Weitzenegger's Research and Policy Report

The Broker reviews and provides independent journalistic analyses of research

The Vast Majority Income (VMI): A New Measure of Global Inequality
http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPolicyResearchBrief7.pdf
The UNDP authors Anwar Shaikh and Amr Ragab introduce a new worldwide measure of welfare, which they call the Vast Majority Income (VMI). The VMI directly calculates the per capita income of the first 80 per cent of the population. It combines information on income levels and their distribution into a single measure.

IRIS
http://www.iris.umd.edu
IRIS is a research and advisory center located in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. It works understand and facilitate economic growth and democratic development in poor and transition countries, focusing on the role of institutions — the formal and informal rules by which individuals organize economic, political, and social activity.

Poverty (and social) impact analysis compared
http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus14.pdf
PSIA is an approach developed in 2001 by the World Bank and other donors, while the PIA came about in 2006 as a result of discussions within the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The main difference between both tools is that the PIA is designed to focus on project, programmes or specific policy reforms, while the PSIA approach is better for macroeconomic and structural policy reforms. The International Poverty Centre (IPC) has recently released the last number of its journal Poverty in Focus. This issue focuses on Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) and Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA), a field in which the IPC is currently administering a joint UNDP-World Bank Project. Since PSIA was introduced, approximately 150 assessments have been conducted and the IPC show that it has been applied with a different degree of success in different occasions. Most of the articles in the journal agree that further progress needs to be made in order to unleash PSIA’s full potential.
(Source: EURODAD)

Join the Eldis Community
http://community.eldis.org
Take a fresh look at the Eldis Community. The Eldis Community is a free on-line community where you can meet others involved in international development, discuss issues that are important to you and share useful resources. Anyone with an interest in development issues can join the site free of charge. On the front page of the Eldis Community Site you find the option to join us and 'create a personal space for yourself' for yourself. Be part of our free on-line community where you can meet others involved in international development and discuss the issues that are important to you.

Organisational learning for aid, and learning aid organisations
http://www.capacity.org/en/content/view/full/219/(issue)/15869
Although many aid agencies claim to be learning organisations, a recent review found that they still need to address some major challenges, especially at field level. Ben Ramalingam asks why this is the case, and what aid agencies can do to learn more effectively.

Supporting pro-poor growth processes: Implications for donors
http://tinyurl.com/5jjj6c
Eva Ludi and Kate Bird of Overseas Development Institute discuss policies and programmes to strengthen the productive capacities of poor people.

World Bank Research Highlights 2007
http://econ.worldbank.org/research/highlights2007. This is the annual report of the World Bank's principal research unit, the Development Research Group (DECRG). The report describes the major research themes and highlights of 2007 for DECRG's six research teams: Finance and Private Sector Development; Human Development and Public Services; Macroeconomics and Growth; Poverty and Inequality; Sustainable Rural and Urban Development; and Trade and International Integration. The on-line version also provides a complete list of the unit's published output in 2007, comprising 25 books, 175 journal articles, 90 book chapters, 180 working papers, and 12 new public-access datasets.

Eldis Community
http://community.eldis.org
The Eldis Community is a free on-line community where you can meet others involved in international development, discuss issues that are important to you and share useful resources. Anyone with an interest in development issues can join the site free of charge.

The Gurteen Knowledge Website
http://www.gurteen.com
David Gurteen hosts on his personal website the Gurteen Knowledge Community, a global learning community of over 15,000 people in 154 countries. The main themes of the site are knowledge management, learning, creativity, innovation and personal development. Everything on this site is open and you do not need to be a member to access any part of it or to subscribe to any of the services provided. However, you will want to come back often and be part of it.

Understanding Productivity: A Review of Recent Technical Research
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/res/dp/2008/dp08-3.pdf
This paper by Richard Dion and Robert Fay (Bank of Canada) provides an extensive review of the rapidly expanding research on productivity, both at the macro and micro levels. The authors focus primarily on papers written about Canada, but also draw on selected studies from other countries, especially the United States, where such work sheds important light on particular aspects of productivity growth. The authors extract the key results of the studies and signal important methodological features that underpin those results. They also identify areas for further research.

Data Base of Evaluation Studies Undertaken by EU Member States and the European Commission in External and Development Cooperation (from 2000)
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/dg/aidco/msecevaluationsinventory/evaluationssrch.cfm
The current database (DB) contains references to evaluations undertaken by European Union (EU) Member States (MS) and the European Commission in the area of development and external cooperation from the year 2000. More than just an index or a catalogue of interesting evaluations, the database offers the possibility of direct access to the available documents via the Web. A link to the summary or the full report is available in approximately 60% of cases.

Directory of Research Centres at International Poverty Centre
http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/site/CentreSearch.do
The Directory currently covers 540 institutions doing research on poverty, inequality and development in 27 countries in Latin America and 200 institutions in 38 sub-Saharan African countries. This directory is an effort to strengthen links among research centres in developing countries and foster South-South Cooperation on poverty research and training.

Intute: Social Sciences
http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/
Intute: Social Sciences is the subject group of Intute that provides Web resources for education and research for the social sciences, including law, business, hospitality, sport and tourism. Intute: Social Sciences has been created by bringing together two of the Hubs of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN): Altis and SOSIG. In combining the resources and services of these two services, Intute: Social Sciences offers an easy to use and powerful tool for discovering the best Internet resources in this important range of subjects.

Study: Provision of Technical Assistance Personnel
What can we learn from promising approaches?

This ECDPM study focused on the future demand for technical assistance, how TA personnel can best be mobilised, used and managed to strengthen national capacity. The study was commissioned to contribute to the current discussions on aid effectiveness and capacity development by learning about what works in relation to TA personnel, and to see what initiatives are being taken to improve practice. This work was financed by Denmark, Australia and Germany. The study included field research in Vietnam, Mozambique and the Solomon Islands. The final reports can be downloaded on the ECDPM website: http://www.ecdpm.org/dpir/ta

Understanding Your Local Economy: A Resource Guide for Cities
http://www.citiesalliance.org/activities-output/topics/cds/led-guidelines.html
Cities Alliance has released a new publication, ''Understanding Your Local Economy: A Resource Guide for Cities'' that addresses the challenges of analysing local economic conditions and a city’s comparative and competitive advantages. Funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Guide presents practical approaches to conducting citywide and regionwide economic and competitive assessments. It includes advice on how to choose local economic development (LED) indicators and tools that can assess a local economy’s competitiveness.

North-South Training, Research and Policy Network on Trade and Development
http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/index.php?loc=nsn/
The NSN comprises universities and policy-oriented institutions from European and ACP countries. Its overall aim is to contribute to creating in ACP countries a cadre of professionals able to provide sound policy advice on trade and development matters, through the strengthening of linkages and interaction between the ACP and European training, research and policy communities in the area of development and trade.

FOCUSS Search Engine
http://www.focuss.eu
Focuss.eu provides a high quality search engine for practitioners, researchers and students in the area of global development studies. Other than generic search engines, like Google and Yahoo, focuss.eu indexes a specific choice of electronic resources, selected by librarians, researchers and practitioners working in participating institutions. The resources are selected based on their relevance for the development studies and the quality of the information. Individual researchers, students and practitioners can contribute by adding their bookmarks.