Inclusive Development Agenda Research Articles

Empowering Development Planning and Implementation at the District Level of Governance in Peninsular Malaysia

The District Office occupies a significant position in the federal and administrative structure of the country. Yet over the decades, the roles of the District Office and Officer have seemingly taken a less visible and prominent role in the area of development, particularly for the local communities from the district level and below. This paper provides a brief background on the development of the District Office in Peninsular Malaysia and its role in the area of development for the Malaysian nation and society. It examines the challenges faced by the District Offices in Malaysia. The paper further discusses how the District Offices can play a more prominent role in the nation-building and development processes of the country, including in implementing an inclusive development agenda for local communities in Malaysia. To do so, the paper refers to the issue mapping findings of the APPGM-SDG from 2020 to 2023. It focuses on and features these findings to assess the roles and challenges, and the prospective initiatives the District Offices and the APPGM-SDG can together act on to spearhead sustainable development and the formation of inclusive communities.

Indonesia’s Role on G20

. Indonesia's role in the G20 has shown increasing significance, especially in fighting for the interests of developing countries and promoting an inclusive development agenda. This journal analyzes Indonesia's contribution to the G20, including policy initiatives, economic diplomacy, as well as efforts on global issues such as climate change, global health, and financial stability. This research found that Indonesia not only acts as an active member but also as a mediator capable of bridging the interests of developed and developing countries. In the context of climate change, Indonesia has actively promoted global commitments to reduce emissions and protect the environment, while in global health issues, Indonesia has contributed to efforts to overcome pandemics and improve the global health system. In the field of financial stability, Indonesia has participated in discussions regarding reform of the global financial architecture to create a fairer and more stable system. This indicates that Indonesia's role in the G20 not only contributes to strengthening Indonesia's position on the global stage, but also enriches the dynamics of multilateral cooperation in the forum.

Gender in development: What lessons for addressing inequality on the grounds of religion or (non)-belief?

This paper examines how understanding processes of redressing the gender blindness of international development can offer illuminating insights to addressing religious inequalities as a blind spot in development policy. The first part of the paper discusses the possibilities and tensions for comparing gender and religious (in)equality, both as analytical lens and aspirations in development. In the second part of the paper, we reflect on the inferences that can be drawn for in-roads to changing attitudes and behaviours to make development more aware of, and responsive to, religious inequalities and freedom of religion or belief. The methodological approach combines empirical data generated from interviews and roundtables with development practitioners and policymakers, with an integrative literature review. It also explores the conceptual conundrums in the use of the different terms, situating them in their historical background and interrogating their ideological underpinnings. Distinct historical trajectories mean that whereas a key challenge to mainstreaming gender in development has been its recognition at the highest political level, in the case of freedom of religion or belief, the challenge is to reconfigure its politicisation from being predominantly a foreign policy issue to one that is constitutive to the advancement of an inclusive development agenda. The paper argues that there are pertinent similarities in some of the challenges to incorporating a gender sensitive lens over the past 50 years and the current resistance to addressing religious inequalities or freedom of religion or belief matters in international development. Accordingly, analysis of the successes and limitations of efforts to mainstream gender in development sheds light on some of the political and institutional dynamics encountered when seeking to make development policy-makers, planners and practitioners more aware of power dynamics pertaining to religious inequalities that have been overlooked.

Two decades of land cover change and forest fragmentation in Liberia: Consequences for the contribution of nature to people

AbstractThe Guinean forests of West Africa have been identified as a global biodiversity hotspot due to its exceptional concentrations of endemic species and exceptional loss of habitats. The majority of what remains of the Guinean forests lies within Liberia, a country whose share of total wealth is nearly equally distributed into human and natural capital. The Liberian government seeks a more inclusive development agenda that forges a path for improved human capital while sustainably managing its natural capital wealth, which requires consistent data on land cover change and forest disturbance over time. To address this need, Landsat data were used to map and quantify land cover change and forest fragmentation in Liberia between 2000 and 2018. In addition, LiDAR data from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission were applied to assess the integrity of forest remnants. Between 2000 and 2018, only 1% of all forest cover classes (i.e., dense/primary, open/secondary and sparse/degraded) were converted into non‐forest classes, with the most observed change being between these three forest classes. During the study period, 27% of the dense/primary forest class transitioned to either the open/secondary or sparse/degraded canopy classes through consistent fragmentation along the edges of the last large remaining blocks of dense/primary forest located in the north‐west and south‐east of Liberia and more than 14% of dense/primary forest areas identified in previous studies as “essential natural capital” for either biodiversity, forest carbon storage or provision of freshwater ecosystem services were degraded. The 2018 GEDI‐based measurements show that the overall average height of dense/primary forest decreases by 24% and 48%, and canopy closure decreases by 33% and 59%, when transitioned to the open/secondary and sparse/degraded classes, respectively. The information derived from this analysis will be critical for informing the development of new policies and actions, leading to more sustainable forest management in Liberia.

Social inclusive development agenda for municipal institutional collaboration

This research seeks to propose a comprehensive social development program that strengthens the agency-agency collaboration of the county of Miracosta in Peru, by 2020. The work is quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive, active, and transparent in scope. The information was collected through a questionnaire with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.939, applied to a sample of 345 residents of Miracosta and 20 officials from the Health, Educational, and Social Sectors. The resultsobtained showed that in the municipality of Miracosta there is a very low level of inter-institutional cooperation, concluding that the proposed social development program with inclusion is an essential an instrument that will contribute to the improvement of cooperation between institutions, based on a framework both theoretical and, as methodological with coherence and consistency. Proposing axes of intervention that contribute to the welfare of the inhabitants of the province of Miracosta, possibly at the service of other provinces with many characteristics of the country's poor pockets.
 Keywords: Municipal management, development, social, inclusive, agenda.

Cost of Regulatory Compliance for Small and Medium Enterprises in the Philippines

It is widely recognized that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are key drivers of the Philippine economy through their direct contributions to employment, value-added, exports, and entrepreneurial activities. SMEs also play a role in the industrial process and the inclusive development agenda, among others. This study presents detailed profiling of small businesses in the Philippines using data from 590 SMEs in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao gathered in 2019. Business characteristics of SMEs in the survey in terms of ownership structure, asset size, and employment are among the key profiles presented. Also revealed in this paper are some behavioral indicators highlighting the perceived burden of national and local regulatory compliance of SMEs. The indicators of regulatory burden are expressed in terms of the number of hours and the percentage of expenditure on regulatory compliance. It is essential to balance adherence to regulations while encouraging firm growth. While regulations are important to promote the welfare of SMEs, policies must be engineered in a way that does the least harm and brings the most benefit to SMEs. With the sudden and prolonged shock brought by the pandemic, issues concerning the burden of compliance cost to SMEs require more careful attention than before. Discussions on evidence-based policy recommendations must be geared towards the objective of facilitating SME growth and post-pandemic recovery.

Science, astronomy, and sacrifice zones: development trade-offs, and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project in South Africa

ABSTRACT We explore the notion of “sacrifice zones” to reflect critically on the trade-offs between Science & Technology (S&T) policy and inclusive development in South Africa. We draw evidence from one of the country’s flagship projects, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, currently under construction in the semi-arid Northern Cape. The SKA embodies a key tension in the country’s S&T policy, that between the promotion of astronomy, based on national and global priorities (the development of science), and the advancement of local development concerns (science for development), in which the dominant assumption is that local interests are either subsumed or superseded by national and global public goods. Given the extent to which the priorities of local residents have been overlooked in the name of the greater good, we argue that a fruitful way of recasting this relationship is to regard the region around the telescope as astronomy’s terrestrial “sacrifice zone”; this opens up an important space for engaging with issues of mitigation. We conclude by raising questions about who should take responsibility for mitigating the trade-offs in policy and practice, if a more sustainable and inclusive development agenda in the areas affected by the SKA is a real concern.

In Search of Philippine Chaebols

Historically, large-scale capital-intensive industries have played a key role in many developing countries' industrialization. Some countries created state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with heavy government intervention and support to complete production chains to meet demand and export markets. South Korea, for one, has been known for the success of the chaebol, a large family-controlled and diversified private company that received strong government industrial policy support. Similar to South Korean chaebols, the Philippines have conglomerates, large, family-owned corporations comprised of smaller subsidiaries with a considerable footprint on the national economy. This paper fills a gap in the policy literature through the review of historical developments in selected Philippine industries and where key players tend to dominate. Furthermore, this paper shows evidence that some Philippine conglomerates displayed expansion behavior similar to East Asian economies like South Korea. The study also uncovers behavioral trends of these firms' diversification into non-traded service industries that were less conducive to rapid industrial development. Finally, it concludes with a brief discussion on how Philippine conglomerates contribute to the country's inclusive development agenda.

Editor-in-Chief’s introductory note

The BRICS Journal of Economics (BJoE) starts its work in the year of the Russian BRICS Chairmanship – 2020, in which the main emphasis is on the five countries' cooperation in the field of digital transformation, as well as on boosting the role of sustainable and inclusive development agenda. It is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal that serves as a platform for encouraging research on internationally significant economic issues of middle-income developing countries, primarily BRICS countries. It was founded by the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University, which holds high positions in the world ratings and has extremely broad partnerships with many leading universities all over the world.The journal’s objectives are to expand knowledge about contemporary economic trends in the BRICS countries, theoretical approaches and relevant academic studies that shed light on economic developments within the BRICS countries, their joint economic activities, and the role and position of BRICS in the world economy. It welcomes original research papers that present outcomes of initiatives and findings in all fields of economy and management in these countries.

Defining Inclusiveness in Development: Perspective from Local Government’s Apparatus

This article discusses how inclusive development is translated into policy and regional development planning. Perspectives used are that of the regional government apparatus in-charge of development planning. As a strategic actor in decision making, those in charge of development planning hold an important role in determining what counts as inclusive development, who the targets are, and how such inclusivity could be realized through development programs. The research was conducted in Bandung Regency, one of the regions that experience rapid economic growth, as well as one that is facing the challenges of poverty and the decline of environmental support capacity. The method that was used in this research is the quantitative method to discover the perceptions of government apparatus, which afterwards are confirmed through textual analysis of regional development planning documents. From this initial research, development planning process is suspected to not have optimal public participation, as well as to not have involved marginalized groups, so that policies and programs are less able to accommodate several strategic regional issues. Therefore, there is a  need to  create  a comprehensive effort towards achieving  an inclusive development agenda  as the primary goal  in Bandung Regency development.  

Management practices and small firms’ productivity in emerging countries

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the potential for increasing the productivity of small firms from emerging countries by enhancing their management practices.Design/methodology/approachThe link between four types of management practices and labor productivity at the firm level is tested through a sample of 13,566 small firms from 15 emerging countries. Subsequently, the policy options available to upgrade management practices in such firms are analyzed through a systematic review of recent experiences in 12 emerging countries.FindingsThe econometric results confirm that the adoption of good management practices has a significant effect on labor productivity, especially when several management practices are combined. This effect is context-dependent, with a higher intensity in lower-middle income countries and in manufacturing firms. The paper also outlines the different components of successful policy programs to support the adoption of good management practices.Research limitations/implicationsOn the one hand, the challenge of isolating the causal relationship between management practices and firm productivity affects the econometric part of this study. On the other hand, the analysis of policy experiences is purely explorative and does not attempt to evaluate impacts but rather to offer a general overview of policy options.Practical implicationsThe paper provides practical guidance for policymakers from emerging countries in their efforts to support the adoption of good management practices by small firms.Social implicationsImproving management practices of small firms can contribute to a more inclusive development agenda by narrowing wage differentials between leading and laggard firms, while transforming informal businesses into formal ones.Originality/valueThe multi-method approach used in this study provides rich insights into the relationship between management practices and productivity of small firms in emerging countries.

Promoting Millennium Development Ideals: The Risks of Defining Development Down

The approach of 2015 the target date of the Millennium Development Goals sets the stage for a global reengagement on the question of “what is development?” We argue that the post- 2015 development framework for development should include Millennium Development Ideals which put into measurable form the high aspirations countries have for the well-being of their citizens. Standing alone low bar targets like the existing Millennium Development Goals “define development down” and put at risk both domestic and global coalitions to support to an inclusive development agenda. Measuring development progress exclusively by low bar targets creates the illusion that specific targeted programs can be an adequate substitute for a broad national and global development agenda.

Disabled People and the Post-2015 Development Goal Agenda through a Disability Studies Lens

The purpose of this study was to examine the role and visibility of disabled people in the discourses of various global policy processes related to sustainable development and the Post-2015 development agenda. This article makes several recommendations for strengthening the role of disabled people in these discourses. The research addresses the question of how the disability community and sustainable development community relate to each other in these discourses. This study provides quantitative and qualitative data on three aspects of the relationship. One set of data highlights who is seen as a stakeholder in general and the visibility of disabled people in the social sustainability, sustainable consumption, Rio+20 and Post-2015 development agenda proposals discourses and what participants of the online consultation for a disability inclusive development agenda towards 2015 and beyond had to say about the issues of visibility of disabled people in development discourses. A second set of data illuminates the attitudes towards disabled people evident in the SD discourses including through the eyes of the participant of the online consultation for a disability inclusive development agenda towards 2015 and beyond. The final set of data compares the goals and actions seen as desirable for the advancement of SD evident in the SD literature covered and the online consultation for a disability inclusive development agenda towards 2015 and beyond. This study interpreted the data through a disability studies lens. The study found that disabled people were barely visible to invisible in the SD literature covered, that the goals and actions proposed in the SD discourses are of high relevance to disabled people but that these discussions have generally not been explicitly linked to disabled people. It found further that disabled people have clear ideas why they are invisible, what the problems with development policies are and what needs to happen to rectify the problems. It found also that there was a lack of visibility of various SD areas and goals within the disability discourse. This paper provides empirical data that can be used to further the goal of mainstreaming of disabled people into the SD and Post-2015 development discourses as asked for in various high-level UN documents. However, we posit that the utility of our paper goes beyond the disability angle. Our quantitative data also highlights other forms of social group visibility unevenness in the literature and as such, we argue that the data we present in this paper is also of use for other stakeholders such as youth, women and indigenous people and also for NGOs and policy makers.

Saving Depraved Africans in a Neoliberal Age

This article critically examines the fight against HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the epidemic revealed its devastating power when neoliberalism emerged as a dominant force in economic and development thinking, it investigates how policies like SAPs have affected the severity of the epidemic in a country like Zambia. Moreover, the article examines how the dominance of medical and private actors has influenced the fight against HIV/AIDS. By, for example, tracing the influence of the pharmaceutical industry and conservative Christian forces in PEPFAR, it is argued that the epidemic has been largely conceptualized in biomedical and behavioural terms – placing too much emphasis on African sexuality and culture – while ignoring structural factors like poverty and inequality. As a result, inhumane conditions for millions persist and solutions that would be unacceptable for the affluent are still implemented. Inspired by the work of Farmer (2005) and Pogge (2008), a more inclusive development agenda is outlined that involves structural democratic reforms of global institutions.