IPPG News: November 2009
Highlights of recent activities from IPPG - the Research Programme Consortium on Improving Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth
IPPG Project news
Conference: Rural territorial dynamics: a Latin American perspective
Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar, Quito, Ecuador
9 September 2009
Dairy Farm, Tungurahua. Photo credit: IPPG
This seminar presented the latest results from IPPG's Rural Territorial Dynamics research cluster in Ecuador and Peru, with some results of an initial phase in Bolivia. The research examines the institutional underpinnings of inclusive growth processes in rural territories. Two case studies, Tungurahua in Ecuador and Cuatro caminos in Peru, illustrated growth findings and where poverty and/or inequality were reduced.
The seminar was opened by Ecuador's minister of agriculture, Dr. Ramon Espinel, who said: "From the point of view of agricultural policy, this study sets a standard for how local development can have a direct impact on the way in which the situation of a place with high levels of poverty can be improved. This means that programmes developed in regions at a micro level can have an impact on the macro."
A field trip to Tungurahua revealed some remarkable institutional reforms. Historian and anthropologist Pablo Ospina gives one example: "The extensive participation of the women in commerce increased their economic autonomy and their capacity to decide inside of the home how money would be spent... This ought to be put to the test in a second phase of the study, through life stories, in-depth interviews which investigate how this system works and how domestic decisions are made, and through specific focal groups for women."
IPPG delegates also met the minister for economic policy co-ordination Natalie Cely, her deputy minister, Mauricio Pena, and their team.
Read Steve Wiggins' report
Read media coverage - originals in Spanish: La Hora, El Heraldo
Read media coverage - English translations: La Hora, El Heraldo
Film: Voices from the Forest: IPPG Forest Rights documentary in festival
India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 27- 31 October 2009
Indian Forest. Photo credit: Oliver Springate-Baginski
The first of three films supported by IPPG received its premiere at the environmental film festival CMS VATAVARAN. The 2009 festival showcased more than 350 films, including films from 18 Indian states.
Delayed Justice, directed by Shriprakash, is a documentary based on testimonies from forest-dwellers in Andhra Pradesh. It is one of three films from Indian states that form part of IPPG's research project on the Forest Rights Act. The first IPPG paper from the project, Redressing 'historical injustice' through the Indian Forest Rights Act 2006. A Historical Institutional analysis of contemporary forest rights reform, was published in September.
State-Business Relations (SBR)
Event: The role of industrial policy in development - view online
Overseas Development Institute, London, 15 October 2009
If you missed this event bringing together Justin Yifu Lin, Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank, and Ha-Joon Chang, Reader in the Political Economy of Development, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, you can watch or listen online now.
The ODI debate, on the role that industrial policy can play in promoting development, also included a presentation from Dirk Willem te Velde on IPPG's state-business relations work in a number of African countries.
Other events:
Workshop: Investment Selection and Investment Policy in Ghana
Accra, 5 November 2009
Ghana seems to have found its way in the last decade, achieving decent growth rates, noticeable improvements in living standards, and very respectable rates of investment. Nevertheless, there are widespread feelings in the country that Ghana could be doing even better, and problems with the investment environment might well form part of the explanation.
Professor Paul Hare and his researcher, Felicia Owusu Fofie, both from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, were in Accra, Ghana for the closing policy workshop of their research project on Ghana (funded by DFID). The workshop was attended by around 40 business representatives and policy-makers, including two government ministers, both of whom delivered very interesting presentations. Paul Hare was interviewed by one of Ghana's main broadcasters, and for Ghana's daily newspaper, The Daily Graphic.
Preview research (final version end 2009): Investment Behaviour in a Difficult Institutional Environment
New Publications:
State-Business Relations in Indian States: Measurement, Analysis and Implications
This new IPPG briefing paper summarises the results from a study deploying a new measurement system for relations between state and business. It reveals which Indian states emerge as winners and losers, in state-business relations and the race for economic growth.
The IPPG research represents the first effort to systematically characterise State-Business Relations (SBRs) across sub-national units - in this case, Indian states - within a country over time without resorting to subjective surveys. The authors, Assistant Policy Analyst Purnima Purohit and Research Director Siddhartha Mitra of CUTS International, suggest that the positive correlation found between the SBR measure and economic growth indicates the importance of SBR for economic growth in India.
Download the new briefing paper and the detailed methodological research paper, State-Business Relations in Indian states: Paper towards constructing an effective SBR index for Indian states by Massimiliano Cali, Siddhartha Mitra and Purnima Purohit at www.ippg.org.uk
How non-state actors influence budget outcomes in Zambia
This new IPPG study by Samuel M. Bwalya, Ezekiel Phiri and Kelvin Mpembamoto (October 2009) explores how different interest groups in Zambia influence the adoption of pro-poor budgets. The paper examines the role non-state actors can play in shaping tax and expenditure policies through institutional arrangements which allow their participation in the budget process, and forms part of IPPG's wider exploration of the politics and economics of state-business relations in Africa.
More IPPG publications
IPPG PhD students:
Researcher on the road: In search of Malawi's business elites
Think that researchers work in ivory towers? Think again. On the road in search of Malawi's business elites, University of York, IPPG PhD student Henry Chingaipe encountered hidden archives, malaria and buses that went nowhere.
Henry's account of his fieldwork experiences, The joys and pitfalls of doing an historical institutionalist inquiry in Malawi will form an appendix to his PhD (Institution Formation, Maintenance and Change: the Politics of State-Business Relations in Malawi).
Coming Up
Workshop: SBR India - Effective State Business Relations: When Does It Happen and Why Does It Matter?
Hotel Golden Tulip, Jaipur, 18 December 2009
This workshop will report on the findings from research on the politics and economics of state-business relations by IPPG and CUTS International (Consumer Unity & Trust Society)
This series of research projects seeks to understand what constitutes effective state business relations in the Indian context, and why and how effective state business relations affect economic growth.
For more about the workshop, contact: Vishwajit Habbu, CUTS, or Ruth Hill, IPPG.
IPPG is the shorthand name for the inter-disciplinary Research Programme Consortium on Improving Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth. IPPG supports innovative scholarly research, and seeks to influence development policy and practice that contributes to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
IPPG's next newsletter will appear in January 2010.
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IPPG's work is made possible by funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
