Showing papers on "Global public good published in 2003"

Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization

Abstract: Elaborating on the concepts first introduced in Global Public Goods, this book addresses the long overdue issue of how to adjust the concept of public goods to today's economic and political realities The production of global public goods requires the orchestration of initiatives by a large number of diverse actors across different levels and sectors It may require the collaboration of governments, business and civil society, and in most cases it almost certainly calls for an effective linkage of the local, national, regional, and global levels In light of today's new realities, this book examines a series of managerial and political challenges that pertain to the design and implementation of production strategies and the monitoring and evaluation of global public goods provisionAs participatory decision-making enhances the political support for - and thus the effectiveness of - certain policy decisions, this volume offers suggestions on a number of pragmatic policy reforms for bringing the global public more into public policy making on global issues Nine case studies examine the importance of the global public good concept from the viewpoint of developing countries, exploring how and where the concerns of the poor and the rich overlapProviding Global Public Goods offers important and timely suggestions on how to move in a more feasible and systematic way towards a fairer process of globalization that works in the interests of all

Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization

Abstract: Elaborating on the concepts first introduced in Global Public Goods, this book addresses the long overdue issue of how to adjust the concept of public goods to today's economic and political realities. The production of global public goods requires the orchestration of initiatives by a large number of diverse actors across different levels and sectors. It may require the collaboration of governments, business and civil society, and in most cases it almost certainly calls for an effective linkage of the local, national, regional, and global levels. In light of today's new realities, this book examines a series of managerial and political challenges that pertain to the design and implementation of production strategies and the monitoring and evaluation of global public goods provision.As participatory decision-making enhances the political support for - and thus the effectiveness of - certain policy decisions, this volume offers suggestions on a number of pragmatic policy reforms for bringing the global public more into public policy making on global issues. Nine case studies examine the importance of the global public good concept from the viewpoint of developing countries, exploring how and where the concerns of the poor and the rich overlap.Providing Global Public Goods offers important and timely suggestions on how to move in a more feasible and systematic way towards a fairer process of globalization that works in the interests of all. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/0195157400/toc.html

Only for my own neighborhood?: Preferences and voluntary provision of local and global public goods

Abstract: While public goods are defined as non-rival and non-excludable, there are degrees of excludability. This paper reports on the results of a series of experiments designed to investigate the role of preferences on individual willingness to contribute to the provision of a group (excludable) versus a global (non-excludable) public good. The results of this experiment show that when the average per capita return (APCR) to society of the global public good exceeds the APCR to society of the group public good, individuals contribute more to the global good but do not reduce their contributions to the group public good.

Global Public Goods for Health: a health economic and public health perspective

Abstract: SECTION 1: THE GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS FOR HEALTH CONCEPT 1. Global public goods for health: concept and issues SECTION 2: GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS FOR HEALTH: CASE STUDIES 2. Polio eradication 3. Tuberculosis control 4. Antimicrobial drug resistance 5. Global environmental SECTION 3: KNOWLEDGE: THE CENTRAL GLOBAL PUBLIC GOOD FOR HEALTH 6. Medical knowledge 7. Genomics knowledge 8. Public health infrastructure and knowledge SECTION 4: ENABLING GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS FOR HEALTH: THE IMPORTANCE OF LEGISLATION 9. International law 10. International health regulations and epidemic control 11. International law and the international legislative process: The WHO framework convention on tobacco control SECTION 5: A CRITIQUE OF THE GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS FOR HEALTH CONCEPT AND PRACTICE 12. Global public goods for health: A flawed paradigm? 13. Global public goods for health: Use and limitations SECTION 6: GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS FOR HEALTH: THE FUTURE 14. Global public goods for health: from theory to policy

Conserving Biodiversity: Reconciling Local and Global Public Benefits

Abstract: Poverty and biodiversity are interlinked in many ways. A number of studies (Dasgupta 1993, 1995; Pearce and Warford 1993) have identified correlations between rural poverty, population growth, landlessness, and pressures on natural resources—including biodiversity. Moreover, the links between poverty and biodiversity run in both directions. Poverty can undermine biodiversity, and biodiversity loss and the resulting degradation of ecosystems can exacerbate poverty. Biodiversity sustains the productivity of ecosystems, enabling them to provide economically important local services such as the hydrological cycle—including flood control, water supply, waste assimilation, nutrient recycling, soil conservation and regeneration, and crop pollination (Daily 1997). Loss of biodiversity causes long-term damage to people’s health and food security. Yet poor people often ignore the long-term effects of biodiversity loss. A number of studies have found that income levels influence the rate at which people discount the future. Although poor people may be risk averse, they tend to heavily discount the future environmental impacts of their actions (see Holden, Shiferaw, and Wik 1998; Pender 1996; and Perrings and Stern 2000). That is, they place more weight on the short-term cash benefits of intensive agriculture and forestry than on the long-term benefits (economic and otherwise) of conservation. This chapter argues that the apparent tradeoff between poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation is largely false. Moreover, it could be avoided—or at least significantly reduced—by introducing some rather basic policy reforms. These reforms could improve the well-being of all interested parties—rich and poor, public and private. Biodiversity conservation is a public good that offers benefits across a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Current strategies for conserving it often focus on its global benefits, ignoring its local benefits. Yet by doing so, these strategies not only fail to deliver important local benefits, they also place at risk a global public good: maintenance of the global gene pool. An optimal pattern of protection should reflect both the global and local public benefits

Microfinance and social capital: does social capital help create good practice?

Abstract: The role of organising and disseminating knowledge as a global public good has become a major preoccupation of international development organisations. One area in which they are particularly active is support for microfinance programmes in developing countries. More recently, the microfinance 'best practices' deposited in, and disseminated by, these international organisations have been associated with social capital. This paper examines the ways in which the notion of social capital is employed to explain the success of microfinance programmes. It argues that various types of social interactions that are generated around successful microfinance operations are randomly called 'social capital'. This means that the presence of social capital does not tell us much about what sort of microfinance programmes, in terms of design and implementation, should be regarded as good practice.

Globalization and Development: A Latin American and Caribbean Perspective

Abstract: This book presents an analysis of the opportunities that are open to the developing world, but it also examines the asymmetries and risks entailed in this process, which may hinder development unless suitable institutional frameworks are put in place at the national, regional, and global levels. Although the conceptual considerations explored in this volume are based on one particular region of the developing world, Latin America and the Caribbean, the analysis is undertaken in a broader spirit and may therefore be relevant for other regions as well. The first of this book's five chapters focuses on the multidimensional nature of globalization; describes the current phase of the process within its historical context of global economic internationalization; and briefly examines its social, political, and cultural dimensions. Chapters 2 and 3 look at how the economic facets of the globalization process have evolved. Chapter 2 explores trends in international trade and in the new global production structure, and chapter 3 analyzes the international mobility of capital, within the framework of the various macroeconomic regimes of the world economy, and of labor. Income disparity trends and the underlying asymmetries of the current global order are discussed in chapter 4. The fifth and final chapter proposes an agenda for the global era. As part of this proposal, and on the basis of certain fundamental principles, such as global institutions that respect diversity; complementarity among global, regional, and national institutions; and equitable participation by the countries based on suitable rules of governance, this chapter outlines the national, regional, and global measures that are needed to achieve the three foremost objectives of a new international order: a supply of global public goods, the gradual correction of international asymmetries, and the progressive construction of a rights-based international social agenda.

Sharing Knowledge: Innovations and Remaining Challenges

Abstract: The knowledge initiative aims to expand knowledge sharing as a way of doing business-not a separate line of business. It also proposes, appropriately, a comprehensive strategy to bring about both internal and external changes. This evaluation examines the relevance of that strategy and the institutional infrastructure put in place to implement it. It also reviews the effectiveness of the strategy's three main areas of innovation: Network and Regional internal knowledgesharing activities among Bank staff; Regional and country external knowledge sharing with clients; The three Bank-supported global knowledge initiatives that have the broadest knowledge-sharing scope are: The Development Gateway, The Global Development Learning Network, and the Global Development Network. The transfer of knowledge and information has always been a dimension of the Bank's role. And clients, partners, and the international community at large have long seen the Bank as a main source of high-quality development analysis and expertise. The 1996 knowledge initiative raises the profile of this aspect of the Bank's role, in order to foster the changes inside and outside, the Bank needed to leverage knowledge for development more effectively.

Global gains at local costs: Imposing protected areas: evidence from central India

Abstract: SUMMARY With the ever-increasing understanding about the Earth as a living network of interdependent ecosystems, there seems to be a growing consensus that the whole planet is a global common. This feeling, however, is not bereft of severe complications arising from conflicting interests of different nations placed at varying levels of development. While developed countries are more concerned about environmental quality which is a global public good, less developed countries can hardly afford to make land use decisions that keep such wider futuristic concerns in mind while they are presently struggling with very basic problems of poverty and starvation. The actors at the global level prescribe, monitor, and enforce the global level collective choice through persuasive, and at times coercive, methods. At the national level, various legal provisions in the form of legislation reflect the collective choice at that level through creation of protected areas devoid of humans. A simple fact is overlooked, that i...

Combining efficiency with equity : a pragmatic approach

Abstract: The global public good of climate stabilization, pursued in the negotiations leading up to the Kyoto Protocol, provides a useful case study of the political problems that can arise in attempts to reconcile structural or procedural aspects of justice and fairness with aspects of efficiency in securing just and fair outcomes.

The CGIAR at 31 : an independent meta-evaluation of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research - global public goods from the CGIAR - impact assessment

Abstract: Attempts to estimate the returns to research on crop varietal improvement have generated a huge body of benefit-cost and rate-of-return studies. Studies are practically unanimous in finding returns well above the returns attainable from alternative uses of public funds. While the studies can legitimately be criticized on several grounds, they provide convincing evidence that, taken as a whole, the crop-breeding CGIAR Centers have generated extraordinarily high returns to investment. The present paper is primarily devoted to a review of the findings of such studies, principally by economists and other social scientists who have attempted to quantify the consequences of agricultural research. It particularly focuses on estimating the economic value of what has been accomplished by the CGIAR, how confident we can be in those estimates, and what the implications are for future investment in the CGIAR System.

Equitable access to scientific and technical information for health.

Abstract: Hippocrates equated scientific truth with mystical knowledge which should be revealed only to the initiated (1). In current thinking, however, scientific and technical information is seen as an archetypal global public good which should be freely available for the benefit of all (2). With traditional printed publication, the wide dissemination of this information through academic journals was an expensive undertaking, but now the internet and associated technologies have revolutionized the situation. The opportunities presented by these technologies have led to calls for greater access to the scientific literature. Even though electronic publication has reduced or eliminated costs associated with the printing, handling and postage of scholarly journals, other significant costs remain. These include quality control (peer review and editing), production and dissemination (making the edited information available on the internet), and long-term preservation. A movement called Open Access maintains that these residual costs of publishing scientific information should be borne by the provider, and that access to the information should not be limited by the user's ability to pay. In particular, a model proposed by BioMed Central based on funding by authors or their institutions has become prominent (3). This model may solve the problem of access, at least for those with the required level of connectivity, but it is not clear if all authors or institutions can afford to provide free access, especially if they have to pay the full cost of publication. Other models of financing open access need to be investigated such as the SciELO Project in Latin America (4), in which funding is mainly by governments through their research agencies. This comes conceptually closer to the idea of scientific information as a global public good, and open access is now the dominant form of publishing academic journals in that region. While open access has made impressive progress in recent years, the scientific health literature is still dominated by commercial publishers and learned societies which follow a similar commercial model for the publication of their journals. These publishers own copyright to millions of pages of scientific and technical information of vital interest to those working in the health field. Although they are susceptible to moral arguments about access to this information for those who need it, the publishers argue that they have both to finance their work and to meet obligations to their investors and members. One of the advantages of electronic publication is that once the information is available for dissemination on the internet the costs of access are insignificant. This can allow publishers to provide free access to certain categories of readers at no or very little cost to themselves. It also allows publishers to adopt a policy of equitable access to the journals based on the ability of their customers to pay. The Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI), involving WHO and many leading publishers (5) uses such a model. There are many other ways in which publishers can give greater access to their information while still earning revenue to finance their work. …

Scaling up: a development strategy for the new millennium

Abstract: The scaling up of development policies, practices and partnerships is a strategic challenge. The upgrading of development ambition from investment operations and country strategies to global policies would extrapolate a secular trend that has propelled the development business from the pioneering phase of projects conceived as “privileged particles of development”; to the neo-classical phase of macro-economic adjustment; to the advent of environmentally and socially sustainable development and most recently to the adoption of country based comprehensive development frameworks. Because the global economy is increasingly interconnected, the development enterprise must be reshaped to reflect shared objectives, distinct accountabilities and reciprocal obligations between rich and poor countries. Because development is a social transformation process, the development paradigm must become holistic. Because incentives matter, development metrics must be reconsidered to emphasize results. The universal endorsement of the millennium development goals has helped to reverse a decline in the share of national incomes allocated to aid. But it has yet to generate binding commitments or concrete plans. Halfway to the 2015 deadline, progress is partial, halting and insufficient to meet most goals. To accelerate progress, scaling up is needed. Capacity building should strike the right balance between hierarchical, individualistic and relational conceptions of development. Projects should be used to experiment, innovate, learn and evaluate what works and does not work. To trigger an accelerated and self-sustaining reform of the global policies that shape development, new partnerships will be needed to mobilize skills and resources; to generate new ideas; to mobilize public opinion; to trigger judicious standard setting and to implement scaled up development programs. These new development coalitions are likely to take the form of global networks combining the legitimacy of governments, the ethics of the civil society and the innovative energies of the private sector.

The global environment facility as a pioneering institution : lessons learned and looking ahead

Abstract: At a time of global restructuring and calls for more responsive and participatory governance, new partnerships are being sought, as are new means of consolidating them through the creation of novel international structures. Today, international instruments are innovative, transectoral, and global in their approach. In this evolving scene, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) emerges as a model institutional experiment. The GEF can offer its experience as a blueprint for others, and it can draw on its experience in order to continue being at the forefront of the management of global public goods (GPGs).

Sharing knowledge to achieve development goals

Abstract: In 1996 the World Bank launched a comprehensive knowledge sharing initiative, based on the understanding that development knowledge is a global public good that belongs to everyone, and from which everyone should benefit The main objectives were to develop a world-class knowledge management system and to improve and expand the sharing of development knowledge with clients and partners, as well as among Bank staff, in order to improve the quality of Bank operations and to enhance the capacity of client countries to achieve their development goals But has the Bank met these objectives? To answer this question, this report discusses the Operations Evaluation Department's assessment of the knowledge initiative

Foreign Aid and Global Public Goods

Abstract: After the September 11 disaster the U.S. rediscovered an old international policy to raise the provision of an international public good: foreign aid as a means to raise global security. However, foreign aid may also help to overcome other international problems. In this paper, we analyze the effect foreign aid on international climate policy. We take account of cost differentials among countries in producing the public good, ancillary benefits of climate policy and alternative technologies independently generating ancillary benefits. We elaborate incentives to provide foreign aid and highlight a new aspect influencing the effects of foreign aid on global public good provision: cost differentials among countries in independently generating ancillary effects of global public goods.

Les principes de protection des intérêts diffus et des biens collectifs : quel ordre public pour les marchés globalisés ?

Abstract: SUMMARY PRINCIPLES OF PROTECTING DIFFUSE INTERESTS AND COMMON GOODS : WHICH ORDRE PUBLIC FOR GLOBALIZED MARKETS ? Whereas in earlier times, it was for the national parliament to balance economic freedoms and protection of colliding values, nation-states nowadays, i.e., at times of globalisation, face serious problems in maintaining domestic levels of protection. Instead of giving in to the constraints of international competition or of engaging in a hopeless battle to reinforce national standards of protection, the only option seems to consist in raising the level of protection from the nation-state to a higher – supranational or even global – level of regulation. Since the WTO Ministerial Conference of Doha in 2001, trade lawyers and diplomats have also seemed to accept the necessity of reconciling free trade and intellectual property rights with public interests, human rights, interests of workers and consumers, the protection of the environment and health as well as the interest of developing countries in sustainable developments. This article looks for new approaches for such regulation by building on general concepts of diffuse interests and public goods and proposes a kind of « mixed regulation of balanced interests ». In a first analytical step the article defines the notions of « diffuse interests » and « public goods » and looks at the changing environment of their protection in the process of globalisation. With regard to diffuse interests of consumers, the law of the WTO proves to be clearly deficient for three reasons : (1.) Protection of trade interests under WTO law fails to protect competitive structures in increasingly global markets. (2.) WTO law focuses on the protection of trade interests and at the same time underestimates consumer interests in the provision of high-quality and healthy products. (3.) The existing system does not respond to the problem of insufficient access of poor consumers in the developing world to essential, often indispensable and life-saving products. Whereas the notion of « diffuse interests » stems from the theories of consumer protection, the economic theory of « public goods », in particular in the form of a « global public goods » theory, directly reacts to the current criticism on WTO law. This article critically looks, first, at laws protecting intellectual property as an instrument of solving the public goods problem by internalising the costs of production, and, second, international competition as a global public good as such as well as the capacity of such competition to guarantee the provision of other public goods. WTO law largely prefers the interests of traders to those of consumers and neglects the need for the provision of public goods. Since consumers in the developing world have to rely on the provision of public goods, which may be bought by rich consumers as private goods (e.g., clean water, education, health care, etc.), WTO law also broadens the social gap between richer and poorer countries. In order to solve the problems of protecting diffuse interests and public goods on a global level, the analysis then looks at traditional approaches of international law. However, even when developed into « International Economic Law » harmonising different fields of economic regulation, traditional approaches of negotiating new fields of regulation on a WTO level on the basis of mutual advantage, as was the case for the TRIPs Agreement, do not guarantee adequate consideration of the need for protecting diffuse interests of consumers and public goods. Therefore, a solution has to be pursued via constitutional approaches to international economic regulation, possibly claiming the establishment of « international policies » as known from existing Community law with its procedural guarantees of adequate representation of individuals. Since, however, such form of supranational integration does not seem politically acceptable, less ambitious approaches are considered. In light of the incompleteness of the WTO Constitution, in particular with regard to diffuse interests of consumers and public goods, the article supports the ECJ’s rejection of a constitutional interpretation of WTO law, which, as a matter of international law, would guarantee individual rights by making WTO rules directly applicable. Instead, the article argues in favour of concluding additional agreements for specific fields, like on the protection of genetic resources and international competition. In other fields, however, national sovereignty should be preserved. To this extent, the article advocates a system of « mixed regulation of balanced interests ». The major problem in a system of mixed regulation of balanced interests consists in solving conflicts between international rules on the one hand, WTO law, in particular, and national rules on the other hand. Here, alternative solutions have to be found in contrast to the model of Art. XX GATT. As one possible option and alternative, the article discusses a competition-oriented approach, which, for example in the field of intellectual property protection, would argue for giving more scope to national sovereignty in situations, in which markets are separated. In addition, rules on international competition law should guarantee that national policies, for instance as to the issue of exhaustion, are not undermined by agreement between undertakings trying to split up markets along national borders. In addition, international law may provide for exceptions from the application of WTO rules. For several reasons, States should even maintain, in principle, their sovereignty in defining additional interests. In its concluding remarks, the article rejects the over-stressed antagonism between liberal market principles and principles of protection, a conflict which can be bridged, at least partially, by the adoption of international competition rules as an instrument protecting both free trading and diffuse consumer interests. However, competition rules cannot solve all problems. More advanced forms of a constitutional approach need to be considered. As to these, in order to guarantee full participation of the stake-holders, and to simultaneously protect the democratic principle, large discretion for regulation has to be given to national legislatures.

The CGIAR at 31 : an independent meta-evaluation of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research - international agriculture research and the role of the private sector

Abstract: The role of the private sector in agricultural research and development (R&D) has increased significantly in developing countries over the past two decades. However, information on the nature of private sector R&D in agriculture its focus, location, size and output is limited in availability, thus limiting any analysis of the potential risks and opportunities of this growth trend. The objective of this paper is to review the available information on private sector investment in agricultural R&D in the developing world as a means of contributing to an evaluation of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). This review incorporates information from a wide variety of sources, including policy documents from international organizations and governments, literature from private firms and their interest groups, published articles from the academia, and policy forum presentations.

A global public good approach

Abstract: The aim of this article is to identify the modalities of financing international trade security. Our analysis is more specifically oriented by the issue of financing the developing countries which must make a considerable effort to attain the required level, whereas the developed countries have already largely invested in trade security since the events of 11 th September 2001. We first characterise security in the context of a global public good, before studying the financing conditions and the discriminating criteria of the supply of the global public good security. We then presents a critical analysis of the various possible sources and instruments for financing the global public good security and propose different financing scenarios, each one based on a specific allocation of responsibilities among the players in security. We conclude by considering the role of the international institutions as project managers of the financing and implementation of the security of international trade.

Learning in International Public Policy Networks. Managing Institutional Interplay between National and International Forest Programmes

Abstract: The article takes up individual lines of reasoning articulated in the contribution of Ron Mitchell in this book on ‘when and how international institutions matter’. International institutions do matter and they ought to. The emphasis here will be on Mitchell’s ‘how’ questions, such as how the management of international institutions influences social learning in a given field like international forest policy. Furthermore, it is argued that the form matters. The form international institutions assume affects vitally their role in and effectiveness for social learning. A core and concrete feature of contemporary international institutional arrangements is their multilateral form. Multilateralism is described (Ruggie 1993: 7f) as generic institutional form of international partnerships and must not be confused with formal multilateral organisations or secretariats, a relatively recent form and still of only relatively modest importance. Multilateralism refers to coordinating relations among three or more states in accordance with certain organising principles.

The Cognitive Dimension of Global Health

Abstract: While the spatial and temporal dimensions of globalization readily receive attention by scholars and policy makers, how globalization affects the way we think is equally relevant for understanding its consequent health impacts. Indeed, the old adage ‘you are what you eat’ could be prefaced with the phrase ‘you are what you think’ because so much of what we do, including our dietary habits, is shaped by our beliefs, values, cultural attitudes and other thought processes. What we think, and hence what we and others do to affect our health, is being continually shaped by the environment around us. As the nature of this environment becomes increasingly global, so too are the influences on our thought processes. It is this cognitive dimension of globalization that this chapter explores.