Higher education and peacebuilding – a bridge between communities?

As the Syrian civil war enters its fifth year, with over four million refugees and no solution in the near future, the international community must better consider long-term planning in regards to the plight of refugees and services to support them, not just short-term emergency responses. Critically, higher education is all too often ignored when addressing refugee crises, pushed aside in favor of primary education, and effectively disempowering those best suited to eventually rebuild and reconstruct after war’s end. This paper examines the often less considered aspect of refugee access to higher education, using Duhok, located in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as a case study, and hypothesizing that refugees’ inclusion in Duhok’s local higher education system can serve as an invaluable peacebuilding tool, bridging host and refugee communities, while empowering refugees to promote peacebuilding and development. We chose to focus on higher education because we agree with the idea espoused by Watenpaugh, Fricke, and Siegel that ‘university graduates … include Syria’s brightest and most ambitious young people … the human capital that will be critical to the rebuilding of Syrian society after the conflict has ended’. This study investigates Duhok area residents’ perceptions of the Syrian refugee crisis and the refugee population, refugees’ attitudes toward the host community and higher education, and personal views regarding intergroup relationships and the role of higher education, drawing primarily on field research conducted in 2013. Approached as a qualitative study, field research was conducted by a two-person team, with members representing the University of Duhok and New York University, and with the aim of actively working with research participants in the hopes of generating policy-related and practical recommendations.     

Will the regulation of governmental accounting go too far?

The establishment of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) ushered in a new era in the regulation of governmental accounting. The promotion of uniform accounting standards for all state and local governments and the adoption of more effective regulations in certain areas, such as pension reporting, may lead to lower borrowing costs for governmental units. The GASB should, however, be concerned not only with the potential benefits associated with any new regulations but also with the related costs of implementing these regulations.     

Building and supporting prsps in africa: what has worked well so far? what needs changing?

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (prsp) initiative came out of the 1999 Cologne annual meeting of the G-7 governments, when the leaders of the industrialised countries announced the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (hipc II). 1 1 Report of the G-7 Finance Ministers on the Cologne Debt Initiative to the Cologne Economic Summit, Cologne, 18–20 June 1999, at http://www.g8cologne.de/06/00114/index.html. View all notes The joint Boards of the imf and the World Bank officially approved the prsp in December 1999 as a new approach to the challenge of reducing poverty in low-income countries and as a framework for development assistance. The prsp approach is supposed to represent a major departure from previous development strategies whereby the World Bank and the imf dictated the directions of economic policies in poor countries. Implementation of the prsp approach is now in its sixth year and the purpose of this article is to critically examine the challenges that African governments are confronted with in preparing and implementing credible, nationally owned poverty reduction strategy plans. The article further examines the degree to which the prsp approach has transformed donor–recipient country relations, thus allowing African governments the policy space to develop home-grown policies.     

Population and income: Is there a puzzle?

Abstract

This note presents wide evidence on the relationship between population and income for 125 countries for which data was available for the period 1950–2000. The main result is that there is a weak but negative relationship between population growth and per capita GDP, as income increases population expands at a slower rate. This relationship appears to be stronger for African countries and for Asian countries before 1970.     

Health and human security: a wrinkle in time or a new paradigm?

Since it was first advanced in the 1994 Human development report of the United Nations Development Programme [United Nations Development Project. (1994). Human development report. New York: UN], the concept of ‘human security’ has evolved as a holistic development-oriented acuity [Nef, J. (1999). Human security and mutual vulnerability: The global political economy of development and underdevelopment (2nd ed.). Ottawa: International Development Research Centre]. The human security concept reinforces the right to health, drawing on both the role of states and the global community's commitment to human rights. Yet, health and human security, long the purview of state power and responsibility, increasingly include alliances of state and non-state actors. This paper proceeds in three parts. The first looks at health and human security linkages, charting the trajectory of the health and human security relationship. The second deals with policy and operational implications. It explores the health–human security link, paying particular attention to the allocation of responsibility and accountability, including through private–public partnerships and rising powers such as China. The third provides a theoretical and technical analysis of the status of health and human security since 1994, taking into account its evolution vis-à-vis human rights’ development and development more broadly, also asking whether it represents but a wrinkle in time or a new sustainable development paradigm.     

Pakistan's elusive quest for identity: Is it too late?

Pakistan Under Bhutto. Shahid Javed Burki, London: Macmillan. 1980. 245pp. £15.00

Politics in Pakistan: the nature and direction of change. Khalid B Sayeed New York: Praeger. 1980. 194pp. £14.25

Bhutto: trial and execution. Victoria Schofield, London: Cassell. 1980. 250pp. £7.95

Bhutto: a political biography. Salmaan Taseer, London: Ithaca. 1979. 208pp. £9.50. £3.50 pb

Pakistan in Search of Democracy, 1947–77. Hamid Yusuf Lahore: Afrasia. 1980. 189pp. $15.00 (Rs 100)

Pakistan: the enigma of political development. Lawrence Ziring Boulder, Colorado: Dawson Westview. 1980. 294pp. £12.00     

Financial Development and Poverty Reduction: Can There be a Benefit without a Cost?

This article investigates how financial development helps to reduce poverty directly through a distributional effect, beyond its indirect effect through economic growth. The results obtained with data for a sample of developing countries from 1966 through 2000 suggest that the poor benefit from the ability of the banking system to facilitate transactions and provide savings opportunities (through the McKinnon ‘conduit effect’) but to some extent fail to reap the benefit from greater availability of credit. Moreover, financial development is accompanied by financial instability, which is particularly detrimental to the poor. Nevertheless, the benefits of financial development for the poor outweigh the cost.     

Russia and the Iraq War: was Putin's policy a failure?

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin has been faced with numerous crises since coming to office in 2000, most importantly the war in Chechnya, the Iraq War was the first major international crisis with which his administration was confronted. As in the case of Kosovo for Yeltsin, and the Gulf War for Gorbachev, the Russian President had to deal with conflicting domestic pressures and apparently still more conflicting Russian national and international interests. Indeed, one result of such a situation was a post-war accusation that Putin actually had no policy or at least no consistent policy with regard to the Iraq crisis [Golan, G., 1992. Gorbachev's difficult time in the Gulf. Political Science Quarterly 107 (2), 213–230]. One may remember similar accusations of Gorbachev's “zigzaging” in the Gulf War and claims that the Yeltsin government failed to forge a Kosovo policy altogether [Levitin, O., 2000. Inside Moscow's Kosovo muddle. Survival 42 (1), 130]. Yet, a certain pattern did appear to repeat itself in the Iraqi crisis, namely, pre-war efforts to prevent a military conflict from breaking out, then gradual escalation of rhetoric if not actual involvement, and finally gradual but relatively rapid retreat to conciliatory posture toward the United States (in all three crises). Moreover, Putin was indeed consistent throughout the pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis periods in his opposition to the Americans' use of force against Iraq and in the need to remain within a United Nations framework. Actually, one might ask (and we shall below) why Putin did not abandon the first part of this policy, in order to maintain the second component, when it became certain that the U.S. was going to attack with or without UN Security Council approval.     

'Good Governance': The Rise and Decline of a Policy Metaphor?

This study aims to explore the conditions under which the criterion of 'good governance' first became adopted as a donor policy metaphor and now seems likely to get eclipsed. Why did it emerge at the time it did, and what, since then, has been its track record? Particular attention will be given in this regard to successive shifts in the relevant policy thinking within the World Bank. Moreover, the study discusses whether good governance is likely to keep drawing the same level of attention as it has done hitherto.     

Bereavement after suicide--how far have we come and where do we go from here?

This paper identifies major issues faced by the bereaved, the community, and the helping professions after a suicide. Some significant milestones in knowledge and service provision that have been achieved so far are discussed. It considers how past research in the fields of suicide postvention and general bereavement have developed new variables and frameworks with which to find a way forward in understanding this neglected field. The new standards of care and public policy are described that are anticipated in the light of these insights.