This book analyses the complex relationship between the private sector, UK official development assistance (ODA) and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. In recent years, the private sector has occupied an increasingly prominent position within UK ODA, bringing a range of opportunities and conflicting interests. This book first traces the trajectory of private sector engagement in ODA, before setting out the theoretical and analytical framework for analysing the mutual prosperity agenda in UK ODA – the notion that ODA can benefit both donor and beneficiary country interests. By extending corporate social responsibility theory (in the emerging field of business and development studies) to ODA, the book critiques the underlying assumptions contained within UK ODA-multinational corporation partnerships. With reference to three case studies GlaxoSmithKline plc., Barclays plc. and Anheuser-Busch InBev (formerly SABMiller), the book identifies where the activities of multinational corporations support and/or undermine ODA goals and the implications for the UK’s mutual prosperity agenda. Overall, the book reflects a pragmatic approach to maximising the role of private sector actors in ODA, whilst also drawing attention to the opportunities and challenges in the mutual prosperity agenda. The book will be of interest to researchers from business management, development studies and political science, as well as to practitioners with an interest in the role of the private sector in ODA.

World leaders have given the reduction of global poverty top priority. And yet it persists. Indeed, in many countries whose governments lack either the desire or the ability to act, poverty has worsened. This book, a joint venture of a Harvard professor and an economist with the International Finance Corporation, argues that the solution lies in the creation of a new institution, the World Development Corporation (WDC), a partnership of multinational corporations (MNCs), international development agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty, George Lodge and Craig Wilson assert that MNCs have the critical combination of capabilities required to build investment, grow economies, and create jobs in poor countries, and thus to reduce poverty. Furthermore, they can do so profitably and thus sustainably. But they lack legitimacy and risk can be high, and so a collective approach is better than one in which an individual company proceeds alone. Thus a UN-sponsored WDC, owned and managed by a dozen or so MNCs with NGO support, will make a marked difference. At a time when big business has been demonized for destroying the environment, enjoying one-sided benefits from globalization, and deceiving investors, the book argues, MNCs have much to gain from becoming more effective in reducing global poverty. This is not a call for philanthropy. Lodge and Wilson believe that corporate support for the World Development Corporation will benefit not only the world's poor but also company shareholders as a result of improved MNC legitimacy and stronger markets and profitability.

Assessing Aid determines that the effectiveness of aid is not decided by the amount received but rather the institutional and policy environment into which it is accepted. It examines how development assistance can be more effective at reducing global poverty and gives five mainrecommendations for making aid more effective: targeting financial aid to poor countries with good policies and strong economic management; providing policy-based aid to demonstrated reformers; using simpler instruments to transfer resources to countries with sound management; focusing projects oncreating and transmitting knowledge and capacity; and rethinking the internal incentives of aid agencies.

This first report deals with some of the major development issues confronting the developing countries and explores the relationship of the major trends in the international economy to them. It is designed to help clarify some of the linkages between the international economy and domestic strategies in the developing countries against the background of growing interdependence and increasing complexity in the world economy. It assesses the prospects for progress in accelerating growth and alleviating poverty, and identifies some of the major policy issues which will affect these prospects.

The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty looks at the complex relationships between economic growth, poverty reduction and trade, and examines the challenges that poor people face in benefiting from trade opportunities. Written jointly by the World Bank Group and the WTO, the publication examines how trade could make a greater contribution to ending poverty by increasing efforts to lower trade costs, improve the enabling environment, implement trade policy in conjunction with other areas of policy, better manage risks faced by the poor, and improve data used for policy-making.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

This book amplifies the different voices and experiences of those facing gender-based violence (GBV) in the Global South. It explores the localised ways in which marginalised individuals design modes of coping with and address GBV, including cultural interpretations, and artistic and faith-based expressions. The book examines GBV triggers, prevalence, and societal impacts while referring to community, national, and regional mobilisation to deal with the phenomenon in its various manifestations, including physical, psychological, political, domestic, and public violence. It explores issues related to women’s negotiations with the patriarchal underpinnings of GBV; the role of the law and history in the perpetuation of GBV; the complementary role of culture and faith to legal protection against GBV, and access to justice for women and girls. In doing so, the book exposes understandings and expressions of GBV, as well as methodologies and indigenous initiatives to prevent it through local viable solutions. The book thus challenges the normalisation of GBV in the Global South. Providing concrete and culturally relevant suggestions for challenging ingrained models of gender understandings of violence in the Global South, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Development Studies, Gender Studies, Women’s Studies, Violence and Abuse Studies, Human Rights, Criminal Law, and Socio-Legal Studies.

This book explores the roles of civil society organisations (CSOs) when engaging in public diplomacy activities and their impact on community development and change. It provides up-to-date analysis of the challenges and constraints facing CSOs involved in diplomatic missions and working with foreign donors. Bringing together case studies from Cameroon, Egypt, Poland, Palestine, Lebanon and Libya, this edited collection reflects on how external calls for proposals in the fields of women’s empowerment, community development, education, training, exchange programmes, democracy, human rights and peacebuilding influence the way civil society organisations contribute, deliver, intervene and position themselves in various societies. It explores the lessons learnt by various CSOs in identifying societal problems, understanding grassroots demands, prioritising development agendas and campaigning for peacebuilding. Grounded in a firm theoretical framework and based on up-to-date empirical research, the book reflects on the leadership shown by civil society organisations in development, politics and business and their impact on community development initiatives and local change process. This book will be an important resource for researchers, policymakers, donors, NGO practitioners and the beneficiaries themselves, within the areas of international development, peacebuilding, civil society, politics and international relations.

This book examines the underlying conditions that give rise to states that are effective, efficient, and bureaucratically inclusive with their developmental policies. In spite of humanity’s significant advancements in science, technology and institutionalization of universal human rights conventions in the last seven decades, many countries are still failing to achieve successful development results. As a result, enormous levels of inequality, poverty, and malnutrition prevail. This book focuses on the role of the state in the political economy of development, tracing the socio-economic origins of effective state institutions from a comparative historical-institutional perspective. Drawing on the case studies of South Korea, Brazil, India, Spain, France, and England, the study looks at how good state institutions form, and why these are central to the socioeconomic advancement of their populations. The book contends that effective developmental states are those in which state actors are able to effectively diminish and co-opt the power of the country’s landed elites during the early years of state building. Effectively, the power balance between these two classes determines the developmental trajectory of the state. Considering agrarian reform as the foremost indispensable policy tool to open conditions for positive changes in effective taxation, education, healthcare, and strategic sustainable industrial policies, this analysis offers a significant contribution to the literature on the sociology of institutions and the political economy of development. As well as being a key reading for advanced students and researchers in these areas, this book draws real-life policy lessons for practitioners and policy makers in the developing world.

Argues that multinational corporations have contributed and can continue to contribute enormously to the reduction of global poverty.