Works Program Research Articles

Pakistan 2010 floods. Policy gaps in disaster preparedness and response

The 2010 floods have caused widespread devastation of farmland, livestock, infrastructure, businesses, homes, and impacted 18 million people. The majority of these people were already living in abject poverty; some illegally residing in the floodplains of the river Indus. During the floods, households were stripped of their entire means of livelihood and their dignity. The government and the international community provided short-term relief responses and interventions to restore livelihoods. Based on interviews conducted with key Punjab government officials and lessons drawn from experiences of flood prevention, disaster recovery and rehabilitation, policy responses for recovery and reconstruction have been recommended that can be translated into long-term sustainable development goals. This study reveals several institutional gaps and regulatory weaknesses that prevail in disaster preparedness and response. In order to reduce vulnerability to extreme climate shocks, the government needs to enact legislation that regulates floodplains, introduce productivity enhancing safety nets, seed systems interventions, public works programs for creating employment opportunities, cash transfers, livestock protection, institutional reforms and adopt effective flood prevention policies. More important, the government needs to make disaster response and preparedness a national priority.

Szegénység, projektek, közpolitikák

Az utóbbi években hazai és nemzetközi kutatások, jelentések sora hívja fel a figyelmet a mélyülő szegénységre, erősödő társadalmi és területi polarizációra Magyarországon. Kétségtelen, hogy e kedvezőtlen tendenciákban a válság hatásai is tetten érhetők, tanulmányomban mégis amellett kívánok érvelni, hogy az állam által végrehajtott „jóléti fordulat” perdöntő szerepet játszik a szegénységet, kirekesztettséget, egyenlőtlenségeket tápláló struktúrák, folyamatok tartósságában, fennmaradásában. Uniós tagállamként Magyarország is célul tűzte ki a szegénység és kirekesztettség mérséklését szolgáló politikák céljainak, eszközeinek átvételét, gyakorlatba ültetését. A 2013 tavaszán és nyarán tizenegy kistérségben végzett empirikus kutatásunk alapvető kérdése az volt, hogy vajon a szegénység mérséklését szolgáló, elsősorban uniós forrásokból megvalósuló projektek, programok alkalmasak-e arra, s ha igen, milyen mértékben, milyen feltételek mellett, hogy mérsékeljék a szegénység, a társadalmi kirekesztettség újratermelődésének esélyét. A szegénységet fenntartó struktúrák és folyamatok azonosítása mellett e projektek értékelésére is megkértük interjúpartnereinket. A vizsgált vidéki térségekben általános és más kutatási tapasztalatokkal egybecsengő meggyőződés, hogy a generációkon átívelően újratermelődő szegénység olyan összetett problémahalmazt jelent, amely egy-egy projekt időtartama alatt és projektszemlélettel nem oldható meg. A kedvezőtlen tendenciák megfordításához a projektek és az intézményi struktúrák, tágabban a szegénységben élők helyzetét, perspektíváit meghatározó közpolitikák céljainak, eszközrendszerének összhangja elengedhetetlen. E tekintetben Magyarországon súlyos deficitekről beszélhetünk. Az elmúlt évek közpolitikai változásai a szegénység mérséklését szolgáló projektek, programok célkitűzéseinek ellenében a szegénység és kirekesztettség mélyüléséhez vezetnek. Mivel a kormányzat a szegénység mérséklésének és kezelésének jószerivel kizárólagos eszközévé a közfoglalkoztatást tette, tanulmányunkban e program elemzésére fókuszálunk, bemutatva piactorzító, és a szegénységben élőket a munkanélküliség csapdájában, tartós függőségben, kiszolgáltatottságban tartó hatásait.

A multi-criteria methodology for optimising road investments

There is growing awareness that road investment appraisal, at both project and network levels, requires joint consideration of multiple criteria that relate to engineering, economic, social and environmental impacts. Several multi-criteria analytical methodologies exist for use at the project level. At the network level, strategies and works programmes need to be optimised under budget constraints by considering the set of relevant criteria. This paper presents a multi-criteria analysis methodology that can be used to optimise road network investments using the utility/cost ratio method. The multi-criteria analysis methodology is based upon the analytical hierarchy process technique, which systematically transforms the analysis of competing objectives into a series of simple comparisons between the constituent elements. The multi-criteria analysis methodology developed was applied to generate a work programme using a set of selected criteria to which relative weights of preference were assigned. The results obtained were compared with those of a similar work programme generated using conventional economic analysis in order to highlight the issue of effectiveness in road management and the use of multi-criteria analysis to solve a classical multi-objective optimisation problem under budget constraints.

Devolution as a Means for Self-governance: Its Potential for Poverty Reduction in Kenya

This study examined devolution which was introduced in Kenya at the beginning of 2013 with a view to establishing whether it was helping to reduce poverty as provided for in the Republic of Kenya Constitution (RoK, 2010). As is the case in other African countries, the majority of Kenyans are poor. We gathered data through desk reviews of relevant books, journal articles and reports and interviews with senior staff of Kakamega, Kisumu and Kajiado counties. It was evident that after abolishing Kenya's independence (1963) devolved constitution termed Majimbo and establishing a highly centralized governance system, Kenya implemented several deconcentration measures which included the District Focus for Rural Development, Rural Development Grants and Rural Works Program aimed at facilitating decision making and allocation and use of resources in communities. These various efforts did not lead to improvement in the country's poverty situation which stood at 56 per cent in the 1980s and 1990s. With the introduction of devolved funds such as the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and the Local Authority Transfer Fund (LATIF) in 2003, the poverty situation had reduced gradually to 46 per cent at present. We have also shown that devolution which was introduced recently with more decision-making powers and resources had potential to ensure further reduction of poverty, especially at the county and household levels.

Political Reservation for Women and Delivery of Public Works Program

Political Reservation for Women and Delivery of Public Works Program

An Assessment of Public Works Programmes as a Poverty Reduction Strategy for Rural Zimbabwe: A Study on Chivi District

With the progression of the new millennium, a new socio-economic order has taken charge in most developing countries, unfavourable to the well-being of the less economically advantaged populations. Seemingly, Zimbabwe was not an exception to this development. Increasing concerns have been expressed about the effects of the several interventions aimed at poverty reduction in Zimbabwe, both from within and outside the country. The programmes and projects that have been devised to address poverty nationally and at local levels since 1980 have allocated vast amounts of resources and funding to different projects and initiatives. The nature of these initiatives have not demonstrated huge and resounding successes mostly because there have been serious shortcomings in their conceptualization and implementation. Based on the social development theory that believes that the human being should be the centre of development, this paper conceived poverty as deprivation of means of securing necessities in life. This study focused on assessing why the contribution of Food-for-work and Cash-for-work (public works) programmes towards reducing vulnerability of households to the problems of food deprivation, unemployment, and social exclusion in making important decisions in life has not produced resounding results. From the discussions held it was established that, poverty in the Chivi District is strongly linked to a failure of productive agriculture and exclusion from formal or urban wage employment. The main conclusions are that the public works programme has neither brought all the benefits its proponents expected, nor negatively affected the society as badly as critics of the programme might have believed. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p1739

Impact of Health on Labour Supply and Wages

In an agrarian economy economic impact of illness acts not only through out of pocket expenditure, but also through loss of labour time and wages at the individual level. Using the information collected from 676 respondents at selected villages in West Bengal from 2009 to 2010, the present paper examines the impact of health on labour supply behaviour and wages. Theoretically the study borrows the idea of nutrition-based efficiency wage hypothesis and builds a conceptual framework based on capability approach. The methodology follows a household production function model. Nutritional dimension of health as indicated by body mass index (BMI) has been found to have a positive and significant impact on labour supply for both the male and female respondents. Age is found to have significantly non-linear impact on labour supply. Hence, public policies to improve the sex and age composition of the households through appropriate channels, that is, health and fertility may be necessary. Finally, the results suggest a revision in the design of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) programme by integrating it with other developmental programmes on health, sanitation and skill development in order to ensure productivity of rural manual labourers. Experience of some other countries like South Africa and Brazil suggests the need to integrate public works programmes with programmes that target health and family welfare issues particularly in the context of rural livelihood.

Mainstreaming adaptation in India – the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and climate change

Climate change adaptation has become increasingly recognized as a development policy imperative for the twenty-first century. Still, actionable policy that meets ambitious goals of equitable, efficient and efficacious action has fallen woefully short of requirements. Mainstreaming of climate policy into existing development planning has been suggested as a way out of this impasse. India's central anti-poverty scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has become part of the ‘mainstreamed’ policy agenda. It is the largest Public Works Programme in the world today but has not been subjected to sufficient research scrutiny for its climate role. The paper attempts to fill this knowledge gap. It locates the climate-development role of the MGNREGA before subjecting it to a critical evaluation. It argues that conceptually, the MGNREGA meets basic normative requirements for mainstreamed adaptation action but that functional and methodological limitations prevent it from taking on a more purposeful role. Though the scheme is not transformative in nature, it can become part of a multi-pronged strategy to reduce vulnerability to climate change in India and possibly other developing countries.

Facilitating the transition from the second to the first economy in South Africa’s rural areas

Here we describe an economic development programme termed ARISE – an acronym for African Rural Initiatives for Sustainable Environments. The programme has the potential to contribute to the simultaneous achievement of three goals to which South Africa is committed, namely: • job creation, • broad-based black economic empowerment, and • achieving expressed conservation and environmental objectives. The programme is currently being developed in the form of two ongoing pilot projects that, taken together, employ 576 previously jobless people, have created several small enterprises, and are beneficially affecting thousands of hectares of severely degraded land in South Africa’s rural areas (EOI2, 2006). The programme may be categorised in the context of South Africa’s economy as either “economic development” through poverty alleviation and in future perhaps part of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), and clearly has the potential to enable people in South Africa’s rural areas to make the transition from the “second” (informal) to the “first” (formal) economy. ARISE therefore offers an ideal opportunity for a large-scale rollout across South and southern Africa.

The Expanded Public Works Programme: Reflections from South Africa

This article reviews public works programmes as a way to alleviate poverty using experiences from around the world in general and South Africa in particular. It interrogates the targeting mechanisms including the question of who benefits, the type of benefit as well as the type of public works. The article argues that the design of public works must take cognizance of whether the initiative is attempting to address chronic and/or transient unemployment as this has a bearing on the thrust of the initiative either to address transient and/or chronic unemployment especially given the multi-dimensional nature of poverty. The article also argues that public works have multiple effects which include distributional effects; real (household) income effects; participation effects; labour market effects; decentralization effects; sustainability effects; investment effects; productivity effects; political economy effects; technical effects; as well as targeting effects. It also argues, using perceptual maps, that when developing public works, it is critical to define the issue which needs to be addressed a priori such as sanitation, HIV/AIDS, food security, unemployment, rural infrastructure development, income, poverty and so forth. The perceptual maps, and the trajectories which they portray, are the major contribution of this article. Public works can span various social and economic sectors such as social services, infrastructure development, early childhood development (ECD) and home- and community-based care (HCBC); community-based waste management, environmental conservation, wildfire management and so forth. The article argues that all interventions should be tested for viability, sustainability and appropriateness within a given context. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n8p544

Welfare and distributional impacts of price shocks in Malawi: a non-parametric approach

This analysis used measures of Compensating Variation and Net Benefit Ratio to assess the short-run effects of higher prices on different wealth groups in rural and urban areas of Malawi. Compensating Variation analysis indicated that in aggregate terms, both rural and urban households had suffered with the recent price increases, but urban areas were more severely impacted. Relatively better-off households in urban areas had much larger welfare losses than the poorest, while in rural areas there was not much difference across wealth groups. Losses in expenditure on food consumption (particularly dominated by cereals and grains) were higher in rural areas. In both areas, the poorest households carried the heaviest burden of the food price increases. The opposite result was found for non-food items, where negative effects were stronger among urban households and, in both areas, the relatively better-off carried a heavier burden. Accounting for substitution effects in consumption, with households adjusting away from more expensive items, resulted in a significant reduction in welfare losses and poverty incidence in urban, but not in rural areas. In each scenario, female-headed households experienced the most adverse impacts. Results were translated into tangible policy and programmatic recommendations, specifying alternative budget scenarios which could compensate the most adversely affected groups. Net Benefit Ratio Analysis, which brings in supply side considerations, found that, assuming “no wage effects”, doubling the price of food would reduce real income by about a third in urban areas, and by less that a fifth in rural areas, with the poorest in each area suffering the most. This is a reflection of the fact that there are relatively more households that produce and sell in rural areas than in urban areas. Assuming a wage response to price increases, we find that the adverse effects were reduced more strongly in urban areas, which is a reflection of a more active wage labor market in those areas, where wage adjustments help to minimize the negative effects of price shocks. This analysis suggested that policies should be oriented towards supporting household livelihoods by strengthening social protection interventions, including direct cash transfers and labor intensive public works programs, to effectively protect and compensate households for welfare losses that result from price shocks. In order to be able to capture general equilibrium and long-term effects of price shocks and adjustment to them, it is recommended that future research should combine partial equilibrium methods with a general equilibrium framework.

Public works programs in developing countries have the potential to reduce poverty

Public works programs in developing countries can reduce poverty in the long term and help lowskilled workers cope with economic shocks in the short term. But success depends on a scheme’s design and implementation. Key design factors are: properly identifying the target population; selecting the right wage; and establishing efficient implementation institutions. In practice, rationing, corruption, mismanagement, and other implementation flaws often limit the effectiveness of public works programs.

Determining the feasibility of harvesting invasive alien plant species for energy

Woody invasive alien plants (IAPs) are a threat to South Africa’s water resources, biodiversity and land productivity. The impacts of IAPs were the main reason for the South African government to embark on a natural resource management public works programme called Working for Water (WfW), which was aimed at controlling IAPs in a cost-effective yet labour-intensive way. At the same time, the high biomass of these species presents opportunities for synergies between the clearing of IAPs and the generation of biomass-based energy. The purpose of this study was to determine the cost of harvesting and extracting, chipping, and transporting the biomass, and also to determine the financial and economic feasibility of such an exercise from a commercial perspective. Sampling of the biomass was done at 31 representative sites within the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa. The cost of the operation was carefully monitored, documented and reported at each stage, and compared to the cost of replacing the thermal coal currently used by industry within this municipality. The project proved to be financially viable, but only when the energy entrepreneur forms a partnership with the WfW programme, and then only under specific conditions. The project has, however, very high socio-economic returns with respect to a reduction in environmental externalities and job creation.

Rearmament to the Rescue? New Estimates of the Impact of “Keynesian” Policies in 1930s' Britain

We report estimates of the fiscal multiplier for interwar Britain based on quarterly data, time-series econometrics, and “defense news.” We find that the government expenditure multiplier was in the range 0.3 to 0.8, much lower than previous estimates. The scope for a Keynesian solution to recession was less than is generally supposed. We find that rearmament gave a smaller boost to real GDP than previously claimed. Rearmament may, however, have had a larger impact than a temporary public works program of similar magnitude if private investment anticipated the need to add capacity to cope with future defense spending.

An Investigation into Optimal Safety Net Programs

Safety net programs are increasingly used all over the world as a means to provide assistance to poor households, including in very poor countries. However, policy makers are left with little guidance to select among alternative safety net programs and designs. The objective of this paper is to derive the features of the optimum safety net program in an economy with heterogeneous agents with non-observable characteristics. It analyzes a model where the government seeks to maximize a social welfare function through the introduction of a safety net program (cash transfer or public works) financed from a linear tax on income while individuals choose whether to participate in the public works program. After calibrating the model to developing economies, the paper shows that the global optimum safety net program is a cash transfer program while a public works program may be locally optimum depending on the distribution of population skills. The paper analyzes the limitations of the model and suggests extensions with a view towards policy implications.

‘I don’t want to go back to the farm’: A case study of Working for Water beneficiaries

In addition to clearing invasive alien plants, the Working for Water (WfW) Programme, as a South African government public works programme, provides short-term employment and training to empower the poor in finding alternative employment within the labour market. Several studies indicate that its beneficiaries become financially dependent on WfW projects and tend to be reluctant to leave the programme. The sociological reasons for this reluctance, however, remain largely unstudied. We therefore address this gap by reporting on a case study of four WfW projects in the Western Cape Province. Face-to-face interviews with beneficiaries suggest that a number of push and pull factors contribute to their dependency on WfW. Chief among these factors is a fear among previous farmworkers of returning to farm work. It was found that the latter can be linked to a historical power-relations legacy between landowners and farmworkers, mainly created by institutional racism still prevailing on many Western Cape farms. These findings bear important implications for the implementation of a new draft WfW policy aimed at encouraging private landowners to employ WfW beneficiaries on their land as clearers of invasive alien plants.

Texans and the Civilian Conservation Corps: Personal Memories

Texans and the Civilian Conservation Corps:Personal Memories Mary L. Wilson (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution CCC group at Pineland, Texas, c. 1933-34. Photograph by Connie Ford McCann courtesy of University of North Texas Archives and Rare Books and found at The Portal to Texas History, <http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth121755> [Accessed January 19, 2012]. [End Page 144] The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was one of the most visible and successful of the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in Texas as well as the rest of the nation. The CCC in its nine years of existence employed more than 2.5 million young men from ages eighteen to twenty-five. The program arose to combat some of the effects of the Great Depression, the greatest economic crisis the United States has ever faced. Unemployment shot from 3.14 percent in 1929 to 24.75 percent in 1933. One author claims it was more than 28 percent. Just before the United States entered World War II, it still stood at 14.45 percent, well above current government estimates. The economic hardships experienced in the 1930s are hard to comprehend for younger Americans. There were no social safety nets to cope with the crisis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Government-sponsored employment on the scale of the CCC was unimaginable in the United States prior to the stock market crash on October 29, 1929. The American people were ready for different ideas, and President Roosevelt seemed to be the perfect leader to bring them to life.1 The newly elected president took office with many promises and ideas but little else. A newspaper cartoonist picked the term "New Deal" out of FDR's presidential nomination acceptance speech, and it became the name applied to any and all programs suggested by FDR's administration. The programs were as varied as the different populations that the Roosevelt Administration aimed them at. The Public Works Administration, [End Page 145] designed to stimulate heavy industry, gave money for projects costing more than $25,000, while the Federal Emergency Relief Administration gave federal monies to the states to distribute to the needy. For every federal dollar, the state was required to provide three. The largest project was the Tennessee Valley Authority, an experiment in regional planning. It funded the building of dams on the Tennessee River, affecting the economies of six states. Smaller projects included the Federal Music Project, which gave unemployed performers jobs, and the Federal Art Projects, which allowed artists to continue producing their art although practically no one could afford to buy it. Aimed at both urban and rural young men (the program was not open to women), one of the most popular of the programs was the rural-based CCC, which began in 1933.2 The CCC had three objectives: enrollment of workers so as not to interfere with normal employment; grants to states for relief work; and the development of a broad public works program to create jobs. The planners designed the CCC to be involved in forest protection and conservation, soil conservation, recreational development, aid to grazing and wildlife, reclamation, drainage, erosion control, flood control, and related projects.3 Evidence of these public works can still be seen across the country. The qualifications for enrollment in the CCC initially required men to be single and between eighteen to twenty-five years of age. Their families had to be on some type of public relief, and they had to be willing to send part of their paychecks home to their dependents. The pay was $30 a month, with the families receiving an allotment of $22 to $25 from this money. The enrollees kept the remaining $5 to $8 for their own use. These monetary requirements changed several times during the life of the organization; only the age and marital restrictions remained the same.4 Statistics abound that show how much money went to these young men and how much they sent home to their families. The missing dimension of the story that this article addresses is the effect the CCC had on the lives of the young men in Texas...

Trends in Rural Wage Rates: Whether India Reached Lewis Turning Point

After liberalisation of Indian economy in early 1990s, India’s GDP growth rates have been picked up and there is a sign of speeding up of structural transformation in Indian economy with the share of agriculture in GDP reduced to 12%. However, still about 50% of the labor force depends on agriculture, which shows that the structural transformation in employment is slower and productivity differences between agriculture and non-agricultural sector is growing. Some studies that the high economic growth has not been able to translate itself into increase in the wages and earnings of the workforce. Some other studies find that the majority of the labor benefited from the increased growth rates in GDP through its effects on the raising wage rates and productivity gains mainly in urban centres, however the trickle down effects of these benefits to rural areas is questionable. Many observe that since last decade, labor shortages in rural India have become an issue. Farmers in rural areas blaming it on employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA, but there is no concrete evidence to prove this, some are also claiming that the faster growth of the economy and non-farm sector are the main reasons, which is in fact is a good sign. However, there are no studies specifically test the theoretical and empirical issues of rising wage rates in India. In this paper, trends in rural wages are assessed along the Lewis continuum through wage rates data. Our results show a clear rising trend in real wage rates since 1995, and then accelerated from 2007 onwards at least in developed states like Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. Less participation in public works program in Punjab and Haryana also indicates no surplus labor. This confirms that at least developed states in India crossed the Lewis Turning Point. The acceleration of real wages even in slack season indicates that the era of labor shortage is started in rural areas especially in developed states like Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, which needs to be tackled through labor saving technology and wide scale farm mechanisation. On the other hand it appears that the underdeveloped states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are not reached the LTP and needs to develop policies to increase productivity of rural labor in these backward states.

The challenges of policy coordination at a programme level: Why joining-up is hard to do

This article examines obstacles to policy coordination to promote development at a programme level. Contemporary efforts to promote coordination or ‘joined-up’ working across government entities highlight attempts to promote policy synergy and resource maximisation for achieving objectives that straddle the sector-specific boundaries of multiple departments. This paper assessed efforts to coordinate the actions of multiple departments towards achieving a single cross-cutting policy objective. Programme-level analysis of the Expanded Public Works Programme in South Africa revealed various reasons why joining-up is difficult to negotiate in practice. This consisted of policy goal and operational incompatibility between specialised entities, which appears sensitive to the specificity and stringency of policy goals and implementation regimens; as well as a host of difficulties related to how coordination is formally defined and designated. This included role definition and confusion, as well as the nature and locus of coordination mandates across and within individual departments.

The impact of a labour-intensive road construction programme in the Vhembe District, Limpopo Province

This study investigates the distributional impacts of labour-intensive projects under the Gundo Lashu programme in the Limpopo province. The aim was to evaluate infrastructure effectiveness of the Extended Public Works Programme, focusing on the interface between road investment and economic development as the central premise. The objective was to evaluate the impact of the programme on the participants and their communities. Specific areas of impacts investigated are mobility, income, work opportunities, poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods and opening of access to market opportunities. A matched case–control study design was adopted. The study found that the programme had achieved its objectives related to the total number of jobs created and the total road length constructed. However, the programme showed mixed results on communities' socio-economic outcomes and the impacts of the programme on poverty and sustainable livelihoods.