Health Equity: 07/21/09

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

[EQ] Social and governance dimensions of climate change : implications for policy

Social and governance dimensions of climate change:
implications for policy

Foa, Roberto
The World Bank Social Development Department &

Development Economics World Development Report Team, May 2009

This paper—jointly commissioned by the World Bank's Social Development Department and WDR Team as a background paper for the World Development Report 2010: Development in a Changing Climate—

Available online at:

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2009/05/19/000158349_20090519141602/Rendered/PDF/WPS4939.pdf

“……This paper addresses two vital concerns in the debate on adaptation to climate change.

First, how can countries prepare to manage the impact of climate-change induced natural disasters?
Second, how can countries ensure that they have the governmental institutions required to manage the phenomenal challenge of adaptation to climate change?

A range of economic and institutional measures are tested for their potential effects on natural disaster resilience and the quality of environmental governance.
The findings suggest an important role is played by social and political institutions in determining the ability of countries to adapt to climate change and respond to natural disasters, in particular in the degree to which countries have succeeded in gender empowerment and the development of a robust civil society and nonprofit sector.

As the climate change challenge moves from that of "proving the facts" to that of "implementing change," the authors suggest that international policymakers, donors, and activists must increasingly focus on building domestic policy environments that are conducive to the delivery of more effective environmental legislation, for example through implementation of gender quotas and provision of support to civil society groups….”

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[EQ] What Explains the Decline in Brazil's Inequality?

What Explains the Decline in Brazil’s Inequality?

Degol Hailu, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) and

Sergei Suarez Dillon Soares, Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA)

International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC - IG) Poverty Practice, Bureau for Development Policy, UNDP
OnePager No. 89 July 2009

Available online at: http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCOnePager89.pdf

“……..The economics profession has long debated whether there is a trade-off between growth and equity. Countries that pursued inequality-reducing strategies have been warned that growth will be affected, and hence that poverty increases.

The harbingers of doom advocated a growth-focused strategy. Their assumption was that the income of the poor rises in direct proportion to economic growth. The truth is more like this: economies with more equal income distribution are likely to achieve higher rates of poverty reduction than very unequal countries.

In this One Pager we consider if this is the case in Brazil. Inequality in Brazil, as measured by the Gini coefficient, fell from 0.59 in 2001 to 0.53 in 2007. Much remains unknown about why inequality has fallen, but two sets of known causes stand out.

The first consists of improvements in education. In the early and mid 1990s, for example, the workforce gained more equal access to education. This is because of universal admission to primary schooling and lower repetition rates. In conjunction with other demographic trends, such as a decline in family size and improvements in family dependency ratios, access to education helped reduce inequality ….….”

Reference:

Veras, F., S. Soares, M. Medeiros and R. Osorio (2006).

Cash Transfer Programmes in Brazil: Impacts on Inequality and Poverty.
Working Paper # 21. IPC-IG http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCWorkingPaper21.pdf

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