IDS Presentation to Secretary of State for International Development

Visit of the Secretary of State for International Development

to the

Institute of Development StudiesOctober 23, 2008

• How IDS Makes a Difference• Economic Growth and Local

Governance• Climate Change and Social Protection• Management of Insecurity and Conflict

Outline

Relevance + Quality + Engagement = Impact

This means

Asking the right questions

Using cutting edge methods and data

Working with others to bring results to key opportunities

Influencing policy, practice and thinking

How IDS Makes a Difference

Relevance + Quality + Engagement = Impact

This means

Asking the right questions

Using cutting edge methods and data

Working with others to bring results to key opportunities

Influencing policy, practice and thinking

Examples • Global consultations• Wiki Annual Report

• YouDev &WFP• Data on quality of local governance• Global/local data on security

• IPCC and adaptive social protection• DFID-India and nutrition

• Gates and agriculture• Tax, state building and the African Tax Forum

Relies on • Strong networks with Southern partners•Teaching and Alumni

• Seed funding for innovation• Ability to co-fund Research Council grants

• Committed researchers• World class Knowledge Services & Communication

• Ability to aggregate• Ability to investigate research impacts• IDS Impact Audit

How IDS Makes a Difference

Local Governance and Economic Growth

Neil McCulloch and Hubert Schmitz

Growth varies dramatically within countries

KALIMANTAN

JAVA

SUMATRA

SULAWESI

MALUKU

PAPUA

NUSA TENGGARA

BALI

KALIMANTAN

JAVA

SUMATRA

SULAWESI

MALUKU

PAPUA

NUSA TENGGARA

BALI

The Political Economy of Local Investment• Much donor effort focuses on creating transparent

and impartial rules--property rights, licensing, access to land etc

• But often investment depends on personal connections between senior officials and investors tackling specific problems and risks

• IDS is working with local researchers in Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil and China, to explore the political economy of investment through the DFID funded Public Action and Private Investment program

Key Findings

• Large variations in the quality of economic governance at the local level

• Building a coalition of interest between key public and private sector actors is key to boosting investment

• Reducing uncertainty matters more than reducing costs

Implications for DFID

• Focus capacity building efforts on bringing the worst performing regions up to the standard of their peers

• Support frameworks that encourage constructive public-private relations

• Pragmatism to build trust rather than ‘best practice’ reform

Climate Change and Development

Tom Mitchell

Climate Change and Development Centre

• 40+ researchers and knowledge sharing experts

• Research expertise on o Low carbon growtho Intl climate policyo Poverty and adaptation

• Development perspectives to climate change problems

• Centre embedded with research, policy & civil society networks in BRICs and LICs

• World class knowledge services

Social Protection to help Adaptation to Climate Change

• Climate change community has not considered social protection as insufficient focus on social dimensions and differentiated nature of adaptation

• Social protection generally reactive and insufficient focus on longer-term transformational approaches

• Social protection designed to protect, promote and transform livelihoods can help people adapt to climate change

• Without considering climate change, social protection programmes will not address the multiple risk and vulnerabilities the poor and excluded face

What is Adaptive Social Protection?Focus on• people, regions, sectors vulnerable to climate change• promoting asset mixes that increase adaptive capacity

Examples • Weather-indexed insurance (payouts on thresholds)• Asset transfers based on replacement/diversification (ducks for hens, seed fairs)

Further research needed on what works and improved understanding of the policy process around implementation 

The Management of Insecurity and Conflict

Anna SchmidtDavid Leonard

Participation in overseas peacekeeping promotes domestic Security Sector Reform

• Overseas participation of African forces in peacekeeping missions and training contributes to the democratization of African security apparatuses in their domestic roles

• Peacekeeping positively influenceso The relationships between the state, civil society and military

agencies

o Officer and soldier behaviour

o The organisational structure of the military

o The ways the military is funded

Elections and Youth Violence: always with us?

• Electoral violence by young unemployed males has been a problem in Africa for 60 years

• There is an urgent need to promote methods of conducting and managing conflict that do not involve the current bi-modal choices of doing nothing or fighting about it

• It also is time to revisit the employment generating development strategies pioneered in the early 1970s to deal with this same set of problems

Leveraging humanitarian norms for improved global governance

• Global standards setting on refugees and IDPs increase the leverage of implementation networks of NGO and Government actors

• If not recognised policy failure (e.g. refugee security)

• If recognised leverage to strengthen relational networks (e.g.info re IDP abuse)

• If leveraged stronger forms of global governance (e.g. address UN cluster reform)

Methodology: Networks as the real policy environment

tasks and organisations in Kibondo, Tanzania