DevDispatch Recommends: March 2022 Publications

I find March one of those months in a year that makes you pause and think, what have I achieved so far don’t you think?

The glimmer of hope though is that COVID-19 cases are significantly dropping in Africa and countries are scaling back on their COVID-19 surveillance and quarantine measures according to WHO.

Knowledge production in the global development space has been strong, demonstrated by the list we have curated below. All published in March and available without charge.

Happy Reading!

Women, Business and the Law 2022

By The World Bank Group

Adopting laws that strengthen women’s rights is the first step towards a resilient world. The World Bank released the eight edition of the Women, Business and the Law publication this month as part of their annual series measuring laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunities in 190 economies.

Eight indicators are used to measure women’s opportunities across the different countries including Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension.

This edition found that the global average Women, Business and the Law score is 76.5 out of 100, indicating that a typical woman has just three-quarters of the rights of men in the areas measured. It also found that women continue to face major challenges that threaten to widen gender gaps and enhance existing inequalities, and that women earn only two-thirds of men’s expected lifetime income; therefore, reducing the inequalities in economic opportunity that could close this gap may lead to enormous benefits for the world.

The 158 paged report is recommended for women’s rights advocates and policymakers.

Reshaping Global Value Chains in Light of COVID-19 : Implications for Trade and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries

By The World Bank Group, Paul Brenton, Michael J. Ferrantino, and Maryla Maliszewska

The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted global trade. The report highlights the value of global value chains (GVCs) in facilitating strong trade-led recovery. The economic modelling used in this report demonstrates that steps to support trade will strengthen economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas measures to restrict trade will weaken it.

The report asserts that GVCs boost incomes, and could lift approximately 22 million people out of poverty by 2030. They could also improve the incomes of the bottom 40 percent. In addition, it argues that Climate change is affecting trade within low- and middle-income countries and could have a far greater impact on GVCs than recent shocks to global trade. Therefore, exporters in low- and middle-income countries will also be affected by emerging policy responses to climate change.

The 167 pager is recommended for economists and trade experts.

Best Practices in Gender and Biodiversity:
Pathways for multiple benefits

By The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

The publication serves to strengthen and update the evidence base on gender responsive biodiversity policy and action targeted at Parties, indigenous peoples, local communities, and stakeholders to integrate gender considerations in the implementation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

To achieve this position, the report recommends action areas including:

Equal access to land and biological resources: Equal access to natural resources and ecosystem services is a fundamental right of women and girls, men and boys.
Equitable benefits: Creating sustainable income generation and employment opportunities.
Equal voice in decision making at all levels: When women and men equally take part in decision making, it often leads to a fundamental shift in traditional gender norms.

The report is 104 pages long and is recommended for practitioners working at the intersection of gender and environmental law.

Understanding the role of development finance institutions in promoting development: an assessment of three African countries

By ODI, Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm Sustainable Finance Centre, George Marbuah, Dirk Willem te Velde, Samantha Attridge, Alberto Lemma, Jodie Keane

The goal of the report is to measure the impact of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) who invest in private sector firms that are likely to have development benefits, by assessing the scope of the organisations they fund against a benchmark of whether the organisations align with development objectives.

The report proposes ways in which DFIs might work to increase impact by proposing projects that are more firmly in line with development objectives at country level using Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana as case studies.

Some gaps identified in the actions of DFIs include:

DFIs could improve the pipeline of projects by developing projects in sectors with the greatest development impacts.
DFIs need to consider enhancing the development effects of their investments throughout the life cycle by engaging strategically.

The report is a quick read at 54 pages, recommended for investors, governments and finance institutions.

Transit Oriented Development in practice.

A powerful example of impact on the ground in the area of Housing by our Brazil Cities team – and a story of how interventions in one city led to an approach that was scaled up and adopted as part of a Brazilian national law that set the standards for better quality social housing.

Three Challenges to Safe and Affordable Urban Housing

The blog raises three critical challenges: (i) importance of core services in informal settlements and slums, (ii) need to support housing rental markets, and (iii) making better use of underutilized land in city centers.

Can Housing Be Affordable Without Being Efficient?

The blog highlights the importance of giving due attention to building efficiency in affordable housing projects, both location efficiency and on-site energy and water efficiency. The key message: over their lifetimes, efficient homes are more affordable, healthier and provide better opportunities for residents than conventional buildings.

Africa Integration Report 2021

By African Union

For quick reads, check out these blog posts

The 2021 Africa integration report tracks and measures progress made towards regional integration in Africa underscoring its importance to create stability, grow economies, improve market efficiency, and address issues such as epidemics and pandemics as well as peace and security.

The report uses eight dimensions to measure the rate of integration in Africa taking into account the impact of COVID-19 in weakening an already compromised level of integration on the continent. These dimensions include Free Movement of Persons, Social Integration, Trade Integration, Financial Integration, Monetary Integration, Infrastructure Integration, Environmental Integration, Political and Social Integration.

Recommendations made in the publication include:

Strengthening institutions and providing favourable environments for businesses to build back and innovate including gender-responsive economic policies and social protection measures.
Developing, opening, and broadening a favourable environment to promote integrated and complementary value chains in support of economic recovery and reinforcement and acceleration of the implementation of the AfCFTA.
Investing creatively in key infrastructure projects especially regional roads, railway lines, maritime transport, and Information and communication technologies (ICTs) to ease the movement of goods, services, and businesspeople.
Embracing and investing heavily in digital infrastructure, which is an essential tool and platform for connecting businesses with customers and suppliers, developing effective risk financing mechanisms, especially for SMEs especially, those owned by women and the youth.

The report is 139 pages long, and is recommended for economists.

Transit Oriented Development in practice.

Three Challenges to Safe and Affordable Urban Housing

Can Housing Be Affordable Without Being Efficient?

Malawi Economic Monitor, December 2020 : Doing More with Less - Improving Service Delivery in Energy and Water

By the World Bank

The pandemic has induced a sharp recession in many countries across the globe. Malawi’s economy has been heavily affected, with growth projected at 1.0 percent in 2020, down from earlier projections of 4.8 percent. With population growth around 3.0 percent, this represents a 2.0 percent contraction in per capita GDP. Political stability has returned following the June 2020 Presidential elections, which should support investment. However, global and domestic factors emanating from the pandemic are affecting Malawi’s economy, including: 1) disruption in global value chains and trade and logistics; 2) decrease in tourism; and 3) decrease in remittances. This has combined with social distancing policies and behavior to also reduce domestic demand. The Malawi Economic Monitor (MEM) provides an analysis of economic and structural development issues in Malawi. The publication intends to foster better-informed policy analysis and debate regarding the key challenges that Malawi faces in its endeavor to achieve high rates of inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

The role of advanced technologies in cross-border trade: A customs perspective

By the World Trade Organisation and World Customs Organisation

Blockchain, distributed ledger technology (DLT), the internet of things (IoT), big data, data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have become areas of interest for the World Trade Organisation and World Customs Organisation in terms of their ability to promote trade facilitation and assist customs administrations in fulfilling their objectives of ensuring, safety, security and fair revenue collection.

The report found that:

Blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) can help to provide better transparency, immutability and accessibility of information and data quality.
For a broader uptake of blockchain by customs authorities,there needs to be more widely available standardised datasets which are used by both government agencies and authorized economic operators.
There have been positive developments in the use of the internet of things (IoT) by customs authorities. Members are experimenting with the IoT to fully automate border-crossings and customs procedures in national ports.
Customs authorities have embraced advanced analytical technologies. Around half use some combination of big data, data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The majority of customs authorities see clear benefits from advanced technologies, in particular with regard to risk management and profiling, fraud detection and ensuring greater compliance.

The report provides 60 pages worth of valuable information for trade and customs bodies and organisations.

Global SDG Accountability Report

By the Transparency, Accountability and Participation (TAP) Network.

This report serves to ascertain the level of accountability for the Sustainable Development Goals at a subnational, national and international level. Information gathered from the SDG Accountability Survey serves as the basis of this report by collecting reflections and inputs from stakeholders around the world.

Split into four sections the report looks at:

1. The foundations of the 2030 Agenda – which explains and contextualises the SDGs;

2. A snapshot of SDG accountability – which outlines the challenges being faced by stakeholders in implementing the SDGs especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic

3. Building a Global Multistakeholder Movement for SDG Accountability – which focuses on case studies of different stakeholders and their role in accountability and how they can improve accountability

4. Recommendations to Advance Accountability for the SDGs & the 2030 Agenda – which summarises the findings of the report and provides recommendations for specific stakeholders.

This report is an asset for the media, parliamentarians and national human rights institutions. It’s 101 pages but is organised such that it can be read in sections relevant to the information you are looking for.

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Education, Livelihoods & Food Security Status: Policy Implications For Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

By P. Tamasiga, A.T. Guta, H. Onyeaka, H. Nkoutchou and M.S. Kalane.

Sub-Saharan countries were particularly vulnerable to the impacts of the COVID-19 as they were already experiencing weak health care systems, low financing for testing and very few resources for response measures. This data-driven report outlines the key trends of the COVID-19 pandemic by region, highlighting case trajectories, lockdown and containment measures, economic impacts, education impacts and health impacts. South Africa still accounts for the highest number of cases and deaths followed by Ethiopia and Nigeria.

Along with containing COVID-19, Central Africa is still facing the additional challenges of pre-existing health concerns, especially malaria.

The policy implications are focussed on supply chains, trade and market access, food and agricultural production, misinformation and the media, health, education and strategic communication. Sub-Saharan Africa has already been deemed to be the most at risk for food insecurity and this is expected to increase 2.5 fold.

Global progress report on HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections, 2021

By WHO

This report looks into how effective the strategies planned for 2016-2021 have been in the fight against HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs. Progress has indeed been made despite the disruption of the global pandemic but in the same breath, there are still many targets that have not been reached. The number of new HIV infections has fallen by 23% to its lowest rate since 2010 with 1.7 million new infections in 2019 however this is far from the target of only 500 000 new infections.

Stigma and lack of resources to implement people-centred policies and services still remain the largest hindrance. COVID-19 severely affected the ability for people to get tested easily. This report analyses the success and shortfalls of each WHO region. The report recommends that the only way to try and get back on track is for governments to collaborate their efforts into universal health care systems beneficial for the most vulnerable.

This report is targeted at anyone who works with marginalised communities of people infected by HIV, hepatitis or any STIs and is also a good read for health care workers and policy makers. It is moderately long at 108 pages.

Mainstreaming gender in urban public transport

By Stockholm Environment Institute

Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent, yet walking still remains the most affordable mode of transport in urban areas. This is due to a lack of service provision. There is also a large gender inequality problem when it comes to transport both in operation and in use. This report seeks to shed light on the under researched matter of women’s participation in transport decision making and their use of public transport systems.

The report uses the case studies of Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Kampala by interviewing all members of society from taxi drivers to policy makers in the ministries of transport and transport planners. The report identifies accessibility and safety of public transport systems, sexual assault and harassment, lack of integrated and gender sensitive urban planning and underrepresentation as larger barriers towards gene=der mainstreaming in transport.

This report is the perfect short read for city and transport planners at only 40 pages.

Terrorism in the Sahel Facts and Figures

By NATO Strategic Direction- South, ACSRT

The fight against terrorism in the Sahel is still a major issue that deserves attention as the number of terrorist attacks has increased by 18.5% in 2020. This report analyses current and past data to show a conclusive analysis on the rate of terrorism. The largest threats come from the following terrorist groups Boko Haram, ISGS, JNIM and ISWAP and the most affected countries are Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad.

This analysis is taken in the form of quantitative analysis with a lot of informative graphs and infographics as well as qualitatively by looking at the types of attacks. The report concludes that 2020 has been the most intense year in terms of terrorism in the Sahel.

This report is target to all members defence ministries and counter-terrorism organisations. It is a very brief read with only 37 pages.