Domestic Financing Research Articles

Addressing disparities in European Social Sciences & Humanities research on climate, energy and mobility: insights from a Call for Evidence survey and analysis workshops on the challenges and opportunities of working in Southern and Central & Eastern Europe.

Despite the efforts of the EU, disparities remain in terms of the participation of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) researchers from both Southern and Central & Eastern Europe in research collaborations, as compared to Northern and Western European scholars. To better understand these disparities, the EU Horizon Europe SSH CENTRE project ran a Call for Evidence over December 2022 to March 2023. Specifically, respondents were asked about the challenges they faced in conducting SSH research on climate, energy and/or mobility, as well as the ways in which these challenges could be addressed. The Call's online survey was focused on maximising diversity, and it gathered views and experiences of 137 Southern and Central & Eastern European SSH researchers. The sample was balanced across genders (71 men, 66 women) and the three main themes (82 energy, 88 climate, 53 mobility), and included at least one respondent from each of the 27 target countries. The highest numbers of respondents were from Hungary (19) and Spain (21). To ensure that interpretation and analysis of the data was grounded in regional contexts, we ran two parallel analysis workshops hosted in a hybrid format (combining online and in-person participants): one in Pécs for Central & Eastern European SSH researchers (34 participants); and one in Bilbao for Southern European SSH researchers (26 participants). These workshops focused on discussing the relationship between SSH-STEM disciplines, analysing the institutional contexts, and discussing the implications for domestic and EU research funding relations. During the workshops, data collected through the survey were collectively analysed and the most important reflections were gathered into a common structure of 'Challenges' and 'Ways forward'. Key messages from the workshop are being distilled into a Position Statement that focuses on the common elements while also emphasising possible differences between Southern and Central & Eastern Europe.

The political economy offinancing traditional vaccines andvitamin A supplements insix African countries.

Vaccines and vitamin A supplementation (VAS) are financed by donors in several countries, indicating that challenges remain with achieving sustainable government financing of these critical health commodities. This qualitative study aimed to explore political economy variables of actors' interests, roles, power and commitment to ensure government financing of vaccines and VAS. A total of 77 interviews were conducted in Burundi, Comoros, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Governments and development partners had similar interests. Donor commitment to vaccines and VAS was sometimes dependent on the priorities and political situation of the donor country. Governments' commitment to financing vaccines was demonstrated through policy measures, such as enactment of immunization laws. Explicit government financial commitment to VAS was absent in all six countries. Some development partners were able to influence governments directly via allocation of health funding while others influenced indirectly through coordination, consolidation and networks. Government power was exercised through multiple systemic and individual processes, including hierarchy, bureaucracy in governance and budgetary process, proactiveness of Ministry of Health officials in engaging with Ministry of Finance, and control over resources. Enablers that were likely to increase government commitment to financing vaccines and VAS included emerging reforms, attention to the voice of citizens and improvements in the domestic economy that in turn increased government revenues. Barriers identified were political instability, health sector inefficiencies, overly complicated bureaucracy, frequent changes of health sector leadership and non-health competing needs. Country governments were aware of their role in financing vaccines, but only a few had made tangible efforts to increase government financing. Discussions on government financing of VAS were absent. Development partners continue to influence government health commodity financing decisions. The political economy environment and contextual factors work together to facilitate or impede domestic financing.

The Impact of Technology Attention and Investors on Stock Returns: Taking Science and Technology Innovation Board Company as an Example

Since the fourth anniversary of the opening of the Science and Technology Innovation Board, the number of listed companies on the board has reached 546, with a total fundraising amount of 858.242-billion-yuan, accounting for 42% of the total domestic A-share financing during the same period. The stock return on the Science and Technology Innovation Board has become a topic of concern for investors. This article uses indirect indicators from 2021 to 2023, and uses principal component analysis to construct investor attention and investor sentiment indicators. By using panel analysis, it is found that investor attention has a negative impact on stock return, investor sentiment has a positive moderating effect on investor attention-stock return. In order to further explore the impact and effect of differences in investor sentiment and investor attention in the high and low sentimental group, it conducted a heterogeneity test, which found that the relationship between investor attention and stock returns in the low sentiment group is significantly negative, but not in high group. And there is a significant positive correlation between the investor sentiment moderating effect and stock returns in the high sentiment group, but not in the low sentiment group. This result can be beneficial for guiding market regulatory authorities and consumers to supervise and invest rationally in stocks on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

Implementing nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement: An assessment of ocean-based climate action in Caribbean Small Island Developing States

This paper investigates the integration of ocean-based ambitions and actions into the climate commitments of Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in achieving their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the 2015 Paris Agreement together with the climate financing needs to meet these targets. The paper examined whether the Caribbean acknowledges ocean-based activities as important ways to address mitigation and adaptation as well as the role of international and domestic finance, private sector finance, and fiscal policy reform with respect to ocean-based activities within their NDCs. The methodology adopted was a content analysis of Caribbean countries’ NDCs and updated NDCs. The data used for the content analysis were obtained from initial and updated NDCs for sixteen Caribbean SIDS. The paper found that the Caribbean views ocean-based activity as important for mitigation and adaptation with significant potential to increase blue climate ambition and action. The region is however dependent on international climate finance which is not sufficient to reach its ocean-based NDCs, while there is lack of public finance and an absence of private sector finance as well as innovative domestic private and public finance and fiscal incentives to achieve these goals.

汽车金融公司多维盈利能力分析工具的应用探索

This article combines the theoretical research and practice of domestic and foreign experts on automotive finance, and uses principal component analysis to select ROE, ROA, and RCRA to construct a comprehensive index representing the company's profitability. Based on the four dimensions of the balanced scorecard, this paper analyzes the possible factors that affect the efficiency index of auto financing companies, and then uses the Delphi method method to obtain the final Index set. Combining the industry situation of auto financing companies, this paper selects the influencing factors. On the basis of the existing research results, this paper designs a model for the correlation between profitability and enterprise growth, non-performing loan ratio, and empirically studies all 25 domestic auto financing companies from 2011 to 2020, Analyze the relationship between various factors that affect profitability, and finally propose reasonable suggestions based on research conclusions and the actual situation of China's automotive finance industry.

Социальный капитал науки как фактор инновационного развития

This article distinguishes and describes the characteristic features of social capital formation in science and the factors influencing this process. It is emphasized that the above phenomenon is an integral part of the general social capital of the state and forms the foundation of the national capital. Consequently, the level of socio-economic development of a country correlates with the degree of R&D development in it. The data of the report “Global Innovation Index – 2020” are analyzed, on the basis of which the strengths and weaknesses of Russia’s modernization system are highlighted. An overview of the features of domestic science funding in comparison with some countries of the world is given. The data on the number of researchers in Russia for several years are studied, which revealed a negative trend towards a decrease in the number of those willing to professional-ly engage in science.Conclusion dwells upon the fact that the existence of this kind of activity is a key condition for the society’s progressive development, as its results ensure the renewal and improvement of all spheres of human life, so stagnation in research, caused, among other things, by inefficient and insufficient funding of the sphere of science, is capable of provoking adverse phenomena in society.

The Birth of the Finance Consumer: Feminists, Bankers and the Re-Gendering of Finance in Mid-Twentieth-Century Sweden

This article examines a series of financial study courses for women in 1950s Sweden, jointly organised by commercial banks and an important non-partisan women's organisation, the Fredrika Bremer Association. The aim is to highlight and explain historical connections between feminism and financialisation. I argue that the feminist aspiration to emancipate women from the curtailments of ‘petty’ domestic finance aligned with the banks’ desire to domesticate financial markets. The performances of ‘female finance’ in these campaigns – striking a balance between PR and empowerment – contributed to the making of a new historical figure, not that of the female investor but rather the consumer of finance. The article not only demonstrates the role of gender in the financialisation of everyday life and in the domestication of finance, but also uncovers a longer pre-history behind these processes that are conventionally associated with neoliberalisation in later decades.

Innovative financing for nutrition.

Given the constraints of both overseas development aid and domestic financing for nutrition, innovative financing is critical-yet nutrition lags behind other sectors in catalysing it. Here, we argue that the framing for nutrition must evolve and critical actions must be taken to generate more money for nutrition and more nutrition for money. Food systems hold some of the most powerful opportunities to improve human and planetary health while increasing productivity-and the private sector has a key role to play in this.

Innovative domestic financing mechanisms for health in Africa: An evidence review.

This article synthesizes the evidence on what have been called innovative domestic financing mechanisms for health (i.e. any domestic revenue-raising mechanism allowing governments to diversify away from traditional approaches such as general taxation, value-added tax, user fees or any type of health insurance) aimed at increasing fiscal space for health in African countries. The article seeks to answer the following questions: What types of domestic innovative financial mechanisms have been used to finance health care across Africa? How much additional revenue have these innovative financing mechanisms raised? Has the revenue raised through these mechanisms been, or was it meant to be, earmarked for health? What is known about the policy process associated with their design and implementation? A systematic review of the published and grey literature was conducted. The review focused on identifying articles providing quantitative information about the additional financial resources generated through innovative domestic financing mechanisms for health care in Africa, and/or qualitative information about the policy process associated with the design or effective implementation of these financing mechanisms. The search led to an initial list of 4035 articles. Ultimately, 15 studies were selected for narrative analysis. A wide range of study methods were identified, from literature reviews to qualitative and quantitative analysis and case studies. The financing mechanisms implemented or planned for were varied, the most common being taxes on mobile phones, alcohol and money transfers. Few articles documented the revenue that could be raised through these mechanisms. For those that did, the revenue projected to be raised was relatively low, ranging from 0.01% of GDP for alcohol tax alone to 0.49% of GDP if multiple levies were applied. In any case, virtually none of the mechanisms have apparently been implemented. The articles revealed that, prior to implementation, the political acceptability, the readiness of institutions to adapt to the proposed reform and the potential distortionary impact these reforms may have on the targeted industry all require careful consideration. From a design perspective, the fundamental question of earmarking proved complex both politically and administratively, with very few mechanisms actually earmarked, thus questioning whether they could effectively fill part of the health-financing gap. Finally, ensuring that these mechanisms supported the underlying equity objectives of universal health coverage was recognized as important. Additional research is needed to understand better the potential of innovative domestic revenue generating mechanisms to fill the financing gap for health in Africa and diversify away from more traditional financing approaches. Whilst their revenue potential in absolute terms seems limited, they could represent an avenue for broader tax reforms in support of health. This will require sustained dialogue between Ministries of Health and Ministries of Finance.

United Kingdom aid cuts: implications for financing health systems.

The United Kingdom (UK) used to be the second largest bilateral provider of official development assistance (ODA) for health. However, in 2021 the UK government cut its annual aid budget by 30%. We aim to understand how these cuts might affect financing for health systems in UK aid recipient countries. We conducted a retrospective analysis of domestic and external funding for 134 countries that received UK aid for the 2019-2020 budget year. We grouped countries into two cohorts: those that continued to receive aid in 2020-2021 ("budget") and those that did not ("no budget"). Data was collected from publicly available datasets and we compared UK's ODA, UK's health ODA with total ODA, general government expenditures and domestic general government health expenditure to assess the donor dependency and donor concentration of budget and no budget countries. Budget countries are more reliant on external aid to finance their governments and health systems than no budget countries, with a handful of exceptions. While the UK does not appear to be a major ODA contributor among most no budget countries, it is in many budget countries. Two no budget countries in particular may be faced with health systems financing challenges given their high ratios of UK health aid to domestic government health expenditures: the Gambia (1.24:1) and Eritrea (0.33:1). Although "safe" for this budget cycle, a number of low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have very high ratios of UK health aid to domestic government health expenditures, including South Sudan (3.15:1), Sierra Leone (0.48:1), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (0.34:1). The 2021-2022 UK aid cuts could have negative impacts in a few countries highly dependent on UK health aid. Its departure could leave these countries with rather large funding gaps to fill and create a more concentrated donor climate.

Mobilizing resources with an investment case to mitigate cross-border malaria transmission and achieve malaria elimination in South Africa

ABSTRACT South Africa’s effort to eliminate malaria is significantly challenged by a large number of imported malaria cases, especially from neighbouring Mozambique. The country has a funding gap to achieve its malaria elimination goals (prior to 2019) and is ineligible to receive a national allocation from the Global Fund. The findings of an IC were utilised to successfully mobilise resources for malaria elimination in South Africa in 2018. A five-step resource mobilisation strategy was implemented to highlight financing challenges and leverage the economic evidence from an IC for malaria elimination in South Africa. South Africa’s malaria programme implements control and elimination activities in three malaria-endemic provinces (KwaZulu Natal, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga). Driven by the IC findings, the South African government took an unprecedented step and increased total domestic malaria financing by approximately 36%, from the 2018/19 to the 2019/20 financial years through the creation of a new conditional grant for malaria. The IC findings predicted that malaria control in southern Mozambique is a prerequisite to eliminate malaria in South Africa. Based on this, the South African government also allocated funding towards a co-financing mechanism to support malaria control efforts in southern Mozambique. The IC findings assisted the South African National Department of Health to make a convincing case to key government decision-makers to invest in national malaria elimination and maximise economic returns in the long run. The South African government is the first in Southern Africa to mobilise a significant increase in domestic malaria financing to address the financial sustainability of both national and regional malaria elimination efforts. Continued surveillance activities will be required to prevent the re-establishment of malaria transmission even after malaria elimination is achieved in South Africa. Information sharing and close collaboration with provincial and national government officials were key to the successful outcome.

Ghana

Large external shocks have exacerbated pre-existing fiscal and debt vulnerabilities, resulting in a loss of international market access, increasingly constrained domestic financing, and reliance on monetary financing of the government. Decreasing international reserves, Cedi depreciation, rising inflation and plummeting domestic investor confidence eventually triggered an acute crisis. The authorities have taken steps to tackle these deep challenges, including by accelerating fiscal adjustment. The government has also launched a comprehensive debt restructuring to address severe financing constraints and the unsustainable public debt.

The potential importance of exploiting export markets for CO2 transport and storage services in realising the economic value of Scottish CCS

Previous research investigating the UK economy impacts of introducing a new Scottish CO2 Transport and Storage (T&S) industry linked to carbon capture and storage (CCS) has focussed on supply chain and funding requirements in introducing such a new sector to service proximate Scottish industrial emissions via onshore pipelines. However, Scottish plans extend to shipping CO2 from outside Scotland for storage in North Sea reservoirs by also servicing sequestration requirements from elsewhere in the UK and/or overseas. This will involve investment in greater industry capacity but could ease associated domestic funding requirements. Here, we introduce improved economy-wide structural (input-output) data reflecting how a Scottish T&S sector may emerge from current Oil and Gas industry supply chain capacity to a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, extending to simulate emergence of an export base. Our central finding is that exploiting overseas T&S export opportunities is crucial where the policy aim is to generate greater economic activity without increasing demands on the public purse. However, any extent of real wage bargaining and consequent producer cost pressure as labour demand increases will act to dampen expansionary power, displacing export production and employment, while driving consumer price impacts that limit real income and public budget gains.

The long-run effects of health aid in low-income countries.

Whether health aid has a positive, negative, or no effect on the health status of recipient countries is controversial. The current paper examines the long-run effect of health aid on health status in low-income countries. The long-run health function was estimated using infant mortality as a proxy for health status and panel data constructed from 34 low-income countries from 2000 to 2017. For the estimation, fixed effect, random effect, and Hausman-Taylor estimators were employed. The estimation results indicate that health aid has a beneficial and statistically significant long-run effect on the health status of low-income countries. Doubling health aid saves the lives of 44 infants per 1000 live births in the long run. This study shows that health aid could be one of the best interim tools with which the health status of low-income groups could get improved and helps meet the target of universal health coverage. Despite the favorable effect of health aid observed in this study, recipient countries need to find ways of promoting surrogate domestic health financing systems, as external assistance cannot be an everlasting means of improving population health.

Mobilizing Domestic Funds for the HIV/AIDS Response in Nigeria: Estimating the Potential Contribution of the National Health Insurance Scheme.

Amid the dwindling donor support for HIV in Nigeria, there is an urgent need for additional domestic HIV funding. This study estimates the required financial resources for people living with HIV (PLHIV) and the potential magnitude of domestic resources for HIV through the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and by prioritizing HIV within the health budget. We estimated the resource needs for providing antiretroviral therapy (ART) to adults, children, and pregnant women living with HIV under 3 scenarios: current coverage rates, coverage rates based on historical trends, and a rapid scale-up situation. We conducted a fiscal space analysis to estimate the potential contribution from macroeconomic growth, the NHIS, and prioritizing HIV within the health budget from 2020 to 2025. At current coverage rates, the annual treatment costs for adults would range between US$ 505 million in 2020 to US$ 655 million in 2025; for children, it ranges from US$ 33.5 million in 2020 to US$ 32 million in 2025. The annual costs of providing PMTCT at current coverage rates range from US$ 65 million in 2020 to US$ 72 million in 2025. An additional US$ 319 million could potentially be generated between 2020 and 2025 through the NHIS for HIV. Prioritizing HIV within the health budget can generate an additional US$ 686 million. Substantial domestic funds can be mobilized by these means to sustain the HIV response. However, because this additional funding may not be sufficient to cover all PLHIV, a phased approach, initially prioritizing certain populations such as children or pregnant women, is recommended.

Climate finance landscape in Nigeria

The recently launched Nigeria’s energy transition bold and ambitious plan indicates that Nigeria needs a minimum investment of $10 billion annually until 2060 to achieve SDG7 goal by 2030 and achieve its net-zero target by 2060. With the multiplicity of other macroeconomic issues Nigeria is grappling with such as high debt burden, high borrowing costs from external sources, COVID-19 pandemic, and adverse effects of other external shocks, there is a need to understand the climate finance landscape in Nigeria. This paper provides an expository outlook into the climate finance options that Nigeria can take advantage of to mobilise resources domestically for climate action, without overbearing dependence on international loans and grants. Some of the options for domestic climate finance mobilization are green bonds such as sukuk green bonds and diaspora green bonds, emission trading, carbon taxes, budgetary allocations, tax exemptions and import waivers, among others. Reviewing the successes of other countries in sourcing climate finance through these instruments, Nigeria can leverage on the learnings from these countries to set up a more resilient framework for domestic climate finance mobilization to meet the climate change goals.

Stakeholders' Perspectives on the Financial Sustainability of the HIV Response in Nigeria: A Qualitative Study.

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, continue to depend on donor funding to achieve their national HIV response goals. The Government of Nigeria has made limited progress in translating political commitment to reduce donor dependency into increased domestic investment to ensure the sustainable impact of the HIV response. We explored the context-specific factors affecting the financial sustainability of the HIV response in Nigeria. Between November 2021 and March 2022, we conducted document reviews (n=13) and semistructured interviews with purposively selected national and subnational stakeholders (n=35). Data were analyzed thematically using the framework of health financing functions comprising revenue generation, pooling, and purchasing. Stakeholders reported that there is a low level of government funding for the HIV response, which has been compounded by the weak engagement of Ministry of Finance officials and the unpredictable and untimely release of budgeted funds. Opportunities for domestic funding include philanthropy and an HIV Trust Fund led by the private sector. Integration of HIV treatment services into social health insurance schemes has been slow. Commodity purchasing has been inefficient due to ineffective coordination. Government stakeholders have been reluctant to support one-stop-shop facilities that target key and priority populations. Opportunities exist in the government and private sectors for improving domestic health financing to support transitioning from donor support and ensuring the financial sustainability of the HIV response in Nigeria. To ensure that domestic financing for the HIV response is stable and predictable, the amount of domestic funding needs to increase and a framework that incorporates donor transition milestones must be developed, implemented, and monitored.

Investment case for primary health care in low- and middle-income countries: A case study of Kenya.

Primary healthcare (PHC) systems attain improved health outcomes and fairness and are affordable. However, the proportion of PHC spending to Total Current Health Expenditure in Kenya reduced from 63.4% in 2016/17 to 53.9% in 2020/21 while external funding reduced from 28.3% (Ksh 69.4 billion) to 23.9% (Ksh 68.2 billion) over the same period. This reduction in PHC spending negatively affects PHC performance and the overall health system goals. We conducted a cost-benefit analysis and computed costs against the economic benefits of a PHC scale-up. Activity-Based Costing (ABC) on the provider perspective was employed to estimate the incremental costs. The OneHealth Tool was used to estimate the health impact of operationalizing PHC over five years. Finally, we quantified Return on Investment (ROI) by estimating monetized DALYs based on a constant value per statistical life year (VSLY) derived from a VSL estimate. The total projected cost of PHC interventions in the Kenya was Ksh 1.65 trillion (USD 15,581.91 billion). Human resource was the main cost driver accounting for 75% of the total cost. PHC investments avert 64,430,316 Disability Adjusted Life-Years (DALYs) and generate cost savings of Ksh. 21.5 trillion (USD 204.4 Billion) over five years. Shifting services from high-level facilities to PHC facilities generates Ksh 198.2 billion (USD 1.9 billion) and yields a benefit-cost ratio of 16:1 in 5 years. Thus, every $1 invested in PHC interventions saves up to $16 in spending on conditions like stunting, NCDs, anaemia, TB, Malaria, and maternal and child health morbidity. Evidence of the economic benefits of continued prioritization of funding for PHC can strengthen the advocacy argument for increased domestic and external financing of PHC in Kenya. A well-resourced and functional PHC system translates to substantial health benefits with positive economic benefits. Therefore, governments and stakeholders should increase investments in PHC to accelerate economic growth.

The influence of positive psychology on the competence and compressive ability of “double qualified” university teachers

BackgroundWith the spread of COVID-19, in application-oriented undergraduate colleges, the difficulty of teaching work for “double-qualified” teachers has greatly increased, resulting in enormous work pressure for some teachers, which is not conducive to the development of teaching work and the physical and mental health of teachers.Subjects and MethodsTwenty “double qualified” teachers from a domestic finance and economics college were selected and divided into an experience group and a control group. The evaluation index system of college teachers’ competency and anti-pressure ability is constructed by using hesitant fuzzy language. Teachers in the experience group were trained in positive psychology, and their competency and anti-pressure ability were evaluated before and after the experiment using the evaluation model. The evaluation grade is divided into poor, general, relatively good, good and excellent, and is assigned with integers 1-5 respectively. The measurement type data is displayed in the form of mean ± standard deviation, and the t difference significance test is conducted. The difference significance level is 0.05.ResultsAfter completing the experiment, the statistics are shown in Table 1. Observation Table 1 shows that before the experiment, the P value of the t-test for the competency and compression resistance scores of the two groups of teachers is far greater than 0.05, with no significant difference. However, after the completion of the experiment, the average scores of teachers’ competency and compressive capacity in the experience group were 4.52 and 4.63, respectively, higher than those in the control group, and the P value of the t-test was 0.001, which was considered significant.Table 1.Comparison of competence and compressive ability scores of two groups of “double qualified” financial teachersCompetencyCompressive capacity-Experience groupControl grouptPExperience groupControl grouptPBefore experiment3.15±0.143.15±0.170.4851.5263.88±0.203.86±0.240.5711.639After experiment4.52±0.273.16±0.192.8620.0024.63±0.313.85±0.223.3760.001t3.2150.448--3.8940.472--P0.0011.569--0.0011.738--ConclusionsThis research carried out experiments to verify the effect of positive psychological intervention on improving the competency and psychological pressure resistance of “double qualified” teachers. The experimental results showed that the post-competence and anti-pressure ability of the financial “double qualified” teachers in the experience group after positive psychological intervention were higher than those in the control group, and the difference was significant. The experimental results show that positive psychology training is conducive to improving the negative psychological pressure resistance of the “double qualified” teachers in China, so as to enhance their post competency.

Is Nigeria on course to achieve universal health coverage in the context of its epidemiological and financing transition? A knowledge, capacity and policy gap analysis (a qualitative study)

ObjectivesThis study aimed to assess Nigeria’s preparedness to finance and drive the universal health coverage (UHC) agenda within the context of changing health conditions and resource needs associated with the...