| In this issue: taxation, aid dependency, and political representation in Benin, options for strengthening civil society-led monitoring and accountability, consolidating the regional diplomacy of Côte d'Ivoire, public services fight inequality and the question whether rising democracies will adopt pro-human rights foreign policies |  | Governance Highlighting research relating to democratic governance, fragile states, institutional development, justice, good governance, public sector & service delivery and urban governance. | | | | |
This is our regular bulletin that highlights recent publications on governance issues. The documents highlighted here are available to download online without charge. If you are unable to access any of these materials online and would like to receive a copy of a document as an email attachment, please contact our editor at the email address given below.
In this issue: - A democratic rentier state? Taxation, aid dependency, and political representation in Benin
- Accelerating progress in Family Planning: options for strengthening civil society-led monitoring and accountability
- Consolidating the regional diplomacy of Côte d'Ivoire
- Working for the many: public services fight inequality
- Will rising democracies adopt pro-human rights foreign policies?
A democratic rentier state? Taxation, aid dependency, and political representation in Benin Authors: Piccolino,G. Produced by: German Institute of Global and Area Studies (2014) Drawing on the history of statebuilding in Western Europe, fiscal sociology has proposed the existence of a mutually reinforcing effect between the emergence of representative government and effective taxation. This paper looks at the case of Benin, a low‐income West African country that underwent a fairly successful democratization process in the early 1990s. It finds, in contrast to previous studies that have emphasized dependency on aid rents, that Benin appears to have reinforced its extractive capacities since democratization. However, the effect of democratization has been largely indirect, while other factors, such as the influence of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the size of the country's informal sector, have played a more direct role in encouraging or inhibiting tax extraction. Nevertheless, the hypothesis that effective taxation depends on a quasiconsensual relationship between government and taxpayers finds some confirmation in the Beninese case.
[Summary taken from author] Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=69613 Back to list
Accelerating progress in Family Planning: options for strengthening civil society-led monitoring and accountability Produced by: Results for Development Institute (2014) In recent years, accountability initiatives led by citizens and civil society organizations (CSOs) have proliferated, particularly in the health and education sectors. These initiatives, also referred to as social accountability (SAc) initiatives, are designed to empower citizens and ensure that government policy, spending, and services are high-quality, efficient, and responsive to citizens' needs. There is growing evidence that when appropriately designed and implemented these interventions produce important results including greater citizen agency and engagement, higher quality and more appropriate services, improved provider performance, increased service utilization, more efficient allocation and use of resources, and improved development outcomes. With appropriate support, social accountability initiatives in the Family Planning (FP) sector can address bottlenecks and help FP programs achieve their goals. This study – led by the Results for Development Institute (R4D) with generous support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation – was designed to identify options to support stronger monitoring and accountability (M&A), particularly social accountability, around Family Planning 2020 and family planning more broadly. To inform the design of these options, R4D participated in numerous FP events and activities, interviewed major stakeholders in the FP community, reviewed the literature on family planning monitoring and accountability, and benchmarked M&A efforts around comparable international initiatives in other fields. In addition, in February and April 2013, R4D teams made visits to India, Indonesia, Senegal, and Uganda to observe family planning activities on the ground, assess the plans and early impact of FP2020 at country level, and consider new ways in which M&A could be strengthened. Overall, R4D's fact-finding and analysis suggest that significant progress is being made in family planning monitoring and accountability, in great part thanks to FP2020's focus on M&A. Over the past year, FP2020 has established the systems and infrastructure necessary to monitor the impact of family planning programs and to strengthen accountability for the implementation of financial, policy, and programming commitments. [Summary adapted from author] Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=69610 Back to list
Consolidating the regional diplomacy of Côte d'Ivoire Authors: Padonou,O. Produced by: South African Institute of International Affairs (2014) Côte d'Ivoire has gone through two decades of political instability and conflict, leading to the near collapse of many of its government institutions. President Alassane Ouattara's arrival on the political scene in 2011 heralded a renewal of Côte d'Ivoire's foreign policy. The president's determined focus on the region and the increased diplomatic activity associated with his term have ensured that the country has regained its regional leadership position. His approach has been two-pronged: (i) focusing on regional peace and security issues, without (ii) neglecting the pursuit of the country's economic development objectives through active regional diplomacy. This brief argues that the corrosive effects of war and instability, which lasted for more than a decade, severely eroded the country's capacity to drive active regional diplomacy. Therefore, creating an enabling framework, accompanied by strong institutions, is without doubt the key test facing Côte d'Ivoire in its quest to regain its place as the key interlocutor in francophone Africa's diplomacy. This is particularly relevant in
how it engages with the region's premier regional economic community. Recommendations: - develop an evidence based and coherent foreign policy strategy through the iteration of a 'white paper' process and strengthen the country's diplomatic oversight mechanisms
- institute a regular (eg, biannual) conference of ambassadors to evaluate and redirect, if necessary, the country's diplomatic activities
- accelerate the implementation of SSR before the presidential elections in 2015
- improve the training, development and specialisation of diplomats through an inclusive process in order to enhance national reconciliation
- encourage more frequent policy engagement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with local experts such as academia, business and civil society organisations, as well as with other ministries
Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=69543 Back to list
Working for the many: public services fight inequality Authors: Seery,E. Produced by: Oxfam (2014) Free public services, such as health and education, are one of the strongest weapons in the fight against inequality. They benefit everyone in society, but the poorest most of all. They mitigate the impact of skewed income distribution, and redistribute revenue by putting 'virtual income' into the pockets of the poorest women and men. Across OECD countries public services already provide the poorest people with the equivalent of 76% of their post-tax income. Oxfam is calling on governments to urgently reform tax systems and increase public spending on free public services, such as health and education, to tackle inequality and prevent us being tipped irrevocably into a world that works for the few and not the many. Key recommendations: - Prioritize increased public spending on and delivery of health and education services, to fight poverty and inequality at a national level.
- Prioritize policies and practices that increase financing for free public health and education.
- Finance health and education from general progressive taxation, rather than through private and optional insurance schemes, user fees and out-of-pocket payments.
- Refrain from implementing unproven and unworkable market reforms to public health and education systems, and expand public sector rather than private sector delivery of essential services.
[Summary taken from author] Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=69614 Back to list
Will rising democracies adopt pro-human rights foreign policies? Authors: Piccone,T. Produced by: South African Institute of International Affairs (2014) As democratisation unfolded in countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Africa, it was hoped that these states would find common ground with more established democracies. While emerging and established democracies have collaborated in responding to grave human rights abuses in Myanmar, North Korea and Libya, among others, serious cleavages remain. This report argues that while the common vocabulary on human rights is strong at the international level, there are significant disagreements about how best to promote and protect them, particularly in difficult cases where other interests take precedence. Recommendations: - human rights advocates can work with parliaments, diplomats, military officials and national security leaders to raise awareness, encourage state action and demand more open and accountable national security decision-making
- advocates and researchers can build up their own capacity to understand foreign policy decisionmaking and work with like-minded colleagues around the world on human rights solidarity campaigns
- the human rights community should continue to work through existing international and regional institutions to advance multilateral strategies to protect human rights, as
has been done at the HRC. Staying in contact with the Special Procedures mandate holders and offering input
on UPR reports are examples of this - states should engage in bilateral and regional diplomatic efforts to build coalitions and partnerships to reinforce
the importance of elevating human rights as a critical security matter and warning sign of conflict, forced
migration and humanitarian crisis - civil society groups should work with HRC Net and others to mobilise responses to human rights violations, engaging at the national and international level to pressure states to defend core values
Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=69500 Back to list
See our Governance Resource Guide for a complete list of new additions. You are welcome to re-use material from this bulletin on your own website but please acknowledge Eldis as the source and include a link to the Eldis website (either to our home page or to the home page of one of our Resource Guides). Eldis data is available under a creative commons license and is accessible via an Open API for others to re-use. In addition we have developed a number of plug-ins and modules for website content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal to make it easier for website managers and bloggers to integrate Eldis content into their sites. See www.eldis.org/go/get-the-data for more information If you would like to change your subscription or receive this bulletin (or any other of our subject focused email bulletins) regularly, you can register from our website, or just send an email to the address below. You can also receive this update as an RSS Newsfeed. Visit our page at: http://www.eldis.org/go/subscribe
Eldis is funded by UKAid and Irish Aid. Eldis is one of a family of Knowledge Services at IDS. The views expressed in this newsletter and on the Eldis website are the opinion of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Eldis, IDS or its funders.
If you would like to receive information about other Knowledge Services and publications from IDS, please email your name, contact details and subject interests to us at knowledgeservices@ids.ac.uk
| | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment