Global financial markets are subject to a complex web of soft law rules and standards called IntThis paper critically examines some of the main challenges associated with facilitating ‘good governance’ in small-scale diamond mining communities, focusing on the experience of Sierra Leone. Two...

The present study examines how and why ethnic minorities are poorer than ethnic majorities in Vietnam using the VHLSS data for 2002 and 2004. First, the analysis confirms that households belonging to the ethnic minority groups are not only poorer but also more vulnerable to various shocks than...

During the multifaceted crisis that has befallen Zimbabwe since 2000 the plight of the people has been manifest in a shrinking employment market, triple or four digit inflation, a sometime dearth of available commodities, rising child mortality rates and falling life expectancy - to the worst...

Since their emergence in 2001, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have become accepted as consensus objectives of international development efforts. They have generated controversies and literature that focus on the economics of whether and how they can be achieved. However, little work has...

Healthcare policy for American Indians cannot be understood apart from the US government’s Indian policy more generally, and neither Indian policy in general nor healthcare policy in particular has been consistent over the past century or more. Moreover, they have often appeared to be...

Justifications for the welfare state in general, and for social protection in particular, have come from three sources: market failures, specifically the inability of commercial and community-based insurance mechanisms to provide cover against all forms of risk; doctrines of human rights,...

Critics of Lula’s administration argue that business has greatest weight in setting its priorities and that anti-poverty programmes based on conditional cash transfers have little long-term structural impact on social inequality. Yet the coherence and scope of these programmes is now an order...

The paper explores the significance of counting communication skills in one of the earliest societies to achieve mass literacy. The Millennium Development Goals in education reflect structures of practice and thinking rooted in the 19th century. The notion of a goal itself, the measurable output...

The concept and practice of social protection in developing countries has advanced at an astonishing pace over the last decade or so. There is a growing consensus around the view that social protection constitutes an effective response to poverty and vulnerability in developing countries, and an...

A recurring theme in the literature on common violence is that it stems from the combined impact of divided societies (poverty, ethnic diversity, economic inequality) and weak institutions (non-democratic, authoritarian government). This statistical regularity may hold in the aggregate, but as...