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Over the past two decades many governments of low and middle income countries have started to introduce social protection measures or to extend the coverage and improve the functioning of public social protection systems. These reforms are a "global phenomenon" and can be observed in many African, Asian and Latin American countries. This paper focuses on international determinants for policy change within social protection by assessing the state of the art of both policy diffusion and policy transfer studies. Empirical studies of policy transfer and diffusion in the field of social protection are furthermore assessed in light of the theoretical background.
The paper examines the effectiveness of transgovernmental policy networks as a governance structure for policy diffusion. The analysis is based on a survey including 50 social protection policy maker and technical practitioner who are country delegates to transgovernmental policy networks within the policy area of social protection. The paper provides anecdotal empirical evidence that policy networks contribute to policy diffusion by inducing mutual learning processes.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the start-up scene in sub-Saharan Africa. "Silicon Savannah" is today widely used to describe the thriving IT industry in and around Nairobi. Kenya's geographical advantage, its favorable economic reforms, and mature start-up ecosystem makes it stands out positively. Since a lot of hype exists around the start-up scene many investors are drawn to it, but in reality very few start-ups are investment-ready. The increasing start-up requirements and needs force incubators to diversify their offer. In contrast, to traditional incubators, an Innovation Hub (Hub) is characterized based on the concept of open innovation and collaboration. A Hub nurtures an enabling environment where a community of entrepreneurs can grow. At the same time, it serves as a nexus point for the local start-up community, investors, academia, technology companies and the wider private sector. It aims to create a structure where people serendipitously interact with others that they would not typically meet. Considering the great interest for and the large amounts of money invested in Hubs by governments, universities, private companies and other interested parties, not only researchers have been raising the question of the actual benefit of Hubs. This research study aims to investigate to what extent the support offered by the Hubs is tackling the challenges faced by start-ups in Nairobi, Kenya. The analysis can serve as a basis for identifying strength and weaknesses in the Hub models.
Political economic analyses of recent social protection reforms in Asian, African or Latin American countries have increased throughout the last few years. Yet, most contributions focus on one social protection mechanism only and do not provide a comparative approach across policy areas. In addition, most studies are empirical studies, with no or very limited theoretical linkages. The paper aims to explain multiple trajectories of social protection reform processes looking at cash transfers and social health protection policies in Kenya. It develops a taxonomy and suggest a conceptual framework to assess and explain reform dynamics across different social protection pillars. In order to allow for a more differentiated typology and enable us to understand different reform dynamics, the article uses the approach on gradual institutional change. While existing approaches to institutional change mostly focus on institutional change prompted by exogenous shocks or environmental shifts, this approach takes account of both, exogenous and endogenous sources of change.
These times are very troubled ones. Not only do wars and political unrest seem to prevail in different regions of the world, but, corruption and fraud have reached an incredible dimension, too. It seems that societies have, to a large extent, lost values in which they had formerly believed in. These issues may be the background why at the moment Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a voluntary commitment is discussed in public that intensively. However, one gets the impression that this rather often seems to be superficial. Therefore, it is time to do some in-depth research to identify whether there is real substance behind these discussions or not. Latin America is a big continent with a greater number of countries which are running through difficult times as to corruption and fraud. Consequently, the author studied the policy of the central employers association Consejo Empresarial de America Latina (CEAL) with respect to the role of CSR. On the basis of statements, news and results of studies being regularly published, conclusions were drawn to which extent social and environmental aspects, along the line of ISO 26000, are playing a relevant role.
In order to avoid a too narrow view of the issue, a holistic approach concerning the generalsituation of Latin America has been selected using parameters such as economic growth, increase of population, poverty, inequality, and the global responsibility for environment. Furthermore, apart from the central organization CEAL, regional and national institutions with a specific mission for spreading and implementing CSR and two communal projects were analyzed as well. The conclusion of the paper is that there are some CSR "lighthouses" but an urgent need exists to spread the idea of CSR more intensively across the continent. Corresponding recommendations about how to increase the relevance of CSR in Latin America are given at the end of the paper.
The paper contributes to the debate on the political economy of implementation of propoor social policy. It argues for a broadening of the debate, which is dominated by technocratic arguments, emphasizing the lack of financial resources, technology or skills as the major barriers for effective implementation. Describing the dynamic interplay of ‘formal’ operational programme structures and ‘informal’ traditional institutions in delivering the CT-OVC – the largest and oldest cash transfer programme in Kenya – it argues for the need to look more closely into the local political economy as an important mediating arena for implementing social policies. Implementation is heavily contingent upon the local social, political and institutional context that influences and shapes its outcomes. These processes are highly dynamic and ambivalent evolving between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ structures and institutions. They may change over time and place, challenging the implicit assumption that programmes are evenly implemented across geographic and political entities.
This paper analyzes the complex effects and risks of social protection programmes in Ghana and Kenya on poor people’s human wellbeing, voice and empowerment and interactions with the social protection regulatory framework and policy instruments. For this purpose, it adopts a comprehensive Inclusive Development framework to systematically explore the complex effects of cash transfers and health insurance at the individual, household and community level. The findings highlight the positive provisionary and preventive effects of social protection, but also illustrate that the poorest are still excluded and that promotive effects, in the form of enhanced productivity, manifest themselves mainly for the people who are less resource poor. They can build more effectively upon an existing asset base, capabilities, power and social relations to counter the exclusionary mechanisms of the system, address inequity concerns and offset the transaction costs of accessing and benefitting from social protection. The inclusive development framework enables to lay these complex effects and interactions bear, and points to areas that require more longitudinal and mixed methodology research.
Quantum mechanical theories are used to search and optimized the conformations of proposed small molecule candidates for treatment of SARS-CoV-2. These candidate compounds are taken from what is reported in the news and in other pre-peer-reviewed literature (e.g. ChemRxiv, bioRxiv). The goal herein is to provided predicted structures and relative conformational stabilities for selected drug and ligand candidates, in the hopes that other research groups can make use of them for developing a treatment.
The universal basic income grant (UBIG): A comparative review of the characteristics and impact
(2021)
In recent years, public debates, pilot projects and academic research have internationally boosted the prominence of the universal basic income grant (UBIG) as a policy option. Despite this prominence, the arguments and evidence of the UBIG discussion have not been systematically put forward and discussed in light of the different UBIG conceptual understandings and applications. This paper adds value to the debate by systematic presenting the social, economical and political arguments in support of and against a UBIG. It furthermore discusses the UBIG dimensions/characteristics and variations, and also pose questions about whether all the UBIG experiments can really be classified as a UBIG. Antagonist of a UBIG often raise concerns about the negative effect of the lack of conditions and targeting in a UBIG. Since evidence on the impact of UBIG is limited, this paper turns to the evidence base on unconditional cash transfers and conditional cash transfers. The results show that it is the cash transfer rather than the conditionality and targeting that produce positive outcomes in areas of personal wellbeing.
In the research project "MetPVNet", both, the forecast-based operation management in distribution grids and as well as the forecasts of the feed-in of PV-power from decentralized plants could be improved on the basis of satellite data and numerical weather forecasts. Based on a detailed network analyses for a real medium-voltage grid area, it was shown that both – the integration of forecast data based on satellite and weather data and the improvement of subsequent day forecasts based on numerical weather models – have a significant added value for forecast-based congestion management or redispatch and reactive power management in the distribution grid. Furthermore, forecast improvements for the forecast model of the German Weather Service were achieved by assimilating visible satellite imagery, and cloud and radiation products from satellites were improved, thus improving the database for short-term forecasting as well as for assimilation. In addition, several methods have been developed that will enable forecast improvement in the future, especially for weather situations with high cloud induced variability and high forecast errors. This article summarizes the most important project results.
This study intends to contribute to the discourse on social protection and crime. The study assessed social protection as a tool for crime prevention, with bias to Owerri municipal local government area of Imo state, Nigeria as a case study. The study employed a qualitative approach which allowed the researcher to explore experiences and perspectives of selected participants. Purposive sampling was considered appropriate for the defined population. In-depth interview and focus group discussion (FGD) served as data collection instruments. A review of available literature, reports, newspaper publications, reports, and various internet sources were exhaustively utilised to gather secondary data.
The study revealed that social protection possesses the potential to prevent crime. The study informed that certain intervention programmes established by the government helped in decreasing crime incidences in the area under study. In addition, the study revealed that social protection enhances wellbeing, empowers people, promotes better living conditions, imbues a sense of belonging and inclusiveness, promotes social stability and does not lead to dependency. However, the study revealed that social protection alone is incapable of eradicating crime.
In the last two decades, studies that analyse the political economy of sustainable energy transitions have increasingly become available. Yet very few attempts have been made to synthesize the factors discussed in the growing literature. This paper reviews the extant empirical literature on the political economy of sustainable energy transitions. Using a well-defined search strategy, a total of 36 empirical contributions covering the period 2008 to 2022 are reviewed full text. Overall, the findings highlight the role of vested interest, advocacy coalitions and green constituencies, path dependency, external shocks, policy and institutional environment, political institutions and fossil fuel resource endowments as major political economy factors influencing sustainable energy transitions across both high income countries, and low and middle income countries. In addition, the paper highlights and discusses some critical knowledge gaps in the existing literature and provides suggestions for a future research agenda.
Recent findings in South Africa have once again underlined the fact that the oldest people in the world obviously came from Africa. Thus, historically, this continent has a very special significance. However, its history in more recent times, especially from the mid-19th century onwards, was strongly influenced by colonisation by European states. Many deep wounds from that time still have an impact on society as a whole today. However, the continent is currently also confronted with a greater number of challenges of a different nature.
On the one hand, Africa is trying to strengthen internal cohesion by means of a number of regional organisations and the African Union as a globally active institution; on the other hand, the continent has been marked by political and military conflicts between neighbouring states over the past decades until the recent present. In addition, there are regular internal social upheavals in individual countries due to violent or manipulated political change.
Yet the continent could well be on a good development path, since it has a large number of important raw materials - also in comparison to other continents. However, the individual African states - and especially their citizens - often do not benefit from this to an adequate extent. This results in a social imbalance in large parts of the continent (data collection until the end of June 2023), which leads to considerable internal tensions. To make matters worse, Africa is the continent most affected by climate change.
A closer look at the partly very different economic, political and social situations of the large continent leads to an overall predominantly critical assessment of Africa's further development, which is explained in more detail in the final chapter with regard to the foreseeable consequences for the continent.