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[sic!] Free Monthly Newsletter

November 2004 The monthly Newsletter [sic!] brings you
News for International Cooperation Professionals.
Edited by Karsten Weitzenegger.
Comments and suggestions: editor @ weitzenegger.de

CONTENT
  1. SID lobbies 'Agenda for Action' for EU's External Policy
  2. Migration and Development: How to make migration work for poverty reduction
  3. New EU General System of Preferences Scheme
  4. AlBan scholarships for Latin Americans to the European Union
  5. TI Report: Corruption is rampant in 60 countries and the public sector is plagued by bribery
  6. Costs of Evaluation: Interview with World Bank's operations evaluation chief
  7. Impact Alliance launches publishing support programme
  8. Training and Events
  9. Publications
  10. Websites

1. SID lobbies 'Agenda for Action' for EU's External Policy

BRUSSELS, Oct 26 (IPS) - Some 250 scientists, politicians, policy-makers and representatives of social organisations from Europe and the countries of the South explored relations between the EU's foreign, security, trade, and development policies at the Society for International Development (SID -http://www.sidint.org) conference on 'European Development Cooperation: Towards Policy Renewal and a New Commitment' in The Hague Sep. 27 and 28.

Leading international civil society groups are shoring up support to challenge the European Union over the future of the bloc's development policy. They want ''concrete action'' in six areas of the European Union's (EU) development cooperation policy. The groups say improvements must be made in the EU's responsibility towards and relationship with developing countries, the impact of its trade, security and migration policies, the powers of the European Commission in development cooperation, and the role of social groups in lobbying the bloc.

SID presented its recommendations in the form of an 'Agenda for Action' to EU officials on the sidelines of an informal meeting of EU development ministers in Maastricht Tuesday and Wednesday (Oct. 26 and 27). SID is an international non-governmental association of individuals and organisations with members and activities in 125 countries. SID is urging the EU to accept its responsibilities in the world arena ''to a much greater extent'' by ''more fervently supporting the interests of developing countries internationally''.

The NGOs warn that when the EU redrafts its Declaration on European Development Policy of November 2000 under the next European Commission, the EU executive; more emphasis needs to be placed on these goals. Development groups are also pushing for greater attention to be paid to ''complementarity'' aspect of the EU's development policy, namely the added value of the European Commission's development policy to that of member states. The group of NGOS recommend that the commission be given ''more room for manoeuvre'' in order to increase the ''effectiveness'' of its external aid.

''The member states must impose far fewer regulations on the European Commission. At present, its powers are too much restricted by the bureaucratic procedures and regulations that have been imposed by the member states and the national and European parliaments,'' says SID. It adds that European development aid as a whole should also be ''greatly simplified, include clear poverty criteria, and fall under one single budget''.

For trade, the NGOs are particularly concerned about the impact that European Partnership Agreements (EPAs) will have on the developing world. These are reciprocal trade deals between the EU and 77 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) regions. The negotiations are due to be concluded by December 2007, and the EPAs will be implemented between 2008 and 2020.

Civil society groups are calling for ''a high level of flexibility'' in the negotiations and stress that ''room must be created for asymmetrical trade relations''. They say that this means that developing countries ''should be allowed to protect their markets against foreign competition on a temporary basis''. In the area of security, the NGOs insist that the ''heightened attention for security and anti-terrorist measures should not be detrimental to combating poverty'', and say that steps should be taken to guard against ''contamination'' of the development budget by using it to finance other activities.

NGOs are also concerned about the nature of the relationships between the North and South. The briefing paper says much more work must be done to create ''true'' partnerships between the developed and the developing world as ''the current relationships between the EU and the developing countries are based on extreme inequality''. The NGOs say they also hope to lobby more at a European level and increase the pressure on national governments.
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26020


2. Migration and Development: How to make migration work for poverty reduction

This report recently produced by the UK Parliament illustrates how governments and organisations can make migration work for the poor. It looks at the opportunities for improving the quality of migration, and ways in which policy can shape and respond to migration to make it work better for development and poverty reduction. The report argues that the impact of migration depends upon the nature of the migration, and on the links which migration establishes between home and host societies. It looks at issues including brain drain, trafficking and smuggling, migrants' rights, temporary mobility schemes, and the role of the diaspora.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmintdev/79/79.pdf


3. New EU General System of Preferences Scheme

On October 20th the European Commission adopted a proposal setting out the details for a new EU General System of Preferences (GSP) to replace the current system that ends on the 31st of December 2005, just before a WTO trade review, which did not came to any surprising conclusions. Most important changes are the reduction of the number of programs and that countries applying for the largest program will have to show they are dedicated to human and labour rights, good governance and protection of the environment. href="http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/global/gsp/index_en.htm">http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/global/gsp/index_en.htm


4. AlBan scholarships for Latin Americans to the European Union

The EU-Programme AlBan aims at the reinforcement of the European Union - Latin America co-operation in the area of Higher Education and covers studies for postgraduates (Master and Doctorate) as well as Higher Training for Latin American experienced professionals and/or future decision-makers, in Institutions or Centres in the European Union. Scholarships may last from a minimum of 6 months of actual education/training work done in the European Union to a maximum that depends on the type and length of studies. Applicants to AlBan scholar-ships for the academic year 2005/2006 may submit an application for all areas of study. Deadline is 22 Dec 2004. For details, see the Programme AlBan Guidelines for Applicants 2005: http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/projects/alban/documents_en.htm


5. TI Report: Corruption is rampant in 60 countries and the public sector is plagued by bribery

''Corruption in large-scale public projects is a daunting obstacle to sustainable development, and results in a major loss of public funds needed for education, healthcare and poverty alleviation, both in developed and developing countries,'' said Transparency International (TI) Chairman Peter Eigen today at the launch of the TI Corruption Perceptions Index 2004. ''Corruption robs countries of their potential,'' said Eigen. ''As the Corruption Perceptions Index 2004 shows, oil-rich Angola, Azerbaijan, Chad, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen all have extremely low scores. In these countries, public contracting in the oil sector is plagued by revenues vanishing into the pockets of western oil executives, middlemen and local officials.'' http://www.transparency.org


6. Costs of Evaluation: Interview with World Bank's operations evaluation chief

Gregory Ingram is the Director General in the World Bank Operations Evaluation Department. In this interview he talks about the role of his watchdog unit. Ingram describes the role of the Operations Evaluation Department in simple terms. ''The bumper sticker should read: Did you do the right thing? Did you do it right,'' he says. OED says the answer to that question is ''yes'' for 73-74% of all Bank projects it reviewed over the year 2003. That's the number of projects rated by the OED as satisfactory - a project meeting its objectives with few shortcomings. ''The evaluation approach that we use is called objective based evaluation. Did we do what we said we would do?'' he says. OED evaluates by three main factors: i) the relevance of the project's objectives in relation to the needs of the country, ii) was the project effective in meeting its goals, iii) was the project efficient - in terms of using no more resources than necessary. To download evaluations produced by the Operations Evaluation Department, visit their website at: http://www.worldbank.org/oed/
Complete Interview


7. Impact Alliance launches publishing support programme

The Impact Alliance is a global network that links organizations looking for high quality capacity building services with organizations or individuals capable of delivering those services. Members of the Impact Alliance can publish their books through the Impact Alliance Press. This initiative will advance the exchange of new ideas by providing leading institutions and thinkers on capacity building (particularly from the South) an important venue for publication. Books published under this imprint of Pact Publications will be written by members and partners of the Impact Alliance. Pact Publications, in collaboration with The Impact Alliance, is pleased to offer assistance for Impact Alliance members and partners to access valuable capacity-building and development books and training resources at reduced or no cost through the PAL Program (Publications at Low-Cost).
http://www.impactalliance.org/ev_en.php?ID=8949_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC


8. Training and Events

Performance Assessment Resource Centre (PARC) Seminar and Networking Event. 14 December 2004, London, Please e-mail julia @ parcinfo.org, http://www.parcinfo.org

Systems, institutional frameworks and processes for early identification of skill needs International Conference, November 25-26 in Dublin, Ireland. The conference will look at the strengths and weaknesses of various systematic, institutional, political and other contextual arrangements of early identification of skill needs in different countries. If you wish to participate in the conference, please submit a registration form (see the attached document) to Anne Marie Hogan (annemarie.hogan @ fas.ie ), Training and Employment Authority of Ireland (FAS) http://www.fas.ie


9. Publications

Understanding Organisational Sustainability through African Proverbs CADECO was spearheading the first ever initiative to introduce and promote the use of the humour and wisdom contained in African proverbs in development and organisational capacity building efforts. Using insights from African Proverbs, the book gives insights for leaders of change and discusses how organisations can achieve more integrity, sustainability and impact. In this book, the power of traditional wisdom contained in African proverbs is directed at organizational development and change. The result is a fresh new perspective on organizational management, with important lessons for organizational leaders, consultants, volunteers and expatriates working or preparing to work in Africa. You can get a copy from the publisher. Contact: Margaret Johnson at mjohnson @ pacthq.org, Washington DC USA. http://www.pactpublications.com

Agricultural Production Lending: A Toolkit for Loan Officers and Loan Portfolio Managers, by Norah Becerra, Michael Fiebig and Sylvia Wisniwski 2004 This is a handy guidebook offering tools and insights based on common principles of sound agricultural lending practices. It is an essential toolkit designed as a training resource and addresses the distinct challenges related to agricultural lending. It is an excellent resource also for those interested in self-study of this topic as it illustrates important steps of the loan cycle and loan portfolio management in a way that is adaptable to different geographic circumstances. Order for PACT publications # GTZ-004/$39.95 paperback. http://www.pactpublications.org/item.asp?prod_cd=GTZ004

Tips and Tricks for Teaching Online: How to Teach Like A Pro This paper summarizes some of the best ideas and practices gathered from successful online instructors and recent literature. Suggestions include good online class design, syllabus development, and online class facilitation offering hints for success for both new and experienced online instructors. Written by Kaye Shelton and George Saltsman, published October 2004. http://itdl.org/Journal/Oct_04/article04.htm

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in Africa: are they really making a difference to policies? PRSPs have been introduced in most of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Potentially they could bring about a worthwhile change in the way aid for poverty reduction is delivered. They could help overcome the tendency for development aid to repeatedly reinforce the problems that it is meant to solve. PRSP processes are meant to enable poverty reduction policies that national governments have real commitment to (which are 'owned' by them), are backed by political leaders, and are more effective and sustainable as a result. But does the reality match what is emphasised in reports and speeches? http://www.id21.org/society/s9bdb1g1.html

Development Policy: An Introduction for Students WIDER Discussion Paper 2004/9 by Tony Addison (PDF 151KB, 24 pages). This paper discusses development policy objectives, noting how these have changed over the years, with a more explicit focus on poverty reduction coming recently to the fore. It also examines the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction. The paper then discusses how to achieve economic growth, starting with the caveat that growth must be environmentally sustainable, and moves on to the big question of the respective roles for the market mechanism and the state in allocating society's productive resources. The paper next discusses how economic reform has been implemented, and the political difficulties that arise. It concludes that getting development policy right has the potential to lift millions out of poverty. Also includes a guide to further reading, list of resource websites, and a glossary of terminology. http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/dps/dps2004/dp2004-009.pdf

World Disasters Report 2004 (International Red Cross) World Disaster Report 2004 focuses on community resilience, it features: i) From risk to resilience - helping communities cope with crisis; ii) Heatwaves: the developed world's hidden disaster; iii)Harnessing local capacities in rural India; iv) Bam sends warning to reduce future earthquake risks; v) Building community resilience to disaster in the Philippines; vi) AIDS: Communities pulling out of a downward spiral; vii) Surviving in the slums; viii) Disaster data: key trends and statistics. http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2004/

Serving the Bottom of the Pyramid ''The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits,'' is the book that consist of condensed versions of the ten cases and videos that greatly influenced development policies at the State Department, the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Prof. C. K. Prahalad, from the Michigan School of Business, conducted 10 teams of MAP students, whose role was to document about companies that successfully met demand of the poor and at the same time provided for their better living conditions. This website offers both videos and case studies (PDF files) from India, Lima, Nicaragua, Brazil and Mexico. http://www.bus.umich.edu/BottomOfThePyramid/xMAP2003.htm

Industrial Location and Spatial Inequality: Theory and Evidence from India UNU-WIDER Research Paper 2004/49 by Somik V. Lall and Sanjoy Chakravorty This paper argues that spatial inequality of industry location is a primary cause of spatial income inequality in developing nations. The focus is on understanding the process of spatial industrial variation, identifying the spatial factors that have cost implications for firms, and the factors that influence the location decisions of new industrial units. The analysis has two parts. First the contribution of economic geography factors to the cost structure of firms in eight industry sectors shows that local industrial diversity is the one factor with significant and substantial cost reducing effects. Then the paper shows that the new private sector industrial investments in India are biased toward existing industrial and coastal districts, whereas state industrial investments are far less biased toward such districts. The paper concludes that structural reforms lead to increased spatial inequality in industrialization, and therefore, income. http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/rps/rps2004/rp2004-049.pdf


10. Websites

The Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) Founded by Secretary General Kofi Annan's United Nations ICT Task Force GeSCI's mission is to collaborate with local partners to improve education, empower communities and accelerate socio-economic development, thereby supporting achievement of the MDGs by 2015, through the widespread deployment of ICTs in schools. GeSCI's Vision is to catalyse, support and partner with national/regional e-schools initiatives that bring ICTs to large numbers of schools and use ICTs to support effectively educational and community goals. http://www.gesci.org

Calculate Poverty Statistics PovcalNet is an interactive computational tool that allows you to replicate the calculations made by the Bank's researchers in estimating the extent of absolute poverty in the world. It also allows you to calculate the poverty measures under different assumptions, and to assemble the estimates using alternative country groupings or sets of individual countries. PovcalNet is self-contained, with software that immediately does calculations from the built-in database. http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/jsp/index.jsp

FDI Promotion Center: A Guide for New Users The FDI Promotion Center is a knowledge and learning web site specifically designed for investment promotion practitioners. This resource builds upon the Investment Promotion Toolkit and contains a reference library, best practices, investor research sources, case studies, templates and other hands-on resources for the daily work of investment promoters. The FDI Promotion Center also offers an Investor Research component, a database of web links useful for investor targeting. The database includes industry and trade associations, company directories and market intelligence services - which can be browsed by industry sector or resource type, or searched by keyword. Other components of the FDI Promotion Center include IPAworks, an open source software application for creating the IPA's homepage, and Outreach, which describes how MIGA's investor information services such as IPAnet and FDI Xchange enable IPAs to reach out to prospective investors in a cost-effective manner. All these sources are free of charge. http://www.ipanet.net/documents/WorldBank/databases/global/IEDC_Article.htm


The monthly Newsletter is a free service provided by Services for International Cooperation [sic!] and is circulated via Yahoo! Groups. Edited by Karsten Weitzenegger. Subscribers are encouraged to share the newsletter with others who do not subscribe. Please send comments and suggestions by e- mailto:karsten @ weitzenegger.de. For more information, or to subscribe or unsubscribe this newsletter, visit the website http://www.weitzenegger.de


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