International Financing Agencies Research Articles

Determinants of Privatization: Evidence from Pakistan

Privatization is something that can take the ownership factor from state and give it to other and since form 1990’s it has turned out to be a most important for both the developing countries as well as for the developed countries. However, in this study we identify the determinants that can lead the government of Pakistan towards privatization by relying on the data that has been taken from privatization commission of Pakistan (PCP) and state bank of Pakistan database between the years 1991 to 2014. Our results identify that the decision for privatization has been initiated by external factor i.e international financing agencies and after that it has been shaped by internal factors that is basically due to economic condition.

El discurso nuevo-regionalista y las regiones productivas en la estrategia de desarrollo de la Argentina reciente (2006-2015)

La categoría región observa continuidad en Argentina pese a su desacreditación y abandono por parte importante de la geografía y otras ciencias sociales. Esta situación es evidente a inicios del siglo XXI por la promoción de regiones productivas desde una estrategia de desarrollo que involucra la aplicación de nuevos conceptos regionalistas sugeridos por organismos de financiamiento internacional. En este contexto, el objetivo de este artículo es el de contextualizar y caracterizar la irrupción del discurso nuevo-regionalista en el debate regional vernáculo con el objetivo de analizar su difusión y territorialización en Argentina en el primer decenio de aplicación de esta estrategia (2006-2015). Para ello se tomarán aportes de la geografía regional y la geografía económica y se analizarán los programas desplegados y los casos impulsados, buscando apreciar las características de las regiones productivas en la Argentina reciente.

Resistance and Potential for Development: Examining the Role of Religion in the Development of Women in the Infrastructure Projects in Pakistan

Pakistan is going through large scale infrastructure development with most of the state-led mega projects being funded by international financing agencies. Many of these agencies have mandatory social safeguards to mitigate the negative impacts of the projects for project-affected-communities especially women. This provides the government an opportunity to advance the conditions of women in project areas. However, the gender mainstreaming efforts usually face resistance from communities on various grounds including religion. This study explores the nature of resistance on religious basis and the strategies used by the development practitioners to manage such resistance. A qualitative research approach was employed and through a purposive sampling technique participants were recruited for this study. In-depth interviews were used to collect data which was analyzed by thematic analysis. The data was collected from development practitioners working for government and international financing agencies on infrastructure projects. Resistance towards development of women initiatives are on interventions, presence of female staff in communities, and on giving access to project teams, including women, to females in communities. Major reasons for this resistance were suspicion of projects, especially if the financing agencies were Western, and the fear that development of women may result in women losing their religious and cultural values which may lead to the breakdown of the institution of family and Islamic society. The strategies to deal with these resistances include involving religious leaders as stakeholders, peer education through religious scholars, exposure visits for local religious leaders, developing gender and cultural sensitivities of the staff, meaningful consultation with community, and effective grievance redress mechanism.

NEOLIBERALISMO Y EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR EN CHILE

El artículo analiza los principales lineamientos que dieron vida a las políticas educacionales del sector terciario, amparadas en el modelo económico neoliberal promovido bajo la dictadura de Pinochet desde comienzos de la década de 1980. Se examina, además, la influencia ejercida por las agencias de financiamiento internacional (especialmente, el Banco Mundial) y los “Chicago Boys” en la implementación de dichas políticas en Chile. El estudio identifica las principales limitaciones de la teoría del capital humano y del análisis de las tasas de retorno utilizadas por el Banco Mundial. A modo de conclusión se plantea que las políticas neoliberales han tenido un impacto negativo en el desarrollo y proyección del sector universitario estatal dado que se ha restringido significativamente el gasto fiscal y se ha privilegiado el crecimiento del sector privado por la vía de los subsidios estatales. El modelo tradicional de universidad comprometido con el desarrollo social es reemplazado por el de una universidad con fines comerciales orientado a satisfacer demandas individuales.

Política pyme y estructuras estatales en Argentina (2003-2015): vínculos opacos y sombras inexploradas

This work analyzes the way in which the implementation of SME policies and programs (SPP) coming from and/or financed by international financing agencies (particularly IDB and UNDP) promotes neoliberal characteristics in SME structure and involvement that weakening the strategic character of the State in development. In order to do so, by acknowledging the disputed nature and the institutional fragility of the State in Latin America, the document is interested in noting that the implemented SPPs were constituted in technologies of power with capacity not only to make feasible and deepen the organizational fragmentation of SME state structures and competition between them, but also to disseminate ideas and conceptual frameworks that shaped a state involvement that prioritizes global insertion over a national development project. The research focused its analysis on the Small and Medium Enterprise and Regional Development Secretariat and on two of the most important SPPs (Business Reconversion Program/Program to Support Credit and Competitiveness, and the Local Productive Systems Program) implemented in Argentina (2003-2015).

Risk management and the stated investment costs by independent power producers

Evidence presented in this article suggests that in less developed countries the independent power producers (IPPs) have an incentive to overstate the investment cost as an instrument to mitigate the country risk in greenfield electricity generation projects. This technique is an effective risk mitigation strategy under the conventional financing and contractual arrangements in such markets. It, however, promotes the use of less efficient power plants. The distortion in the choice of technology results in economic losses over the life of the plants. The findings of this research have important policy implications that can assist regulatory bodies, governments, and international financing agencies to adopt a more informed approach to the integration of private investment into the electricity generation capacity of developing countries.

Diagnostics for developing countries: partnership models that work

Advancements in genetics, biology, and materials science have now led to the development of a broad range of new diagnostic technologies for infectious diseases, including both instrumented and manual systems. Unsurprisingly, most commercial innovations target profitable markets in established market economies, and products are usually neither developed to be appropriate for resource limitations, nor marketed in disease-endemic countries (DECs). New public funding from both philanthropic and governmental sources makes the development of technologies appropriate for DECs possible. Likewise, newly available funding from international financing agencies such as the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) and UNITAID have allowed the construction of aggressive programs to deliver new technologies to disease control programs. Tuberculosis diagnostics, long undervalued, have recently undergone dramatic advances, largely as the result of the funding streams mentioned above, along with the recognition that case detection remains a critical obstacle to global tuberculosis control. FIND, a public-private partnership established to meet the need for improved diagnostics for the developing world, has a deep and broad pipeline of TB diagnostics, some assays from which are already being implemented. This presentation will outline the process of public-private partnership for diagnostic development, and highlight some recent successes in developing simple and effective diagnostic assays built on sophisticated platforms.

Articulación vertical de la inversión urbana en el nordeste argentino: Reflexiones sobre la experiencia del Banco Mundial durante la década del ’90

This paper analyses vertical articulation of public investment model, deployed under Structural Adjustment Program during the 1990s in Argentinian north-east. Proposed analysis considerates theoretical debate about modern development theories applied therefore experienced by international finance agencies like World Bank, and its associated donors. It is argued that under the current lending trends it is unlikely to reach a sustainable and democratic development. Conversely, these policies not only increased the country’s debt, it also exacerbated the gap between planning agenda and social expectation and demands. It concludes by exploring the urgent need to develop a horizontal articulation of urban management as reliable tool to encourage democratic local development.

O ensino médico no Brasil e na Argentina: uma abordagem comparativa

This thesis is compound by three articles, the introduction and a conclusion which describes by means of a comparative approach the curriculum reform process of the Medical Course both of Federal Fluminense University (UFF) and University of Buenos Aires (UBA), in the last two decades. In the 1st article, “The biomedical model and the reformulation of the medical curriculum of Federal Fluminense University”, we discuss the construction of the biomedical model. The identified criticism in the curriculum reform model of the Medicine Course of UFF and the analysis of this curricular reform process. In the 2nd article, “The Curriculum Reform Process of UBA”, we present a report of the various curriculum reform attempts in the UBA Medicine Course since the 80’s, the historical and cultural antecedents of the Argentinean and the universitary model interfaces. The 3rd article, “The curriculum reform process of the medical course in Brazil and Argentine: a comparative approach” compares both curriculum reform process, the ones of UFF and UBA, in the educational reform context that both countries have been undergoing and the attempts to adjust the internal needs in Health and Educational areas with the international finance agencies demands.

Grande CarajáS, International Financing Agencies, and Biological Diversity in Southeastern Brazilian Amazonia

Abstract: The southeastern Brazilian Amazon region (here defined as the region south of the Amazon River, from the Xingu River east to the Atlantic coast), holds vast mineral, foresty, and hydroelectric resources, making it one of the humid tropics' most promising areas for concentrated economic development. Here I focus on the development project known as “Grande Carajás,” which encompasses most of the region in question, with primay activities at the iron ore mining site in the Serra dos Carajás, Pará at the Ponta de Madeira port facility near São Luís, Maranhão, and along the 890–kilometer railroad that links the two. Environmental planning requirements set by international financing agencies participating in Carajás have minimized the environmental impact of the project's direct planned development programs, provided research opportunities for Brazilian scientists, and secured indigenous tribal lands. Other development and colonization (both planned and unplanned) drawn to the Carajás economic axis have a potentially devastating impact on regional biological diversity and must be considered in a comprehensive analysis of the project's effect on regional tropical deforestation.

Financing Resources for Fishery Development

The provision of finance for fishery development is often one of the most difficult problems for the developing countries to solve for a variety of reasons, such as lack or insufficiency of data about the resource concerned, inadequacy of the infrastructure and other supporting services, low level of technical management and skills, lack of marketing and distribution, and so on. Yet there are many sources for investment funds and, indeed, an increasing availability of such funds from the national public and private sectors, and from international sources. These include governmental and private sources and cover a number of investment arrangements from direct cash participation to credit systems and joint ventures. Also included are the international finance agencies, such as the World Bank Group and the complementary regional banks. These are playing a bigger role now than ever before in fishery development. The general criteria for an investment in fisheries, steps that have to be taken before a decision can be reached to undertake an investment, financial sources and arrangements available to the developing countries, and how they can best go about obtaining the required investment funds, are reviewed.