DFID's role in building infrastructure in developing countries

DFID's role in building infrastructure in developing countries PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215561596
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
The International Development Committee reports that DFID can be proud of much of the work it does to build infrastructure in developing countries - on which the Department spends £1 billion annually. But it calls on Ministers to improve monitoring of infrastructure spending through multilateral organisations, such as the EU, World Bank and African Development Bank. The UK should also insist on provisions in large multilateral infrastructure projects which require local capacity building in order to boost local employment and the private sector with developing countries. The MPs also raise concerns that infrastructure construction in developing countries is particularly prone to corruption. The report points to DFID's success in helping to establish the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) to counter corruption, which has proved effective and is to be transferred to the World Bank. DFID should continue to provide the funding and staff time to ensure that CoST can build on the successes of its pilot phase. DFID should publish a departmental strategy on infrastructure. This would help DFID clearly to convey its rationale and priorities within the sector, emphasising that DFID funding is directed to the Department's key priorities within the sector, including the need to build local capacity, implement road safety measures and ensure the use of technologies appropriate to the needs of developing countries. Far more private money is needed to finance large infrastructure projects, and DFID has done well in helping leverage private funding through initiatives such as the Private Infrastructure Development Group.

DFID's role in building infrastructure in developing countries

DFID's role in building infrastructure in developing countries PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215561596
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
The International Development Committee reports that DFID can be proud of much of the work it does to build infrastructure in developing countries - on which the Department spends £1 billion annually. But it calls on Ministers to improve monitoring of infrastructure spending through multilateral organisations, such as the EU, World Bank and African Development Bank. The UK should also insist on provisions in large multilateral infrastructure projects which require local capacity building in order to boost local employment and the private sector with developing countries. The MPs also raise concerns that infrastructure construction in developing countries is particularly prone to corruption. The report points to DFID's success in helping to establish the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) to counter corruption, which has proved effective and is to be transferred to the World Bank. DFID should continue to provide the funding and staff time to ensure that CoST can build on the successes of its pilot phase. DFID should publish a departmental strategy on infrastructure. This would help DFID clearly to convey its rationale and priorities within the sector, emphasising that DFID funding is directed to the Department's key priorities within the sector, including the need to build local capacity, implement road safety measures and ensure the use of technologies appropriate to the needs of developing countries. Far more private money is needed to finance large infrastructure projects, and DFID has done well in helping leverage private funding through initiatives such as the Private Infrastructure Development Group.

Disability and Development - HC 947

Disability and Development - HC 947 PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 021507078X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description
Disabled people in developing countries are the poorest of the poor: if we are serious about tackling extreme poverty, our development work has to target them. So while it's good the UK government has brought disability on to the agenda for global development goals (1) - DfID must now lead by example and make effort to ensure the needs of disabled people become a clear and sustained priority going forward within its own development programmes. Despite enormous global advances in education and health since the turn of the millennium, disabled people continue to be excluded from the most basic of services. The Committee calls for DfID to: produce a disability strategy; appoint a larger team responsible for disability; and strengthen reporting processes; show much more ambition in its work with disabled people by targeting them and their needs explicitly; give disabled people a central role in its work; and promote attention to the needs of disabled people including making it an explicit requirement that funding reaches disabled people, especially in disaster and conflict situations where they are amongst the most at risk

Building Scientific Capacity for Development

Building Scientific Capacity for Development PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Science and Technology Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215049636
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
The UK has benefitted from having strong scientific advice available to Ministers and developing nations would see a huge benefit from being able to draw on strong home-grown institutions to inform policy decisions. A previous report by the Science and Technology Committee had criticised the Government for not paying enough attention to building the science base of developing nations. While concerns remain, MPs considered that the Department for International Development had made improvements in using a more robust evidence base and developing its own in-house expertise. An important feature raised in this report is that there had to be more attention paid to ensuring that scientists, especially those trained through UK support, were facilitated in staying in their home country and utilising the skills they had acquired. More support was needed to permit scientists from developing nations to build and develop their early career within in their native country. Only then could programmes to build scientific capacity eventually become self-sustaining. UK science benefits from collaborations in developing nations and through building connections with growing economies of the world but the MPs found that current funding streams actively discourage the participation of UK scientists. The MPs recommended that exercises such as the Research Excellence Framework recognise the contribution made by these scientists beyond their publication record.

Parliamentary Debates (Hansard).

Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). PDF Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 1272

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Book Description


HC 246 - Strengthening Health Systems in Developing Countries

HC 246 - Strengthening Health Systems in Developing Countries PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215075935
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
Better health is a basic human right and an end in itself. A healthy population is also essential to development. Recent years have seen some rapid improvements in health partly driven by the Millennium Development Goals and the large international funds set up to accelerate progress towards them. However, these improvements have at times been achieved despite the poor state of health systems in many developing countries. Stronger health systems will be required to ensure efficiency, tackle growing challenges such as non-communicable diseases and progress towards self-sufficiency. DFID has long had a good reputation for health system strengthening and this is reflected in its own work. But DFID now relies on international partners, which do not all share this reputation, in an increasing number of countries and to manage an ever-greater proportion of its expenditure. We recommend that DFID reviews in each country whether its funding arrangements enable its health systems strengthening objectives to be met. Assessing the effectiveness and value for money of health system strengthening work by DFID and its international partners is more difficult than it ought to be. Expenditure and performance figures are not published and the research base is inadequate. This must change. The UK has one of the best health systems in the world, but DFID makes only limited use of it. We call on DFID to work with the NHS in expanding volunteering schemes for doctors and nurses and making more use of NHS finance and management skills.

Sustainable Futures

Sustainable Futures PDF Author: Raphael Kaplinsky
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509547843
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Long before the pandemic, economies across the world were in trouble, with growth slowing across the board. This downturn coincided with growing inequality and social exclusion. Rising political dissatisfaction with ruling elites fuelled the rise of populism. Add to this the alarming environmental emergency and few can deny we live in a time of multiple sustainability crises. While this conclusion can lead to despair, in this broad-ranging book Raphael Kaplinsky, a leading development policy analyst, argues that the future is not necessarily bleak. Interrogating the causes and nature of the systemic crises we are living through, he shows how the challenges which we now face mirror previous historical epochs, in which dominant ‘techno-economic’ paradigms flourish, mature and run into crisis. In each case, decisive action is required to move to a more economically and socially sustainable world. In our time, we are witnessing the exhaustion of the Mass Production paradigm. How we herald and manage the transition to the next paradigm – that of Information and Communications Technologies – will determine our capacity to build a more prosperous, equitable and environmentally sustainable world. This book sets out an integrated agenda for action by multiple stakeholders to achieve this end.

The Stationery Office Annual Catalogue 2011

The Stationery Office Annual Catalogue 2011 PDF Author: Stationery Office
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780115017988
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
The Stationery Office annual catalogue 2011 provides a comprehensive source of bibliographic information on over 4900 Parliamentary, statutory and official publications - from the UK Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and many government departments and agencies - which were issued in 2011.

Capacity Building in Africa

Capacity Building in Africa PDF Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821362429
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
African countries need to improve the performance of their public sectors if they are going to achieve their goals of growth, poverty reduction, and the provision of better services for their citizens. Between 1995 and 2004, the Bank provided some $9 billion in lending and close to $900 million in grants and administrative budget to support public sector capacity building in Africa. This evaluation assesses Bank support for public sector capacity building in Africa over these past 10 years. It is based on six country studies, assessments of country strategies and operations across the Region, and review of the work of the World Bank Institute, the Institutional Development Fund, and the Bank-supported African Capacity Building Foundation.

The closure of DFID's bilateral aid programme in Burundi

The closure of DFID's bilateral aid programme in Burundi PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215561985
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
The Department for International Development (DFID) has decided to close its bilateral aid programme in Burundi in 2012. Burundi is a fragile country which has experienced decades of civil war. It is one of the poorest countries in the world and is unlikely to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals. DFID's states that despite such closure, it will: continue funding Burundi both through a regional programme Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA) and multilateral donors (the EU, the World Bank, African Development Bank) to which DFID is a major contributor; that, other donors will take over bilateral programmes which it has been funding and that the cost of the office in Burundi is too high in relation to the size of the programme. The Committee believes though that the Government should reinstate a bilateral aid programme to Burundi for the following reasons, including: that the UK currently has bilateral programmes with all the countries in the Eastern Africa and Great Lakes Region and that the UK's engagement continues to be critical throughout this region both in perception and reality; that Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA), has already helped to increase Burundi's collection of tax revenues; that there are funding gaps in many sectors in Burundi; that there is a regional dimension to conflicts in the Great Lakes area and Burundi is particularly fragile. The Committee states if DFID does cease bilateral aid to Burundi, a responsible exit strategy is the least it can do to minimise the negative consequences.

Trade, Development and Environment

Trade, Development and Environment PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 0215030540
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This report finds that Department for International Development (DFID) has the potential to take the lead internationally on integrating the environment into development: the structures and links exist but there is still an under-appreciation of the role of the environment in sustainable development. The report sets out the background, covering what poor people want, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and Millennium Development Goals. It then considers development aid and how it is changing. Then the DFID's performance in integrating environment into development is critically examined. Subjects covered include DFID policy, water, climate and energy, agriculture, growth, environmental capacity, environmental screening, and the environment strategy. The Committee notes the failure of the Department to develop a coherent approach on the ground, as a damning review of country programmes has shown. It also highlights many areas where policy is poorly drafted and implemented, and where the Department's environmental expertise has been allowed to wither. The recent White Paper, 'Eliminating world poverty' (2006, Cm. 6876, ISBN 0101687621) is seen as a missed opportunity to make the environment as central to its work as the Department itself has made clear it should be.