Inter-American Development Bank Research Articles

What factors are related to the socioeconomic gaps in school achievement between boys and girls in Bogotá, Colombia?

Debate on student achievement, as measured by performance on national and international assessments, has gained worldwide attention because of its relationship to social and economic development. As such, multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank have recommended that countries intensify current investments in education to improve school quality and reduce achievement gaps if they wish to boost equity and attain sustainable growth. This paper looks at the relationship between socioeconomic disparities and student achievement in a standardized test administered in 2017 to 5th grade students in Bogotá, Colombia. By using a two-level hierarchical linear model, it is possible to estimate not only the relationship between individual characteristics of the students (sociodemographic information) and performance on the test, but also account for the effect of the characteristics of the schools that they attend. Findings indicate that lengthening the school day, possession of washing machines, and parental education are key predictors of academic achievement.

IoT Control and Visualization System with Digital Twins and Augmented Reality in a Digital Transformation Space

IoT Control and Visualization System with Digital Twins and Augmented Reality in a Digital Transformation Space

Expansion of Integrated Care in Brazil: the experience of reorganizing the healthcare network in Santana de Parnaíba.

During 2018/2019, the State Department of Health of São Paulo in partnership with the International Center for Integrated Care delivered an integrated care pilot project- Transforming Together. The aim was to co-design and deliver a more integrated system in the North Coast Region and to build the capability of key players in the region and state to sustain the change. The demonstrator project generated knowledge transfer in 2020/2021 through an InterAmerican Development Bank webinar and publications to encourage other municipalities to develop integrated care networks. With their acquired knowledge and experience, a team of local consultants have spread the change methodology to another region.
 In 2022 a new integrated care project was launched in Santana de Parnaíba-SP, a municipality in the metropolitan region of São Paulo with around 145,000 inhabitants, an HDI of 0.814 and GDP per capita of 12.500 dollars. Primary and secondary care services are already strong, referring patients to the regional network only for tertiary services, and a new hospital is scheduled to open in 2023. The project aims to fully integrate this hospital within the healthcare network and with other sectors.
 The work plan, co-designed with the municipality, has three workstreams aligned to provision of services and care for the population: a diagnostic phase; technical support for managers; and a ‘train the trainers’ educational programme to build workforce competencies for integrated care. For the diagnostic phase, municipal services were visited, health and social care service data was analyzed and a novel Day of Care Survey applied to understand the current hospital inpatient profile. Workshops with managers from different sectors explored the concepts of integrated care, supported them to map local care pathways and to self assess the maturity of their network using the Scirocco self-assessment instrument. After agreeing the educational programme outline and selecting participants, learning cycles began in July 2022. Six thematic sessions focus on: Integrated Care and Innovation; Management and Assistance Models; Leadership; Participatory Policies; Effective Work Processes; and Governance. The sessions include masterclasses by international experts via videoconference.
 
 By November 2022, more than 100 health and social care workers have participated. They have had the opportunity to deepen their knowledge on integrated care, strengthen relationships with colleagues from other services/sectors, understanding the importance of working together between all the actors involved in the care of a person to improve their health and well-being. Managers have a growing understanding of how to tackle the main barriers to people centered integrated care, and how working together across sectors is still deficient. Scirocco tool scores reflected knowledge, certainty and readiness for integrated care.
 This initiative highlights how implementation can be transferred successfully from one context to another.
 By using international expertise to build local knowledge and leadership, we have demonstrated a methodology that builds capability for integrated care in the Brazilian system and a support programme that is transferable to different regions in São Paulo state. Scale up of the Transforming Together integrated approach across all states is necessary to strengthen the Brazilian public health system.

Os Bancos de Desenvolvimento multilaterais, nacionais e subnacionais: os países emergentes e o financiamento ao desenvolvimento

Development Banks are financial institutions designed to promote socioeconomic development, infrastructure, reduce inequalities and provide working capital to increase the country’s economic activity. Brazil stands out for the presence of three national development banks: (i) National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES); (ii) Bank of the Northeast of Brazil (BNB); and (iii) Bank of the Amazon (BASA). In addition, there are three subnational banks: (i) Minas Gerais Development Bank (BDMG); (ii) Regional Development Bank of the Far South (BRDE), and the Espírito Santo Development Bank S.A. (BANDES). At the international level, two major groups of multilateral development banks are recognized: (i) the traditional banks that were created in the second half of the 20th century, such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB); and (ii) the new multilateral banks, created in the 21st century at the initiative of emerging countries, such as the New Development Bank (NDB) or Bank of the BRICS, the Latin American Development Bank or Andean Development Cooperation (CAF) and the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB). Emerging countries, either by creating national and subnational banks or by taking the initiative to establish new multilateral banks, represent an important group of states to contribute to increasing of investment availability for development and infrastructure.

Urban Modeling in the Global South and Sustainable Socio-Territorial Development: Case of Puebla-San Andrés Cholula Urban Binomial, Mexico

To understand urbanization across the Global South, it is indispensable to consider situated heterogeneous urban situations shaped by global and local forces and their intersections. In the case of Mexico, the political and economic desire for globalization has extended beyond the great metropolis of Mexico City to mid-size cities triggering the formulation of their own urban strategies to become global. This paper explores the connections between neoliberal public policy, globalization, urban modeling, and socio-territorial sustainability in the territorial binomial of the city of Puebla and the municipality of San Andrés Cholula in the period of 2011–2017 and its current consequences, addressed by the local planning route map, and informed by the Orange Economy-guide of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), using relevant bibliographical sources, mapping, interviews of stakeholders, and fieldwork. The ultimate purpose of the research project described herein is to provide a multi-dimensional analysis of the development of the territorial situation of the Puebla-San Andrés Cholula-urban binomial, and of its current and potential future consequences, offering supporting information for its urban planning. The research results exposed here reveal urban modeling processes informed by the Global North urban globalization theory, development of global cities in the Global South, local socio-territorial dynamics characterized by economic and political interests imprinted in the public policy, and socio-territorial patterns inherited from the colonial past, resulting in socio-economic and racial discrimination, population displacements, real estate speculation, and risking ecological and environmental sustainability.

The many incarnations of a curious researcher

The author describes his early interests, meandering from areas such as woodworking, electronics, economics, and education. Not surprisingly, his career also takes many kinks and detours. From a researcher in a government think tank he moves to coordinate a joint research in ten Latin American countries. He then becomes the head of the Brazilian agency in charge of masters and doctoral programs (and scholarships). From there, he leads the social policy unit of the Planning Ministry. At the ILO, he directs a group devoted to vocational training policies. Then comes the World Bank and the Interamerican Development Bank (where he became Chief Educational Advisor). Returning to Brazil, he designs a new college and then joins another large proprietary institution. Next project is to rescue a failing medical school. In this zigzagging trek, with successes and failures, there are some constants: curiosity, research and collisions with the bureaucracy.

Default risk in Microfinance Institutions: Case study of a Costa Rican company

The most recent Economic Report of the Inter-American Development Bank ranks Costa Rica as the second country in Central America with the highest household indebtedness, and almost half of households have no savings. These conditions have led to increases in the default rates of loan creditors. This research analyzes the factors affecting default in a Costa Rican Microfinance Institution that grants microcredits to individuals and small businesses without access to traditional bank financing. An econometric approach with panel data was applied and the results show that default is affected by autoregressive components and the financed activity. The application of these methodologies allows strengthening credit analysis and the selection of market niches to mitigate the default risk.

How do policymakers update their beliefs?

We present results from experiments run in collaboration with the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank on how policymakers, policy practitioners, and researchers update their beliefs in response to results from academic studies. Initially, policymakers both believe development programs will have more positive results and are more certain about it than policy practitioners and researchers, despite reporting less familiarity with the programs. When participants are presented with the results of impact evaluations, we find evidence they update more on good news and are relatively insensitive to confidence intervals. We do not observe significant differences in biases between groups, and these biases cannot fully explain differences in beliefs.

ENVIRONMENTS OF IMMEDIATE STRATEGIES, LACK OF CONFIDENCE, AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH DARK TRIAD PERSONALITY TRAITS

This narrative review deals with the correlation between personal, professional, and institutional lack of confidence, based on the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) study. This correlation is associated with hostile environments that require immediate strategies, studied in the life course theory. The main replicating agents of these effects are based on social relationships involving individuals or groups exhibiting narcissistic, Machiavellian, and psychopathic personality traits, described in numerous scientific articles as Dark Triad personality traits. Such a condition indicates the uncertainty that the laws and justice will be fulfilled equally for all if there is any attempt of deceit or non-compliance with regulations. Under these circumstances, development is compromised, opportunities become scarce, education, health, housing, security, and the entire personal and professional environment becomes unstable, insecure, and unfair. The permanent effects of a continuum of immediate responses result in the absence of punishment and lessening actions of reprimand for justice, turning this environment fertile for individuals with dishonest, selfish, manipulative, and low empathy personalities, forming a cycle of permanent cause and effect.

Accountability enablers? The role of transnational activism in the use of the multilateral development bank grievance mechanisms

Abstract The proliferation of concerns over the transparency, accountability, and democracy of international organizations has contributed to an increase in accountability mechanisms to hold global governors to account, by both state and non-state actors. Much of the scholarly focus on this subject has been on how levers of accountability can improve global governance for Member States and actors seeking to improve decision-making, and thus outputs. This article instead examines how individuals and communities, or neglected publics, are using accountability mechanisms designed to provide them with recourse for environmental and social harm. It probes the use of the grievance mechanisms for the multilateral development banks to examine what kinds of actors use them (e.g., international nongovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, or project-affected people [PAP]) and to what effect. To explore these questions, we analyze 500 complaints submitted to the grievance mechanisms of the World Bank Group; the Asian, African, and Inter-American Development Banks; and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The results demonstrate that claims for recourse come from a range of primarily local actors, but that PAP in developing countries will more often achieve positive outcomes from the grievance mechanism process if they receive assistance from international and national nongovernmental organizations. These findings therefore demonstrate that transnational activists can fulfill a facilitating role as “accountability enablers” and that domestic representatives are especially effective in problem-solving processes, while international representatives are especially effective in compliance processes.

The struggle for water in rural Paraguay: a ‘perverse confluence’ analysis of subversive participation

In March 1999, the people of Paraguay found themselves at an historical crossroads. At the national level and in rural communities, the legacy of the 35-year Stroessner dictatorship continued to limit the ability of democratic actors to make social and political change in the country. The old one-party rule of the Colorados confronted by international and local pressure for transformation, led to a political crisis that challenged both neoliberal development policies and the lingering authoritarian populism of the dictatorship. This essay explores a municipal infrastructure and water project sponsored by the Paraguayan government, the Peace Corps and the Inter-American Development Bank, in which the joint effort revealed tensions between emergent forms of democratisation and the goals of campesinos and their allies in the Catholic Church. Struggles for improved quality of life through infrastructure development intertwined with neoliberal modes of governance and efforts to overcome years of local authoritarian rule. Local communities sought a more active role in governing their affairs, which led to the successful implementation of Juntas de Saneamiento or ‘sanitation councils’.

Entrevista con Spencer Chainey: resultados del Proyecto de Vigilancia Orientada a la Inteligencia

Interview given by Professor Spencer Chainey, Professor of Security and Criminal Science at University College London, to Federal Police Chief Wellington Clay Porcino Silva, through the Teams platform, on September 16, 2022, detailing the relationship between Prof. Doctor Spencer Chainey and the Revista Brasileira de Ciências Policiais, as well as the researcher's research and relationship with the Federal Police and the results of the Intelligence-Oriented Policing Project, carried out with support from the IADB (Inter-American Development Bank) and the Brazilian Federal Police.

A influência do Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento na formação dos/das professores/as da educação básica no Brasil

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the process of expansion of private organizations in the educational field, in the period from 2013 to 2021, through the materiality of the external loan signed between the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Manaus Municipal Government. The theoretical and methodological contributions of the historical and dialectical materialism guided the path of the documentary and bibliographic analysis, whose main sources are the documents from the external loan agreement between the IDB and the Municipality of Manaus, contracts made by the Municipal Department of Education with hegemonic private organizations, such as the Itaú Social Foundation, Telefônica Vivo Foundation, and La Caixa Banking Foundation that were inserted in the continuing education of teachers. It was observed a hegemonic movement in the educational field in which the social relations built by the capital are established, maintained, and reinforced by multiple domination mechanisms, managed by hegemonic private organizations in Gramscian sense, which were inserted in the continuing education of teachers. Therefore, it is stated that the implications of the public-private partnership system directly influence the educational policy for public education in Manaus, specifically continuing education, which brings in the core, mercantilist strategies shaped by subservience to financial capital, establishing its profitable ground in the educational field and integrating the process of commodification of continuing teacher training, which strongly threatens the process of democratization of public education.

Resilience and Path Dependency: Income Distribution Effects of GDP in Colombia

Abstract This study examines the effect of GDP per capita on the Gini index, which measures income concentration, in Colombia. The methodology used is an econometric analysis of time series with data extracted from the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. The econometric results suggest that, at least during the period studied here, there is no evidence that GDP per capita has been an explanatory variable of the behaviour of income distribution in Colombia. The results also align with the understanding that the problem of inequality in the distribution of income is not merely economic but concerns persistent matters such as political and historical issues.

The influence of the Inter-American Development Bank in the training of basic education teachers in Brazil

RESUMO O presente estudo faz uma análise do processo de expansão das organizações privadas no campo educacional, no período de 2013 a 2021, mediante a materialidade do empréstimo externo firmado entre o Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (BID) e a Prefeitura Municipal de Manaus. As contribuições teórico-metodológicas do materialismo histórico-dialético guiaram o percurso da análise documental e bibliográfica, cujas principais fontes são os documentos oriundos do acordo do empréstimo externo entre o BID e a Prefeitura Municipal de Manaus, contratos efetivados pela Secretaria Municipal de Educação com as organizações privadas hegemônicas, como a Fundação Itaú Social, Fundação Telefônica Vivo e Fundação Bancária La Caixa que se inseriram na formação continuada dos/das professores/as. Observou-se, um movimento hegemônico no campo educativo em que as relações sociais construídas pelo capital se estabelecem, mantêm-se e se reforçam por múltiplos mecanismos de dominação, administrados por organizações privadas hegemônicas na acepção gramsciana, que se inseriram na formação continuada dos/das professores/as. Diante disso, afirma-se que as implicações do sistema de parceria público-privada, influenciam diretamente na política educacional para a educação pública de Manaus, especificamente a formação continuada, que traz no bojo, estratégias mercantilistas moldadas pela subserviência ao capital financeiro, estabelecendo seu terreno lucrativo no âmbito educacional e integrando-se ao processo de mercadorização da formação continuada de professores, que ameaça fortemente o processo da democratização da educação pública.

THE EFFECT OF GENDER VIOLENCE ON HUMAN RIGHT IN SOUTH SUDAN

According to the United Nations General Assembly (2013), gender based domestic violence involves men and women and usually results in physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to the victims. It also includes threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty. A study from World Health Organisation (2016) indicates that between 16% and 52% of women worldwide are physically assaulted by an intimate partner at least once in their lives. In addition, according to the Inter-American Development Bank's special report on domestic violence in 1999, gender based violence results in direct loss of money due to health care, police, court costs and productivity. Besides financial losses, gender based violence has also been identified as a contributory factor to maternal mortality rate by 55 percent (World Bank, 2013).
 Further, the World Health Organisation in 1996 documented that, among women aged 15-44 years, gender violence often leads to death and disability. In addition, studies in India, Bangladesh, the USA, Papua, New Guinea and Peru indicate a high correlation between domestic violence and suicide rates (WHO, 1997). Statistics published in 1997 by the World Health Organization on studies conducted in 24 countries in America, Europe and Asia revealed that between 20% and 50% of the women interviewed reported that they suffered physical abuse from their male partners. Moreover, according to an international report on the status of women in 140 countries, the number of women reporting physical abuse by a male partner during the period 1986-1993 was 21% to 60% (Neft & Levine, 1997).

Book Reviews

Eduardo A. Cavallo of Inter-American Development Bank reviews “A Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America, 1960-2017” edited by Timothy Kehoe and Juan Pablo Nicolini. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Fourteen papers plus commentary analyze the origins and effects of various macroeconomic policies in Latin American countries, investigating whether the inability or unwillingness of governments to raise tax revenues or limit spending was the driving force behind the region's instability over the last quarter of the twentieth century.”

A Blended Finance Framework for Heritage-Led Urban Regeneration

The inclusion of heritage conservation in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, target 11.4, stimulated a broad dialogue among heritage conservation practitioners intent on framing a meaningful role for heritage assets in historic built environments as contributors to sustainable development. Heritage-led regeneration positively impacts many aspects of society, community life, and the public realm, and can also play an important role in reaching zero-carbon environmental conservation goals by slowing the extraction of natural resources for construction, reducing the quantity of building materials sent to landfills, and using traditional technologies and knowledge to reduce operational energy use. Heritage regeneration can also be a strong contributor to economic growth, as restored and reused properties create wealth, serve as community social magnets, and attract prestige and visitors. However, there is little progress towards positioning heritage conservation as a focal point for multilateral public-private co-financing projects and partnerships. In 2021, the Cultural Heritage Finance Alliance (CHiFA) published research about successful models of urban heritage regeneration that engage public-private cooperation. CHiFA now presents a process, developed as part of a study commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), for advancing projects that maximize investment in heritage-led urban regeneration, matching financing strategies with local opportunities, legal frameworks, enabling tools, and the requirements of prospective investors. The result is a marketplace and ecosystem that support civic and community interests through long-term, multi-party collaboration using blended capital investment in heritage as a sustainable development strategy.

Quality of Employment Index for the tourism sector in developing countries

Although job quality has become an active field of study over the last two decades in developed countries, it still remains an under discussed concept in developing regions such as Latin America, where the incidence of work informality and low wages are particularly high. As quality of employment is a multidimensional concept and not homogeneously defined in the literature, we follow a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to build a Quality of Employment (QoE) Index for salary earners using household survey micro data of Uruguay from 2016-2019. Uruguay leads the Better Jobs Index launched by the Inter American Development Bank in 2017, which constitutes the only index with a macro-approach to measure quantity and quality employment conditions in the region. We consider several aspects of working conditions: employment, earnings, hours worked, occupational safety and social security coverage. We focus on the tourism sector, which presents low job quality characteristics at the same time it accounts for 7.2% of employment in Uruguay. Furthermore, we found a sex-based gap of employment quality against women in tourism, a difference that is not observed in the trade sector. QoE in tourism shows a greater dispersion in the distribution of employees, indicating the presence of more inequalities among these workers compared to those of trade. Other results show that job quality in tourism is lower for those unskilled, but that there are still many skilled workers facing low quality. Finally, if we consider the activities that conform tourism, workers do better in hotels and travel agencies rather than in restaurants and entertainment.

Approaches to Discrimination Claims: A Comparison of the Administrative Tribunals of the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank Group

AbstractThis article examines the approaches taken by the Asian Development Bank Administrative Tribunal and the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development Bank Group in deciding discrimination claims. The article reviews the basic features of each tribunal before examining their jurisprudence on equality of treatment and issues of information disclosure in discrimination cases. Decisions to date have addressed claims of disparate treatment relating to various aspects of remuneration and benefits as well as allegations of arbitrary treatment vis-à-vis others similarly situated. A few cases have involved allegations of discrimination on the basis of sex/gender, one of several protected grounds in equality law. The number of judicial dissents in discrimination cases suggests that the tribunals have encountered some difficulty in handling them. The article points to a gradual but still incomplete approximation of the decisions of such tribunals to contemporary developments in discrimination law, and suggests a possible way forward.