques and controlling for individual socio-economic characteristics, we obtain insights into the determinants of the size and density as well as the socio-economic heterogeneity of individual networks. Assuming these network characteristics correlate with one‟s agency and benefits from network participation, we look for differences between men‟s and women‟s networks and its relation with gender. In general, the gendered private/public dichotomy and labor division is replicated in men‟s and women‟s networks. Furthermore, consistent with the restricted mobility of poor rural women, we observe that geographic distance limits the networks of women but not men. Next, female education and mobility, and newly-residing men, have a positive influence on the integration between men and women. Finally, clique formation is stronger around women than men.

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Nathalie Holvoet and Liesbeth Inberg
Working paper 2010.11 

The 2005 Paris Declaration (PD) outlines donor-recipient reform for effective aid, emphasizing core principles like 'ownership,' 'alignment,' 'harmonization,' 'managing for results,' and 'mutual accountability,' reaffirmed in the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action (AAA). Progress is gauged by 12 indicators. The 'management for results' indicator assesses countries with transparent frameworks for national development and sector programs, comprising sub-components like 'stakeholder access to information' and 'coordinated country-level M&E.' Despite donor commitments, reform implementation is slow, with only three out of 54 countries having adequate frameworks. To overcome challenges, a pragmatic two-track approach is proposed, combining long-term recipient M&E system development with short and medium-term activities. This paper focuses on health Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) M&E development in Rwanda, emphasizing Joint (Sector) Reviews. The assessment relies on secondary and primary data, aiming to strengthen national M&E systems for effective performance assessment.

Gemma Pinyol Puig, Nadia Molenaers and Linas Cepinskas
Working paper 2010.10 

Until the end of the 1990s, Nicaragua was marked with social conflict and internal political struggles. From 2000 until 2006 Nicaragua experienced a relatively democratic period, in which the country drafted Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) with participation of the civil society. In this period, the openness of the political system and the participatory dimension of the PRSPs helped to strengthen civil society and increase policy influencing. As a result a shift took place away from service delivery and towards more lobbying and advocacy. The election of Ortega in 2006 (Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)) as president introduced the shrinking of this democratic space. From that moment onwards, donors encountered difficulties in dealing with the participation conditionality. At the same time, civil society organizations (CSOs) found it difficult to counterbalance the increasing undemocratic tendencies despite their efforts to organize mobilizations. This paper argues that the NAA, which pushes civil society into the watchdog role, is rather troublesome in contexts which are politically closing down. Imposing the single role of watchdog on civil society is ineffective. The NAA should not be treated as a rigid blueprint but, rather, as a guideline for policy implementation dependent on the actual situation in the country of concern.

Omwa Samuel Samson 
Working paper 2010.09 

This study seeks to greatly contribute to understanding of OVC community care. Using mainly ethnographic qualitative evidence from Ngai Sub County, in Oyam district, northern Uganda, it addresses the challenges and complexities that many a ingenious community OVC care institutions are grappling with in providing an array of care and support services to the OVCs. It argues that an appropriate informed synergistic response in tandem with local aspirations has the potential to greatly stem the impact of the orphaning crisis in north central Uganda. The analysis of the findings provides vital information and prospects regarding the de-institutionalisation of OVC support and response services in the country.

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Wim Marivoet
Working paper 2010.08 

In this paper we present a specific methodology to make spatial well-being and poverty assessments based on expenditure data to some extent sensitive to contextual aspects other than price differentials. The rationale behind this method coincides with the view expressed by the advocates of human development pointing to the irrelevance of (real) income levels for well-being measurement compared to an analysis of people‟s ability to deploy this purchasing power in a very specific time and setting. Yet, in order to operationalize this principle, we opted to employ the ordinary technique of deflating nominal incomes, but in such a way that genuine comparability over different geographical entities comes within reach. Of course, the extent to which our methodology is able to achieve this goal, largely depend on the exact content and construction of the underlying deflators used.

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Filip Reyntjens
Working paper 2010.07 

The report of the Mutsinzi commission attempts to show that President Habyarimana‟s airplane was not downed by the RPF, as the French investigating judge Bruguière concluded but by Hutu radicals who were close to the main victim of the attack. The report raises a number of serious questions. The Mutsinzi committee claims to be impartial, but all the commissioners are members of the RPF, which means that it is both judge and party. This is made abundantly clear from the beginning of the report and is subsequently confirmed throughout the body of the report, which treats as solid evidence testimonies showing the complicity of Hutu extremists, but systematically disregards the evidence pointing towards the RPF.

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Geovanna Benedictis, Germán Calfat, and Karina Jara
Working paper 2010.06 

We analyse the links between remittances and child education in Ecuador with special emphasis on the influences in supply conditions at the regional level. Our results point out to the favourable role of remittances on education, suggesting at the same time, the importance of an efficient basic infrastructure in the educational system, as a key element in fostering positive outcomes. The positive effect of remittances on child education is better understood within the context of public policies designed to improve and equalize educational supply conditions among the population.

G. Calfat, R. G. Flôres, A.Rivas, and M.Granato 
Working paper 2010.05 

We propose a combination of region- and product-identification procedures in order to map the potential of economic activities in areas with poor infrastructure in an asymmetric regional integration. After identifying spatial units with relative backwardness in terms of infrastructure, we detect the most competitive exports, estimate gravity models for each of them and perform simulations for an improvement of 20% in the value of the infrastructure index. In a final step, we identify goods/provinces where investment in infrastructure should be directed to. A thorough and data intensive application is made to the case of the Fondo de Convergencia Estructural del MERCOSUR (FOCEM), the recently created cohesion fund of one of the most asymmetric integration projects. Our main conclusion is that FOCEM resources, under the global objective of enhancing structural convergence among the members, should be totally directed to Paraguay instead of being dispersed among all backward regions in the bloc.

Bert Ingelaere 
Working paper 2010.04 

Chaque société qui a vécu un conflit ou une répression violente a besoin d'affronter le passé, d'une façon ou d'une autre. La redevabilité était l'objectif qui a dominé la période qui a suivi la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Les procès de Nuremberg en sont un exemple. Des commissions de la vérité ont suivi, en Afrique du Sud, mais déjà auparavant dans plusieurs pays d'Amérique latine. Récemment, l'attention a davantage été attirée par des mécanismes de justice et de réconciliation dits « traditionnels ».2 Les négociations entre le gouvernement ougandais et la Lord's Resistance Army sont exemplaires de cette tendance mondiale. Une proposition a été formulée visant à utiliser le rituel du Mato Oput lors de la période qui a suivi le conflit. Cependant, l'amnistie collective, un oubli collectif, a souvent aussi été une stratégie pour affronter un passé violent.

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Theodore Trefon, Thomas Hendriks, Noël Kabuyaya, Balthazar Ngoy
Working paper 2010.03 

Si pendant les années 60, le charbon de bois est apparu comme une ressource énergétique d‟appoint parmi les populations urbaines du Congo nouvellement indépendant, le non investissement systématique dans le réseau électrique et la crise généralisée de l‟ Etat ont fait que la consommation du charbon de bois s‟est accrue de façon exponentielle à partir des années 90. Avec cette croissance de la consommation, des filières complexes d‟approvisionnement en charbon de bois se sont développées de façon spontanée et garantissent actuellement la survie énergétique et alimentaire des ménages urbains dans la République Démocratique du Congo. Dans la présente étude, cette « réponse populaire » vis-à-vis d‟un Etat dit « en faillite » a été analysée en décrivant de manière détaillée tous les acteurs de ces filières et leurs activités, leurs stratégies et leurs interactions. En effet, les charbonniers, les transporteurs, les grossistes et les détaillantes – assistés d‟une multitude de petits acteurs comme des rabatteurs, des (dé)chargeurs, des dépositaires, des crieurs, des porteurs ou des « mamans manoeuvres » – constituent une série d‟acteurs qui réalisent chaque jour ce que quelques-uns d‟entre eux qualifient de « miracle journalier » des villes congolaises où l‟« on vit mystérieusement ». Ce rapport présente les résultats de la première étude réalisée dans cette filière en RDC et démontre comment, malgré la quasi-absence de tout appui étatique et hors de portée de la plupart des projets et programmes de développement, les activités de débrouille des uns et les stratégies d‟accumulation des autres se combinent dans une seule chaîne commerciale devenue indispensable pour la survie élémentaire des villes postcoloniales congolaises.

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Johan Bastiaensen, Peter Marchetti
Working paper 2010.02 

En las últimas décadas, las microfinanzas se han convertido en una industria consolidada en maduros mercados urbanos, así como en los mercados de pequeñas ciudades rurales. Sin embargo el alcance en las profundas zonas rurales sigue siendo débil y el desarrollo de las microfinanzas agrícolas siguen siendo en gran medida un «desafío de frontera» (CGAP, 2006: ix). No obstante, más de dos tercios de los pobres del mundo viven en zonas rurales y la mayoría de ellos - a pesar de una importante diversificación de la economía rural - aún dependen en gran medida de la actividad agropecuaria. Por esta razón, muchos economistas han identificado acertadamente que el crecimiento de la producción agropecuaria y el fortalecimiento de la participación de los pequeños agricultores son dimensiones claves de una estrategia para reducir la (extrema) pobreza (World Bank, 2008). Obviamente, la falta de penetración en las áreas rurales profundas y el poco alcance agrícola para pequeños productores en particular, constituye un problema trascendental para una industria que pretende desempeñar un papel crucial en la lucha mundial contra la pobreza.

Filip Reyntjens 
Working paper 2010.01 

Le rapport de la commission Mutsinzi a pour objet de démontrer que l'avion du président Habyarimana n'a pas été abattu par le FPR, comme l'a conclu l'instruction du juge français Bruguière, mais par des radicaux hutu proches de la principale victime. Le rapport soulève nombre de questions importantes. Le comité Mutsinzi se targue de son impartialité mais tous les commissaires sont membres du FPR, ce qui le rend juge et partie. Ceci est très clair dès les premières pages et se confirme à travers l'ensemble du rapport, puisque l'enquête ne va que dans une seule direction, celle des extrémistes hutu, alors que les données mettant en cause le FPR sont systématiquement ignorées. Le comité dit avoir interrogé des centaines de témoins, mais la crédibilité de leurs déclarations est sujette à caution. Parmi ceux identifiés, des dizaines sont des membres de l'ancienne armée gouvernementale FAR ; entendus dans un contexte de crainte d'arrestation ou pire et sachant très bien ce que ceux au pouvoir voulaient leur entendre dire, leurs témoignages ne sont guère probants. De nombreux exemples dans le rapport montrent que la méthode employée par le comité n'est pas sans soulever de sérieuses réserves: celui-ci présente d'abord des hypothèses non prouvées voire même des contrevérités comme des faits, et l'accumulation de ces « faits » permet ensuite de dégager la « vérité ». La conclusion à laquelle aboutit le comité ne trouve pas de fondement crédible dans les données qui se dégagent de l'enquête. Nous sommes dès lors aujourd'hui confrontés à deux « vérités » sur l'attentat : celle issue de l'instruction Bruguière et celle du rapport Mutsinzi. Les deux indiquent des suspects, même s'ils sont différents, et constatent qu'un crime a été commis. La façon naturelle pour aborder un problème pareil est de mener un débat contradictoire devant une juridiction pénale. Il semble cependant que tant le Rwanda que la France, souhaitant normaliser leurs relations, soient entrainés à sacrifier l'exigence de  justice à  l'opportunisme politique. Le peuple rwandais mérite mieux.

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Bert Ingelaere
Working paper 2009.06

Societies recovering from violent conflicts address the past through accountability, truth commissions, or traditional justice, like Uganda's Mato Oput ritual. However, collective amnesty and forgetting have also been used as strategies.

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Martin Prowse and Laura Camfield 
Working paper 2009.05

Debates on randomized experiments in development research often sideline qualitative methods. This paper explores their role, highlighting life history interviews as a valid alternative to surveys.

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Martin Prowse
Working paper 2009.04

Malawian smallholder tobacco farmers engage in conspicuous consumption, mirroring the success model of the tobacco bwana. This behavior offers an alternative perspective on investment decisions beyond neo-patrimonialism.

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Danny Cassimon, Dennis Essers and Robrecht Renard 
Working paper 2009.03

UNESCO's Working Group on Debt Swaps for Education promotes debt-for-education exchanges, learning from past challenges. While policy alignment has improved, macroeconomic concerns remain, highlighting the need for large-scale debt relief.

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Bert Ingelaere
Working paper 2009.02

Knowledge constructs on post-genocide Rwanda often contradict reality, shaped by policy and controlled narratives. This study calls for a bottom-up approach to truly understand life after genocide.

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Leen Nijs, Robrecht Renard
Working paper 2009.01

This study compares public financing of NGO development cooperation in select European countries, focusing on adaptations to the 2005 Paris Declaration. It analyzes changes in NGO co-financing and the rationale behind these reforms.

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Geovana Benedictis - German Calfat - Ana Rivas- Andrea Salvador
Working paper 2008.03

Remittances in the Philippines significantly support household incomes but have mixed effects on poverty reduction. Migration benefits depend on initial conditions, limiting its impact on the poorest families.

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Germán Calfat and Ana Rivas
Working paper 2008.02

Guatemala's participation in the global apparel industry boosts wages but exposes workers to poor conditions, especially women facing gender pay gaps. The study questions the maquila model’s effectiveness in reducing poverty.

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Germán Calfat, Danny Cassimon, Renato G. Flôres Jr. and Ana Rivas 
Working paper 2008.01

This study examines Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, and Nicaragua's roles in global production networks. While Guatemala and Nicaragua have moderate participation, Brazil and Argentina show more diversified trade patterns with varying degrees of dependence.

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Danny Cassimon - Bjorn Van Campenhout
Working paper 2006.06

This paper explores the complex relationship between financial globalization and its preconditions, highlighting potential integration traps. Evidence suggests multiple equilibriums, with some countries stuck in high debt stock traps while others advance.

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Geovanna Benedictis Villacreses - Germán Calfat - Renato G. Flôres Jr.
Working paper 2006.05

This study shows that better infrastructure boosts trade, with less developed regions in Ecuador benefiting from local infrastructure improvements. It uses an augmented gravity equation to analyze trade patterns across twelve provinces.

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Ariel Barraud - Germán Calfat
Working paper 2006.04

This paper analyzes how international trade openness affects poverty in Argentina, using a two-step procedure and micro simulation. It finds that trade liberalization reduces poverty, benefiting households in non-tradable sectors.

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Ariel Barraud - Germán Calfat 
Working paper 2006.03

This paper simulates the effects of trade liberalization in Guatemala’s yellow maize market, showing improved welfare for the poorest households. However, peasants in regions with high agricultural relevance may face losses due to land tenure differences.

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Danny Cassimon - Bjorn Van Campenhout 
Working paper 2006.02

This paper examines the effectiveness of debt relief under the HIPC Initiative compared to traditional aid forms like grants and loans. It finds that while debt relief initially reduces government investment, its impact becomes positive over time, outperforming other aid types.

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Claudine Tshimanga Mbuyi - Tom De Herdt - Christian Kamavu 
Working paper 2006.01

This report concludes a series of studies on a poverty reduction project in Kisenso, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Kinshasa, DRC. It assesses the impact of the Urban Social Fund initiative, following surveys conducted before and after its pilot phase.

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Rossana Patron 
Working paper 2005.03

This paper presents a flexible framework to address education issues in developing countries, linking policies on quality, quantity, and equity to labor markets. It suggests that more sophisticated, multi-target policies can improve education efficiency and outcomes.

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María Florencia Granato
Working paper 2005.02

This paper examines how regional integration impacts the economic geography of interior regions within a member country. It finds that access to preferential markets and regional market size significantly influence industrial location, with integration favoring larger or better-connected regions.

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María Cecilia Gáname 
Working paper 2005.01

This study explores how political economy factors influence industrial distribution, focusing on the impact of trade policy shaped by a lobby and opportunistic incumbents. It finds that political actions can drive industry relocation, particularly benefiting economies with active capital owners seeking protection.