State Community Synergies In Development

Higher levels of the stat ...

States can do much to tap community-level energies, and resources for development, if they seek to interact more synergistically with local communities. The broader spin-off is creating a developmental society, and polity. Using case studies from Asia and Latin America, the authors show how: 1) State efforts to bring about land reform, tenancy reform, and expanding non-crop sources of income, can broaden the distribution of power in rural communities, laying the basis for more effective community-driven collective action; and 2) Higher levels of government can form alliances with communities, putting pressure on local authorities from above, and below to improve development outcomes at the local level. These alliances can also be very effective in catalyzing collective action at community level, and reducing :local capture" by vested interests. There are several encouraging points that emerge from these case studies. First, these powerful institutional changes do not necessarily take long to generate. Second, they can be achieved in a diversity of settings: tightly knit or loose-knit communities; war-ravaged, or relatively stable; democratic, or authoritarian; with land reform, or (if carefully managed) even without. Third, there are strong political payoffs in terms of legitimacy, and popular support for those who support such developmental action.

TOPICS IN THE BOOK The Influence of Management Support on Internal Audit Effectiveness in Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry in Kenya Organizational Resources and Strategic Plans Implementation in Administration Police Service in Baringo County, Kenya Operational Strategies and Enhancement of Maternal and Child Healthcare Service Delivery in Devolved Healthcare Units in Machakos County Corporate Governance and Profitability of Genghis Capital Limited in Nairobi City County Challenges of Strategy Implementation: A Case Study of Kenya Medical Training College Effect of Institutional Structure on Performance of National Government Affirmative Action Funds in Kenya

Using data on mergers and acquisitions involving Korean firms, the authors identify which sectors and firms attracted foreign investment after the liberalization of investment of activity at the end of 1997. They find that domestic acquisitions are similar to foreign acquisitions by sector (of both the target and the acquiring firm), but that international transactions are larger than Korean transactions. This suggests that consolidation is a two-stage process: Firms consolidate first domestically, then internationally. The authors also find that foreign investment is focused on high-value-added sectors, on larger and more profitable firms, on firms with low debt, and on firms that export a large share of output. Their results suggest that growth induces foreign investment.

Lessons from Uganda on preparing a national strategy for poverty reduction, with stakeholders participating. Uganda's experience contributed substantially to the design of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers.

Chile's experience shows that it is possible to design direct subsidies (such as Chile's subsidy for potable drinking water) at relatively low cost to the state and without distorting poor people's behavior. Prices have fallen substantially in services that new operators have entered, showing that regulation is a poor substitute for competition.

This overview of issues that regulators should be aware of in demand forecasting discusses challenges that come with the decision to privatize transport, the perverse incentives introduced when privatization teams use strategic demand forecasts to evaluate assets, the most common problems with demand forecasting, the reasons that demand forecasting matters, and how to think about demand forecasting in the context of regulation.