Working Papers

This paper examines the experience of a set of countries that performed relatively well in coping with the COVID-19 crisis. The goal is to garner insights and lessons that can help countries that may experience initial or second-round outbreaks of the pandemic in the future. The paper finds healthcare, social protection, and overall governance systems as the three main determinants of COVID-19 strategies and their success. Though unique country-specific factors played an important role in confronting the pandemic in some countries, their role was generally mediated through one or the other of the above three main determinants. The findings of the paper suggest that establishing universal…

How has the focus of the UN General Assembly changed over time and how well is the global agenda expressed in these documents? This paper presents a proof-of-concept classifier to examine the evolution of the global agenda expressed and observed in words of the UN General Assembly resolutions. Using natural language processing to identify four categories of resolutions — Sustainable Development, Justice and Law, Human Rights, and Peace and Security — the analysis of 3,765 UN GA resolutions from 2007 to 2019 reveals the changing areas of focus of the Member States and, as a result, of the UN Secretariat. Sustainable Development is slowly gaining importance in the language in UN…

The COVID-19 pandemic is entailing huge costs worldwide. To help developing countries formulate policy responses to minimize negative impacts of the COVID-19, possible size and duration of the shocks on most vulnerable countries, i.e., least developed countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and their resilience to overcome the shocks need to be assessed. This paper quantitatively examines possible paths of LDCs and SIDS recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, using an autoregressive model of income growth and a panel regression model of external demand for LDCs and SIDS. Evidence from the experience of the 2007-08 global financial crisis suggests that the…

Research suggests that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can open up market opportunities worth USD 12 trillion in the four largest sectors that represent 60 per cent of real economy – food and agriculture; cities; energy and materials; and health and well-being. While the concept of the SDGs creating a win-win situation for all is growing increasingly trendy, further evidence needs to be accumulated to better chart the important discourse on the private sector’s engagement with the SDGs. To this end, this paper aims to shed light on three questions: (i) How is the private sector currently engaging with the SGDs in these sectors?; (ii) What are the key areas of…

While migration and population displacement has always been part of the human experience, the context within which it occurs today has materially changed. Migration has become an important part of economic globalization and closely related to countries´ development process. Conflicts, poverty, natural disasters and climate events are also forcing people to migrate in an ever-increasing number. For many low-income countries with large number of internally-displaced people, on the other hand, the high economic costs are making it more difficult for them to invest in SDG implementation. Developing countries also host most of the externally-displaced people at high economic costs, which…

Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) have started to audit the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While there is no one single audit model or approach to audit SDG implementation, audits should incorporate a few core methodological features related to the principles of the 2030 Agenda. Four methodological and practical challenges associated with conducting performance audits of SDG implementation, as they differ from traditional audits, are discussed in this paper: 1) problem definition, including the level of investigation in the SDG hierarchy of goals and targets and the audit scope; 2) conceptual challenges inherent in going from the level of individual entities…

This paper explores the scope for Innovative Development Finance (IDF) to compensate for declining Official Development Assistance (ODA) and/or to enhance the efficiency of ODA. It shows that IDF has not helped much to increase the volume of aid. With regard to efficiency, the role of IDF-related mechanisms remains controversial. In view of the above, it may be more productive to focus on other resources available to Asia. The paper points to two such resources, namely the surpluses accumulated in the form of reserves, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), etc. and the migrant remittances. Efficient utilization of these two sources can vastly change the development finance landscape in Asia.…

The paper discusses the progress of Indian economy and its policies since the broad-based structural reforms initiated in 1991 with a special focus on the recent downturn following the global financial crisis. The paper is structured into two parts: first part discusses the major economic and social achievements of India since 1991, it identifies the causes of the recent downturn, and the policy responses to revive the economy. In the second part, the paper outlines the major challenges India is facing and the policies and reforms that need to be implement to achieve sustainable development.

Implementation of the Agenda 21 bifurcated into two tracks. While the economic and social development agenda gelled into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the environmental protection agenda moved along a different track, represented by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), etc. This bifurcation also led to very different “domain configurations.” While there were some advantages of this bifurcation, it led to a conflict between the human development and the environmental goals. This paper presents a framework for bringing environment and development together in the UN post-2015 agenda.

The new role that middle-income countries (MICs) play in the global landscape obliges international community to review the configuration of the development cooperation system. On the one hand, MICs still face considerable structural deficits that affect their process of development; on the other, international community needs MICs to participate more intensively in the international agenda. Development cooperation can support both purposes, although for that to happen, substantial changes are required in traditional approaches and procedures of current international aid. This paper analyses these subjects with the objective of helping decision-makers come to good decisions

The paper reviews the sluggish growth and inclusive developments of the Brazilian economy in the last decade. The first section analyzes the macroeconomic performance pointing export growth as the engine of growth. The second evaluates social policies and their relationship with the improvements in the labor market. The third examines Brazilian policy reactions to the global crisis that managed to recover consumption but failed to sustain investment and growth. The discussion of challenges for a sustainable development concludes the paper. Investment in education and infrastructure are consensual policy advices but there are plenty of disagreements and controversies with regards to…