Brookings Topics - Millennium Development Goals

By Homi Kharas, Ashok Gulati, Joachim von Braun

By Shamika Ravi

With the 26th UN-Habitat governing council conference (GC26) held last month, the new urban agenda (NUA) has once again come to the fore. As the world moves towards a globalized policy discourse, one wonders if the NUA is an improvement on the existing unratifiable global documents. India’s minister for urban development, Venkaiah Naidu, chairing GC26, provided a fillip to the government’s motto of “Integrated, Inclusive and Sustainable Urban Development”. In his keynote address, Naidu highlighted the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) as prominently allied to the goals of the UN-Habitat. In this situation, one is tempted to ask, what next? How does the introduction of the NUA drive urban policy discourse for the Indian scenario?

While the NUA is not without its faults, one must use it as a lens to study policy developments, rather than view it as a stand-alone manuscript. Coming on the heels of the announcement of the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), the NUA is a landmark vision document that calls for a paradigm shift in addressing urban issues, rooted in concerns of sustainability. Allied with the SDGs, the NUA promises to usher in an innovative era of global urban policy. “Sustainability” (through sustainable economies and environmental sustainability) and “inclusivity” (through the “right to city” paradigm) are the core principles of the NUA. Placing an unprecedented emphasis on local governance, the NUA requires that countries involve municipal, state and federal governments to form a basic framework for implementation of urban reforms.

The most controversial phrase in the NUA is the “right to city”—a LeFebvrian concept that propounds equal access to various facets of an urban life to all city-dwellers—shot down by developed and developing countries alike. While countries in the West are primarily concerned about the implications the right to city has for specific cases like sanctuary cities, developing countries are uncomfortable with the possible legitimacy granted to squatter settlements and the resulting consequences, for land regulation policies and physical infrastructure.

In 2015, the Union government launched its flagship scheme targeting urban transformation, the SCM. Touted to be one of the largest enabling policy mechanisms for a gamut of projects (oriented across infrastructure and service industries), the mission targets the 100 cities chosen by the ministry of urban development (MoUD) to be a part of the Smart Cities Mission. Based on the proposals submitted by each city, the MoUD announced a list of 20 winning cities in January 2016. Further, other cities were encouraged to rework their proposals to re-enter the challenge.

With an emphasis on smart governance, the SCM has the potential to be the blueprint for a new era of governance systems in the country. The challenge component of the SCM is one of its characteristic features, ushering in an era of competitive federalism in Indian policymaking. Moreover, the element of self-evaluation and consequent project proposals for development and transformation of the city provide greater freedom to the city to decide personal goals for the SCM, overturning the rather static ideas of Centre-based policy schemes for urbanization.

Using the NUA as a lens to view the SCM is quite simple. The smart city guidelines stipulate that the Indian smart city needs to adhere to 24 features in order to be “smart”. The overlap between these features and the transformative commitments of the NUA are quite significant. With an emphasis on promoting civic engagement and strengthening participatory local governance, the NUA mirrors the commitment of the smart city for civic participation—where the citizens of the city have been involved in the mission at every step through polls and calls for suggestions to redevelop their cities. Similarly, the SCM has promoted the concept of municipal bonds in Indian cities. Further, with regard to the empanelment of special transaction advisers for each of the cities, the MoUD has also assigned credit ratings for most of the smart cities to facilitate the process of issuing municipal bonds for mobilization of resources. On the other hand, the NUA calls for sustainable financial frameworks for municipal finance and local fiscal systems.

The NUA aspires to integrated and vulnerable section—responsive housing policies, aspects that many of India’s smart cities are paying close attention to—with the lead city Bhubaneswar making these the prime focus of its redevelopment efforts. Furthermore, both the NUA and SCM guidelines pay close attention to infrastructure and services such as solid waste management, compact urban planning and energy resources. At this juncture, the SCM can be viewed as an extension of the strategy expressed in the NUA.

As India strives to leave a mark on a world that is becoming increasingly urban, we would do well to follow a comprehensive and well chalked out strategy for our cities. Though a commendable step in the right direction, the SCM has its own pitfalls and shortcomings. With urbanization gaining prominence in the global policy discourse, it is important, now more than ever, to focus on local governance. Currently, there is an inadequate emphasis on the functioning of urban local bodies when it comes to centrally motivated schemes like the SCM. India is a signatory of the SDGs. Paying further attention to the aspects of resilience and local governance outlined in the NUA and the allied action framework can ensure that Indian cities respond to more than just competitive sub-federalism. Indian cities, catalysed by learnings from the NUA, can become competitive global cities.

By Merrell Tuck-Primdahl

A nationwide innovation in India was picked up by Nigeria to eliminate ghost workers who were sucking the government’s payroll and even collecting pensions. As the digitization process expanded, it also made inroads toward giving identities to thousands of Nigerians whose invisibility had left them unable to plug into modern life, whether for banking, health care, or registering land.

The woman who made it happen was Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who recounted how she did it on August 4 when she delivered the Madeleine K. Albright Global Development Lecture of Aspen Global Innovators.

Okonjo-Iweala, current chair of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance and a senior advisor at Lazard, served Nigeria as finance minister and as foreign minister and held several positions at the World Bank, including managing director.

Schooled as an economist, Okonjo-Iweala cuts through jargon and, in her “Development and Diplomacy” lecture, shares tough lessons she has absorbed as a woman leader:

Her “Development and Diplomacy” lecture was co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and the Brookings Blum Roundtable. This year’s roundtable, which tackled the theme “U.S. Development Assistance Under Challenge,” featured experts from the public, civil society, academic, and security sectors. Read the six briefs commissioned for the 2017 BBR here.

Nigeria’s National Identity Management Commission is detailed here. The Unique I.D. Authority of India (UIDAI) and the Aadhar Act are described here.

By Robin J. Lewis, John Villasenor, Darrell M. West

The 2017 Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project (FDIP) report, the third annual report produced by the FDIP team, assesses national commitment to and progress toward financial inclusion through traditional and digital mechanisms in 26 geographically, economically, and politically diverse countries.

Financial inclusion refers to the access to and use of quality, affordable financial services to help improve financial health and overall well-being. Beyond the day-to-day benefits for individuals and their families, financial inclusion also advances sustainable development goals such as poverty reduction and gender equity.

Given that about two billion adults are excluded from the formal financial ecosystem and its benefits, the FDIP team aims to provide policymakers, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and the general public with information that can improve financial inclusion in diverse contexts around the world.

To that end, as in the 2015 and 2016 reports, this year the FDIP team analyzed four key dimensions of financial inclusion: country commitment, mobile capacity, regulatory environment, and adoption of formal financial services. The 2017 report features the enhanced country list from the 2016 report, which amplified the diversity of the FDIP country sample by adding five new countries: the Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Haiti, and Vietnam.

The 2017 FDIP report finds considerable growth in national-level recognition of the micro- and macroeconomic benefits of financial inclusion, and in engagement between the traditional financial services sector and technological innovators.

However, opportunities remain for many countries to start or expand financial inclusion efforts in ways that are secure and equitable. One of the next steps for public and private sector stakeholders is to augment investments in cybersecurity within the financial services sector, which we argue is a topic that merits greater attention from the financial inclusion community.

To learn more about important trends, opportunities, and obstacles regarding financial inclusion around the world, you can read the full 2017 FDIP report here.

By Camille Busette, Darrell West, Adrianna Pita

Darrell West, vice president and director of Governance Studies, and Camille Busette, senior fellow and director of the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative, discussed the findings of the latest Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project report, which measures how well individuals and families can access quality, affordable financial services in 26 countries around the world.

Show notes:

Thanks to audio producer Gaston Reboredo and Fred Dews.

Direct download of this episode (mp3)

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By Joshua Miller

Tony Pipa is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program. In that capacity, he studies efforts to realize the universality of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), exploring how economic mobility and security, and democratic cohesion and governance, can be advanced simultaneously in developed and developing countries. He also studies ways of maximizing the impact of U.S. development assistance and advancing policy strategies to systematize innovative financing models for development, including blended finance and public-private partnership models.

He has more than 25 years of experience in the philanthropic and public sectors addressing poverty in the U.S. and globally. His unique experience ranges from the local to the global and from startups to complex global enterprises, applying lessons across state, federal, and global levels.

He served as chief strategy officer for USAID and as U.S. special coordinator for the Post-2015 Agenda at the Department of State, leading the U.S. delegation at the U.N. to negotiate and adopt the SDGs. As deputy assistant to the administrator in Policy, Planning, and Learning at USAID, he oversaw the Agency’s global policy engagement and launched major partnerships with bilateral donors.

An independent consultant prior to his appointment, he ran the NGO Leaders Forum at Harvard University, an informal think tank for the CEOs of the largest U.S. NGOs, providing a platform to elevate international development in U.S. foreign policy and increase the effectiveness of their global operations. He also helped launch Foundation for Louisiana out of the governor’s office and worked with Oxfam America, the Family Independence Initiative, and multiple philanthropic collaboratives in the wake of hurricane Katrina. He served as founding executive director of the Warner Foundation, addressing issues of race and poverty in North Carolina and was founding director of philanthropic services at the Triangle Community Foundation.

He has published articles, book chapters and opinion pieces on financial innovation to end poverty, the role of NGOs in a new aid architecture, nonprofit policy proposals to strengthen U.S. communities, and the importance of local charities to disaster resilience. He attended Stanford University, was graduated from Duke University, and earned a Master of Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School.

By Homi Kharas

Last week saw a major gathering of government, corporate, and civil society leaders in New York City to participate in events around the United Nations General Assembly.

The meeting was noteworthy on two counts. First, it has morphed from a government-dominated meeting into a multi-stakeholder gathering. The World Economic Forum and the Bloomberg Global Business Forum 2017 brought corporate executives into dialogues on sustainability at a level and intensity not seen before. The consensus on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seems unshaken, and momentum to build coalitions involving non-governmental partners is mounting.

The second point, however, is more somber. For all the rhetoric and celebrity participation (actors, rappers, supermodels, and activists were all well represented), the news on implementation was not encouraging.

The perennially upbeat message from Bill and Melinda Gates, in a beautifully produced Goalkeepers report-cum-data-visualization, started with an acknowledgement that “this report comes out at a time when there is more doubt than usual about the world’s commitment to development.” It goes on to document how far the world is off-track on various SDGs, as well as helpfully documenting where there is insufficient data.

Reports on specific sectors are no more encouraging.

The World Bank released its World Development Report, focused on education with a dire warning about the learning crisis in poor countries. Check out:

A short video highlighting key recommendations
Downloadable data and figures from the report
The overview

The Food and Agriculture Organization, jointly with a number of other U.N. organizations (hooray for collaboration among multilaterals), issued its State of Food and Nutrition Security in the World, 2017 report, showing the number of hungry people actually rising. The overview is available here.

The Lancet takes this one step further and has published a map with disaggregated mortality data across Africa. Its interpretation of the data: “In the absence of unprecedented political commitment, financial support, and medical advances, the viability of SDG 3.2 achievement in Africa is precarious at best.”

In each case, the bad news is that progress is too slow. The silver lining, perhaps, is that we know this with ever-greater clarity. Maybe that will be a spur to action.

By John McArthur, Krista Rasmussen

One of the most important aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), affirmed by leaders of all 193 United Nations member states in September 2015, is that they apply to countries at all income levels, including advanced economies. To that end, this paper presents a framework for assessing Canada’s current domestic status toward achieving the SDGs. To our knowledge, it is the first study to present a detailed national and subnational assessment of SDG status within a G-7 economy.

Our methodology takes a “by the book” approach to the U.N. framework. We sort the 169 SDG targets based on which ones are outcome-focused, quantified, and measurable within advanced economies. This produces a mix of 37 directly quantified targets and 41 proxy targets. Of these, we identify adequate data to assess Canada on 61 targets using 73 indicators.

Overall, we find that Canada is on track for 17 indicators; needs acceleration for 12; needs a breakthrough on 26; and requires a reversal of negative trends on 18. On many indicators, the absolute distance to the SDG benchmark remains small, but targeted efforts are needed to cover a “last mile.” The results suggest that Canada is not yet wholly on track for any of the first 16 SDGs. For each goal, faster progress is needed on at least one indicator.

The analysis underscores the relevance of the SDG framework to Canada’s domestic context. The findings should not be interpreted as predictions, nor as a suggestion that Canada is unable to meet any of the goals. Instead, the results draw attention to the people and issues that are currently being left behind amid Canada’s pursuit of economic, social, and environmental progress.

By John McArthur, Krista Rasmussen

In his recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau affirmed that, “the Sustainable Development Goals are as meaningful in Canada as they are everywhere else in the world, and we are committed to implementing them at home while we also work with our international partners to achieve them around the world.” With this forthright pledge, the prime minister joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel among G-7 leaders in stressing the universal nature of the economic, social, and environmental targets embedded in the SDGs.

It’s a novel challenge for a country like Canada to benchmark itself against the SDGs. In a new working paper, we translate the U.N. framework into a country-level diagnostic tool. We find that, amid Canada’s many remarkable societal accomplishments, the country is not yet fully on track for any of the SDGs. Importantly, this does not suggest the goals are unachievable. The absolute distance to reaching the targets is often small, but the current trajectory is simply not fast enough.

Here we describe some key results, followed by a short description of the methodology, which could apply to other advanced economies too.

Results

Our approach emphasizes the SDG ethos of “no one left behind,” so when targets aim to reach “all” people or “universal” coverage, we interpret this literally as 100 percent. In Canada, each percentage point of the population represents more than 360,000 people, so even 97 percent access on a measure implies more than 1 million people being left behind. Similarly, if an indicator has been stuck at 97 percent coverage for many years, we classify it as a problem requiring a breakthrough, rather than celebrating its proximity to 100 percent.

As shown in Table 1, we assess a total of 73 SDG-relevant indicators (see rationale below) and find that:

17 are on track, meaning on course for the SDG target.
12 need acceleration, meaning they are currently on course to cover at least half the distance to the target but not yet the whole way.
26 need a breakthrough, meaning they are currently on course to cover less than half the distance to the target.
18 are moving backwards.

Table 1: Summary of Canada’s domestic status on 73 SDG indicators

global_2017100417_sdgtable

On the positive side of the scorecard, Canada has successfully surpassed absolute global standards on issues like extreme income poverty, child mortality, and maternal mortality. It has also achieved, or is on track to achieve, universal access to social protection, secondary education, and modern energy services. However, at the other end of the spectrum, issues like access to safe drinking water, child obesity, and food insecurity have all shown negative trends in recent years.

Some other findings include:

Canada requires a breakthrough in order to cut domestic poverty by half by 2030.
Indigenous people throughout the country tend to face the most severe overall disparities, including on child poverty, food insecurity, access to medical care, reported violence, and confidence in public institutions.
Different Canadian provinces tend to lead or lag on different SDGs, but there is troubling consistency in the stark challenges faced by Canada’s three northern territories, where indigenous people comprise significant shares of the population.
Despite Canada’s reputation for strong public institutions, only 57 percent of Canadians are estimated to have “some” or “a great deal” of confidence in the courts and justice system.
While the current government is actively promoting “feminist” policies, Canada is not yet on track for any of the gender equality indicators assessed, including pay equity, violence against women, or share of women in leadership positions.
On climate change, Canada still requires a breakthrough in order to meet its 2030 emissions targets. Among other environmental issues, the country needs considerably faster progress to reach its 2020 targets for protecting land and marine areas.
Amid rapid changes in the economy and future of work, a large share of the population is being left behind in terms of basic literacy and numeracy skills. Well over 3 million adult Canadians might lack crucial literacy skills while more than 5 million might lack core numeracy skills.

Methods

Our methodology takes a “by the book” approach to interpreting the SDGs. As shown in Figure 1, we start with the full set of 169 targets and filter them down to the 78 that are outcome-focused, quantitatively assessable, and relevant to high-income countries. For a few dozen of these targets, the SDG language lends itself directly to empirical assessment. For others, we set proxy targets where possible—translating words like “significantly reduce” into a 50 percent reduction, or pairing a concept like “access to green spaces” with an indicator measuring the share of people living within 10 minutes of a park. We then find data to assess 61 targets through 73 indicators, as reflected in Table 1 above.

Figure 1: Logic tree for identifying assessable SDG targets in Canada

global_2017100417_logictree

A note on process

Preparing this paper prompted us to reflect on the nature of conducting SDG assessments. Simply put, it requires a large amount of work. Canada is a relatively data-rich country, so we were able to draw from a wide array of sources, many published by Statistics Canada. A variety of judgment calls had to be made in the course of interpreting the official SDG framework, so we welcome feedback in all respects. But the intensive process of filtering targets and identifying disparate indicators draws attention to the need for policymakers to keep refining SDG benchmarks and data portals. A one-stop-shop database is required for monitoring progress across issues, geographies, and demographic groups. If the SDGs are to be achieved, analysts and citizens need easy ways to track both who and what is being left behind.

By Christina Kwauk, Amanda Braga

While climate change strategies have been largely gender-blind, the one woman-centered strategy that has captivated demographers and girls’ education advocates alike for decades is that of fertility.

The link between higher levels of schooling and lower rates of fertility for women shows that an investment in girls’ education is, indirectly, an investment in climate change mitigation by curbing population growth within the planet’s carrying capacity. A woman who has completed secondary school will likely have one fewer child over her lifetime than a woman who has only completed primary school. She tends to be older when she marries and first gives birth, has more space between births, and has increased access to job opportunities that keep her from a cycle of constantly bearing children without planning. Projections have also demonstrated that if every woman in the world since 2008 received a secondary education, the population in 2050 could be 3 billion less than if women’s education levels remained the same at that time. More recent projections show that if by 2014 every girl and boy had been on track to receive 13 years of schooling, the population in 2050 would be 1.5 billion less, and by 2100 be 5.7 billion less. It’s therefore no surprise that population has been at the center of women’s engagement in climate action.

But the ethical issues around adopting this approach to girls’ education, fertility, and climate change are many. To focus solely on reducing fertility rates places a burden on the reproductive decisions of girls and women in developing countries and ignores the role of unsustainable development, consumption, and technologies for which developed countries have largely been responsible. Studies suggest that from 1850 to 2011 countries in the developing world contributed to only 21 percent of the carbon emissions, but in 2015, they paid 78 percent of the social cost of climate change through greater exposure to natural disasters, weaker infrastructure, and less reserve capital on which to fall back.

So how then can we leverage girls’ education to address one of the underlying unsustainable trends contributing to climate change? In our latest report, Three Platforms for Girls’ Education in Climate Strategies, we suggest that girls’ whole lives matter and their reproductive health is rights-based. Two hundred and fourteen million women who would like to avoid pregnancy are struggling to access reproductive health resources and information, and the majority of them live in the 69 poorest countries in the world—also where projected population growth is expected to double by 2053 and where women’s education levels are the lowest. But a whole-life approach means developing their knowledge, skills, and attitudes through a quality education from a young age through young adulthood.

Gender actors that focus on women’s empowerment and rights through education and health, like CARE and Plan International, as well as those focused on keeping girls from early, forced, and child marriage, like Girls Not Brides, are key actors. Their efforts contribute to reproductive rights by educating girls on contraceptives, making services available to them, and ensuring that they avoid pitfalls like early marriage that lead to early and often unsafe pregnancies. Environmental conservation actors like Blue Ventures, Pathfinder International, and Sierra Club are now undertaking women’s empowerment and reproductive health. They have been prioritizing women’s access to family planning services in coastal communities alongside their conservation work in Madagascar, Kenya, and Uganda, for instance.

But efforts within the public health community targeting adult women have not coalesced around important work happening in girls’ education. For example, the relationship between early marriage, school dropout, and early childbearing are essential to consider when building women’s resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change and weather-related disasters. But there is little cohesion between actors focused on different points in a girl’s or woman’s life.

Research suggests that family planning is more cost-effective than many technical solutions like investing in clean energy technology. Reducing 34 gigatons of carbon in the atmosphere would cost $220 billion if addressed through family planning as opposed to $1 trillion if addressed through low-carbon technologies. But family planning together with investments in girls’ education are even more effective. Together, these solutions could result in 119.2 gigatons in reduced atmospheric carbon—far lower than the top-rated technical solution of improved management of harmful chemical refrigerants at 89.74 gigatons reduced.

To ensure that sectors collaborate and that climate action dollars go further, overseas development aid accountability systems like the OECD Development Assistance Committee and climate financing mechanisms like the Adaptation Fund must tune into the important role that investing in girls’ education and girls’ reproductive rights plays in climate mitigation and adaptation. This could be as simple as re-coding the OECD DAC gender markers to include girls’ education and reproductive health as a climate aid gender marker alongside existing gender markers. The Adaptation Fund could also simply focus on girls’ education as a strategy to increasing women’s resilience.

Thus far, girls’ education has not been leveraged to its full potential in guaranteeing girls’ and women’s reproductive health. And while actors have worked for decades to provide women with more services, they have been unable to ensure that those services are accessed and that behavior changes. The global community, together with public health actors, gender organizations, and girls’ education actors, must collaborate to expand the reach of these respective efforts. We must look toward a holistic, rights-based approach to girls’ and women’s reproductive health to safeguard not only the future of those girls and women, but also the future of our planet.

By Christina Kwauk, Amanda Braga

In early June, President Trump’s announcement of the United States’ intent to withdraw from the Paris climate accord puzzled the world. Adopted in 2015 by 195 nations with 147 ratifications, the Paris Agreement was a truly unprecedented landmark. While imperfect, it represented a new era of climate action, one that garnered buy-in from developing and developed countries alike, was ambitious but forward-looking, and was both legally binding and transparent. The U.S. withdrawal has threatened to weaken this policy milestone, not only creating a geopolitical climate leadership vacuum, but also by unraveling decades of global political momentum built around high-level climate action.

But, while media attention continues to fixate on the high-level political fallout of the 3-year process of the U.S.’s withdrawal, the reality remains that we must look elsewhere, preferably closer to the grassroots, to sustain the climate action ecosystem and to build against any further damage to come. As other Brookings fellows have pointed out, it’s time to look to other non-state actors who can make a concerted effort toward combating climate change. Our new report, Three Platforms for Girls’ Education in Climate Strategies, draws attention to a specific initiative that non-state actors can invest in now to make a long-term difference: create a global pipeline of girls to women climate leaders.

Indeed, research shows that female leaders are especially effective in conservation efforts. For example, in a study of 130 countries, those with a higher number of women in parliament were more likely to ratify environmental treaties, signaling higher state support for environmental protection. Another study showed that across 90 countries, those with higher numbers of women in parliament tended to protect land areas at higher rates.

In our own calculations using the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) Country Index and data from the Women’s Environment and Development Organization’s (WEDO) Gender Climate Tracker on women’s participation in climate diplomacy, results suggest that countries with higher rates of women in climate leadership and increased schooling for girls fare better in terms of their country’s overall vulnerability to climate disasters. While many more variables are needed to paint a full picture of this relationship, interesting correlations emerged: for every additional female delegate representing a country in a major climate decisionmaking body, a country can expect a 0.03 point gain in its index score, compared to only a 0.008 point gain for any additional delegate, regardless of that person’s gender. Since 2008, the gains have become greater. Every 1 percent increase in the percentage of female delegates in official government delegations is associated with a 0.43 point gain on the ND-GAIN Index.

Despite these promising correlations, studies show that women have not been included in environmental processes, making up dismal numbers of represented leaders at key climate decisionmaking tables. In 6 out of 9 decisionmaking processes, for instance, women represented less than one-third of all decisionmakers. And in 2015, women made up only 24 percent of the 173 delegates (or focal points) to the U.N. Forum on Forests, 12 percent of the heads of 881 national environmental sector ministries from 193 U.N. member states, and 4 percent of 92 national member committee chairs on the World Energy Council.

One explanation for this bottleneck is that efforts to bolster women in leadership, like the International Gender Champions Network and the Women Political Leaders Global Forum, have not made substantial links to the climate sector. Outside of the Women Delegates Fund, part of WEDO, organizations and networks focused on building gender equality in leadership have targeted their efforts at nurturing women into political and organizational leadership roles more broadly.

Furthermore, girls’ education organizations are a critical but overlooked actor within the climate action ecosystem, which has gravitated toward the realm of adult women’s education and empowerment. While adult women are critical to accelerating progress, continued acceleration can only be achieved if efforts are simultaneously targeted at girls, especially their development of transformative life skills like negotiation, communication, critical thinking, problem identification, and problem solving. Our analysis suggests that every additional year of schooling for girls is positively correlated with higher numbers and higher percentages of women participants in official government delegations to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meetings and bodies. This finding sheds light on the expansive potential of girls’ education and the urgent need for education actors and those in leadership development to start collaborating.

While President Trump’s rejection of the Paris Accord did not make sense for the United States or for the world, investing in girls’ and women’s climate leadership through education and leadership programming is action that can be taken today that lays important foundations for long-term climate response. While centering girls and women is critical to any forward movement in the climate change agenda, their role in climate leadership is particularly important now as President Trump places short-term political gains ahead of long-term costs. Furthermore, with so many girls around the world still missing the fundamental right to a quality education, building effective female leadership for climate policy will only happen if the barriers to their learning and leadership development are addressed today.

By Landry Signé

Innovation should be given the place it deserves during this year’s Africa Week, which is organized on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly Debates on Africa’s Development and focuses on Supporting an Integrated, Prosperous, People-centered, Peaceful Africa: Towards the implementation of Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Innovation is recognized as a major force for economic growth and development. However, when experts speak about innovation, they usually refer to the technological ones, and often overlook policy and institutional innovations, which are, in many instances, central enablers of the latter, especially in the African context. In Innovating Development Strategies in Africa: The Role of International, Regional, and National Actors, I study economic development strategies in sub-Saharan Africa and revive the discussion on policy and institutional innovations—whether minor or major—given the fact that they often give rise to great socioeconomic transformations in the long run. Drawing on my research, I propose three recommendations for better capturing the benefits of innovation in light of Africa’s ambitious agenda.

1. Policymakers should hone, not neglect, small and often-overlooked innovations, since they frequently contribute to economic paradigm change in the long run—even when success is not apparent in the short run.

Many academics and policymakers have found a lot of continuity in development strategies in Africa, since most strategies have failed to produce intended outcomes since the 1980s. Professor Patrick Chabal found, for example, that new initiatives such as New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) are simply reproductions of past ones. An approach that only focuses on continuity, though, often overlooks the slow-moving causal processes of some institutional and policy innovations.

My argument is straightforward: Behind the apparent continuity and failure observed by most scholars studying development strategies in Africa, there are innovations that lead in the long run to much more substantial and often overlooked economic and institutional transformation.

For example, the introduction of market-friendly reforms in the 1980s and social protection measures in the 1990s have contributed—combined with other factors— to the transformations of African economies as well as to the rise of new initiatives such as the World Bank Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and NEPAD. Numerous initiatives that evolved in the 21st century (Agenda 2063, Africa Union reform, etc.) are broadly path dependent of the trajectory initiated a few decades ago. If we do not instead hone new and often smaller innovations, within these agendas we could miss out on long-term transformation.

2. Not all innovations are created equal. Policymakers should identify and adopt the critical innovations that enhance the rules of the game and produce long-term policy and economic transformation.

The crystallization of the paradigms brought by some incremental innovations, such as the structural adjustment programs, combined with a new favorable international context party explains the fast-growing performance of some African economies in the beginning of the 21st century compared to the “permanent crisis” of the previous century. In Emerging Africa, economist Steve Radelet considers five characteristics shared by most African outperformers: stronger economic management, the rise of democracies, the end of the debt crisis, the introduction of new technologies, and the emergence of new and more accountable leaders. I support this argument in a short note—Is Africa Rising?—considering that “economic, business, and political reforms have created conditions for sustainable economic growth and development,” despite the challenges that must be addressed.

Given the attacks on the “Africa Rising” narrative following the recent slowdown of some African economies, Brahima Coulibaly, director of the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings, argues that the continent is, indeed, still rising. He identifies the improvements of the economic and business environments, the increasing strength of institutions, governance, and accountability, as well as the important role of information and communication technologies, especially in unleashing innovation and entrepreneurship, as critical factors showing that Africa is still rising.

Thus, the critical innovations that structurally enhance the rules of the game are contributing to Africa’s success. Understanding them is important for explaining the origin, evolution, and prospects of key economic, development, and continental institutions and strategies such as NEPAD, Agenda 2063, and the African Union reforms, and working to help the continent face its major challenges and contribute to its prosperity.

3. In order to reduce the gap between policy formulation goals and implementation outcomes, policymakers should structure the mechanisms of implementation with institutional designs that ensure the highest level of accountability and transparency.

Top-down policy implementation models provide an authoritative starting point for identifying the traceability of the problem and structure for implementation, as well as non-statutory variables affecting implementation. Such models advise policymakers to adopt clear and consistent goals, to limit the extent of change necessary, to place responsibility for implementation in an agency sympathetic with the policy’s goals, and regularly to neglect prior context and political aspects—as if the implementation process were only a matter of administrative function that depends solely on the availability of resources.

Bottom-up policy implementation models instead view policy from the perspective of the target population and the service deliverers. These models are based on the belief that central decisionmaking is poorly adapted to local conditions and that flexibility is important for reaching goals. They are usually criticized as overemphasizing local autonomy and favoring administrative accountability rather than democratic processes and policy leaders’ ability to structure local behaviors. Between the two extremes, Loyola University Professor Richard Matland proposes a hybrid model that systematizes the policy implementation process by connecting levels of policy conflict and policy ambiguity.

In my book, I show that successful implementation of an economic policy could be determined at its conception, because it depends on the forms, mechanisms, and scope of innovation in development strategies. The dynamics among international, regional, and local actors, as well as the level of convergence between ideational (economic paradigms) and strategic (interest, power, and funding) variables, and the quality of the implementation structure and leadership will also play a key role.

For example, to improve the prospects of successful implementation of Agenda 2063 and the SDGs in Africa, leaders should adopt institutional innovations that will structure the delivery of development and economic policies with tangible public goals and regular monitoring and adjusting. The mechanism of accountability should also be clearly identified, hosted in the highest office (head of state or of government), and overseen by institutions of horizontal accountability.

Innovate or fail

To improve the prospects of successful implementation of Agenda 2063 and the SDGs in Africa, leaders should make the difficult choices today, not tomorrow, that will advance tomorrow’s prosperity.

My book offers the most comprehensive analysis of the formulation of more than half a century of post-colonial development strategies in Africa, with an original explanation of policy innovations and the involvement of international, regional, and national actors in multiple processes. The contributions to advancing knowledge and real-world problem solving are empirical, theoretical, methodological, and practical. Taking an interest in neglected subjects is all the more important since innovations—whether minor or major—often give rise to great political, economic, and social innovations and transformations.

By Geoffrey Gertz, Homi Kharas, John McArthur, Lorenz Noe

The world is off track to meet its own goal of ending hunger by 2030, and it’s not clear if anyone in power will ever be held accountable for the shortfall.

Just over two years ago, the international community committed to ending hunger as the second of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since then, there have been a few individual successes and reforms, but there is little overall evidence that developed and developing country governments are mobilizing to make the end of hunger a reality. If anything, the goal is slipping further from view.

This note, part of the Ending Rural Hunger project at the Brookings Institution, provides a brief overview of major developments in food and nutrition security (FNS) over the last year. It is accompanied by the release of the revised and updated Ending Rural Hunger database, available at endingruralhunger.org, which allows users to dig into the details on the state of rural hunger in 152 developing countries and the international and domestic actions of 29 developed countries in support of global FNS.

The takeaway from this analysis is that without stronger accountability systems, we are unlikely to see the policy improvements and increased investments that will be needed to achieve SDG2.

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By Ibrahima Hathie, Boubacar Seydi, Lamine Samaké, Suwadu Sakho-Jimbira

In June 2014, at the 23rd Ordinary Session of the Summit of the African Union, African countries signed the Malabo Declaration, pledging to eliminate hunger in Africa by 2025. Efforts to achieve this objective focus on reducing child malnutrition, specifically decreasing stunting of under-5 children to 10 percent and underweight children to 5 percent within the decade. Similarly, Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) is dedicated to the elimination of hunger in all its forms by 2030. Senegal aligns with both of these agendas as noted in its Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE), which sets food security as one of its top priorities. Its national efforts are further delineated in the National Strategy for Food Security and Resilience (SNSAR).

Using data from the Ending Rural Hunger (ERH) project, the ERH Senegal case study identifies the priority food and nutrition security (FNS) needs of Senegal, analyzes its policies created to fight hunger, examines the resources that support these policies, and finally recommends ways to improve the overall country strategy towards hunger eradication in Senegal.

The analysis shows that Senegal’s food and nutrition insecurity is highly correlated to the quality of food consumption, although food accessibility is also an obstacle. Low dietary diversification, and consequently the high prevalence of child malnutrition, remains a major challenge for the country. Senegal falls among the 10 developing countries with the highest prevalence of anemia in children globally at 79 percent. The rate of under-5 wasting in Senegal is also high at 9.1 percent, exceeding the African average of 7.8 percent (ERH, 2016).

Geography plays a role in Senegal’s FNS

Vulnerability to food security in Senegal varies according to place of residence (urban vs rural), sociodemographic and economic characteristics, and geographic region. Indeed, food and nutrition insecurity is more prevalent among rural populations, smaller rural households (fewer than 10 people), and households headed by women or youth under the age of 40. For instance, 18 percent of children living in rural areas are underweight, while 10 percent in urban areas are. A higher share of children in poor households are underweight (21 percent of children in the poorest quintile compared to 18 percent of children of the wealthiest quintile), and a higher proportion of boys (17 percent) than girls (14 percent) are underweight (DHS, 2015).

Food insecurity is also more prevalent in the southern and eastern regions, despite their natural resource endowments and economic potential. The analysis of food consumption scores by region shows that the southern and eastern departments of Ziguinchor (67.0 percent), Kédougou (56.9 percent), and Kolda (56.3 percent), and Sédhiou (52.3 percent) have relatively high proportions of households whose food consumption is considered poor and limited, compared to the northwest and central regions of Dakar (0 percent), Louga (17.4 percent), and Tambacounda (18.9 percent). Lack of roads and poor quality of transport infrastructure are constraining factors for market access, hurting food security. Instability in the south has also hampered agricultural production in the region.

Agricultural production and environmental shocks threaten Senegal’s food security

Production and food supply are erratic in Senegal due to dependency on rain-fed agriculture, unfavorable climatic conditions, and low water availability. Less than 4 percent of arable land is equipped for irrigation, and Senegal has the highest volatility of food production in sub-Saharan Africa. Senegal also falls far below the sub-Saharan African average for both cereal yields and agricultural value added per worker (ERH, 2016). The average cereal yield in developing countries (2432 kg/ha) is double that of Senegal’s (1157 kg/ha). Similarly, in terms of agricultural value added per worker, Senegal is 10th within West Africa and 22nd in sub-Saharan Africa. To supplement the inadequate domestic production, particularly for cereals and animal products, significant amounts of food are imported to cover the country’s production deficit. Over the period 2009-2011, the dependency ratio on cereal imports was 46.9 percent, indicating that almost half of the cereal requirement is imported.

At the same time, the multidimensional poverty rate is very high for Senegal at 78.6 percent, surpassing the sub-Saharan African average of 73.4 percent. Given that rural households typically spend more than half of their budget on food, they are particularly vulnerable to food production shocks and resulting price shocks. Furthermore, indicators from the ERH database related to environmental shocks show a projected decline in crop yields of 31 percent in Senegal due to climate change, and that 22 percent of land has low soil organic content and high soil erosion. These projections suggest that climate change and land degradation pose a substantial risk to the country in the years ahead.

What policies are in place?

Public authorities have made significant efforts to define strategies to combat food insecurity and malnutrition, as well as provide financing and infrastructure for agricultural policy implementation. Senegal’s government agricultural spending is $60.60 per capita, the fourth-highest in sub-Saharan Africa, which has an average agricultural spending of $22.90 per capita. Despite this accomplishment, progress made in achieving FNS is insufficient, as noted above. High expenditures, combined with food insecurity, suggest inefficiencies and weak control of agricultural expenditures.

So far, productivity gains fail to match the government’s ambitious targets, in part due to institutional inefficiencies embedded in these agricultural support programs. In addition, some studies suggest that agricultural subsidies do not consistently reach their targeted beneficiaries, and the government may overemphasize spending on input supply services, which have short-term effects on production, but not on long-term growth in the sector (IPAR, 2015; Seck, 2016; Cabral, unpublished manuscript). Nevertheless, there have been some noteworthy performances recently in Senegal’s FNS programming. Ongoing and recently established initiatives, including interventions related to rice self-sufficiency, child malnutrition (Nutrition Enhancement Program), and conditional cash transfers and emergency contingency planning (Programme national des bourses de sécurité familiale) show promise in addressing the country’s priority FNS needs.

Moving forward, the government must redesign its FNS policies and better target its beneficiaries (i.e., the most vulnerable populations) to increase the efficiency of its operations. Two policy areas where the government should focus its attention are: (i) increasing agricultural productivity through reallocation of resources towards more targeted investments in infrastructure, research, and human capital for more sustainable gains, and (ii) reducing the high volatility of food production in Senegal and the country’s vulnerability to environmental shocks. The analysis of the state of food and nutrition security in Senegal also shows the need to focus on improving food quality as one of the top priority areas for Senegal. Strengthening the quality of food consumption necessitates targeted interventions to promote dietary diversification and increased consumption of foods high in calories and protein. Given the nutritional gaps in Senegal relative to other African and developing countries, efforts should focus especially on supporting the fight against anemia and reducing the high prevalence of underweight children.

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References

Cabral, F. J. “Bias against public capital, economic growth and poverty: the case of the agricultural sector in Senegal.” Unpublished manuscript.

Ending Rural Hunger (ERH). 2016. Ending Rural Hunger Database. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. https://endingruralhunger.org/.

SE/CNSA, DAPSA, and ANACIM. 2014. “Enquête rurale sur l’Agriculture, la Sécurité alimentaire et la Nutrition 2014 (ERASAN, 2014),” Rapport provisoire de l’enquête ménage. Dakar, Senegal: SE/CNSA.

DHS (Demographic Health Survey). 2015. Enquête Démographique et de Santé Continue (EDS-Continue, 2015). Rockville, Maryland, USA: ANSD/Senegal and ICF.

IPAR. 2015. “Subventions des intrants agricoles au Sénégal : controverses et réalités.” Rapport sur l’état de l’agriculture et du monde rural au Sénégal. Dakar, Senegal: IPAR. https://www.ipar.sn/IMG/pdf/ipar-rapport_agriculture-2015-_p_p_.pdf.

Seck, A. 2016. “Fertilizer subsidy and agricultural productivity in Senegal.” AGRODEP working paper 0024, April. Dakar, Senegal: AGRODEP.

By Homi Kharas, John McArthur

The world is off track to meet its own deadline for ending hunger. For the first time in many years, the estimated number of undernourished people has actually gone up rather than down. It now stands at slightly more than 800 million undernourished people worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. One of the internationally agreed upon Sustainable Development Goals is to get hunger to zero by 2030, so there is a long way to go. Other indicators like stunting in children under five years of age do show modest decline, but on the current course it would still take 42 years to achieve zero stunting.

Clearly, something needs to be done to accelerate the rate of change.

Hunger remains a universal problem. Figure 1 shows results from a Gallup poll taken over the past decade, asking respondents whether there have been times in the past 12 months when they didn’t have enough money to buy food. In low-income countries, the share has gradually increased to around 60 percent. In middle-income countries, it’s stuck around 30 percent. Even in advanced economies, it’s quite high, somewhere near 10 percent. There are about a billion people living in advanced economies, so 10 percent means 100 million people still grapple with food insecurity in high-income countries. Even more striking, there is no evidence of any improvement over the past decade. While the world has become considerably richer, the issue of hunger has not become appreciably smaller.

Figure 1: No progress on self-reported food insecurity

If we focus on the problems in the poorest countries, the issues start with low levels of productivity in rural areas. Sixty-five countries in the world are eking by with average cereal production at less than two tons per hectare, with little recent improvement. Yields are likely much lower for smallholder farmers among whom hunger is concentrated.

In the realm of agricultural policy, unfortunately the FAO agriculture orientation index indicates that things are moving in the wrong direction. There were more non-tariff barriers imposed on agricultural trade last year than the year before. And global agricultural subsidies are still averaging upward of $500 billion a year, which shows that money is being spent on related issues, but not in an efficient or targeted way. One bright spot is a commitment made in Nairobi at the World Trade Organization Ministerial for all advanced countries to eliminate their export subsidies on agricultural goods. In May, Australia became the first country to live up to that commitment. The OECD countries, long infamous for their large agricultural subsidies, are actually bringing these down. But China, which is emerging as a major player in world food markets, has ramped up its level of subsidies (see Figure 2), leaving total subsidies still hovering at nearly half a trillion dollars per year.

Figure 2: Chinese agricultural producer subsidies now equal those of all OECD countries combined

Looking at resources for agriculture, private credit tends to be most crucial. But in looking at data for 70 plus developing countries, overall agricultural credit showed essentially no growth, and there is some evidence that the lack of access to private credit is a worse problem in countries where smallholders are a larger share of the agricultural sector. Similarly, in countries where data are available for government spending, the trends are downward rather than upward. There are some slight increases in commitments and disbursements of overseas development assistance, but these are modest changes.

Figure 3 show the needs (circles) alongside the amounts (bars) that are actually being spent on food and nutrition security per person living in rural areas. In a wide range of countries, total spending on food and nutrition security is less than $10 per person per year. At that level, reductions in hunger are unlikely. But a number of countries are making progress and spending around $300 per person per year. The contrasting dollar numbers give a sense of the scale of resources needed to change trajectories.

Figure 3: FNS needs are highest in countries with least financing

Internationally, food prices have started to come down from their peak, which seems to lead to declining donor commitments to food and nutrition security (see Figure 4). When it comes to official development assistance, the last major commitments were made at the 2009 G-8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, which mostly expired in 2012. No subsequent commitments mean no subsequent accountability.

Figure 4: Donor commitment to food and nutrition security is flagging

In sum, we’ve got a massive global problem, and it’s getting worse. Policies aren’t changing much, and resources are flat. So what can be done?

Better progress requires better accountability. To start, this hinges on better data. Today, the relevant data sets are neither timely nor of high quality. They are regularly being revised and often several years out of date. International organizations can do better in this regard. It is encouraging that a number of them collaborated to produce a State of Food and Nutrition Insecurity this year (incorporating nutrition for the first time), but the report still does not present confidence intervals for data trend estimates, nor systematically review whether policies and resources are adequate for ending hunger. Nor does it identify where the greatest problem areas can learn from other success stories.

Simply writing new food and nutrition security strategies will not solve the problem. Some developing countries already have several strategies. Too often, the problem is that these strategies are not integrated or implemented in any systematic way. This, again, points to the need for time-bound, adequately ambitious, and practical strategies to meet zero hunger targets, including a transparent indication of budget gaps where needed.

Donor countries can also do much more. In 2015, the G-7 countries made a commitment to lift 500 million people out of hunger by 2030. This needs an action plan for implementation, or else the promise becomes hollow. Companies, research bodies, major philanthropies, and civil society actors can also contribute know-how, catalytic resources, and practical experiences with implementation.

The upshot is that if the world is to fulfill its own pledge of ending hunger by 2030, then dramatic improvements in data, policies, resources, and institutional performance are all required. The crucial question then becomes: With only 13 years to go, who will hold themselves and their institutions accountable for the major global deadline at hand?

By Aderibigbe S. Olomola

Putting food and nutrition security into perspective

International efforts are intensifying to end hunger and address the emerging challenge of feeding rapidly increasing populations, especially in the developing world. Globally one out of every three persons is undernourished, overweight, or obese. One in five children under five (or approximately 161 million) is stunted. Many countries lose some of their gross domestic product (GDP) due to undernutrition—up to 11 percent in the hardest-hit African and Asian countries.

In response to global food and nutrition security (FNS) challenges, a number of governments and international organizations have adopted plans and developed policies to improve diets and lifestyles of people around the world. One major effort is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), within which SDG2 explicitly calls to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

In Nigeria, malnutrition, slow progress in reducing hunger, and new socioeconomic challenges highlight the urgent need for more concerted efforts by key stakeholders to address FNS in the country. Nigeria accounts for 14 percent of all annual maternal deaths worldwide and 13 percent of all global deaths of children under age five. The alarming levels of these two indicators, which reflect level of food and nutrition insecurity in a country, are surpassed only by those for India. Moreover, latest reports rank Nigeria first in Africa and third globally on the incidence of malnutrition. Indeed, nearly 13 million Nigerians still suffer from hunger, with wide disparities across geopolitical zones and between urban and rural areas.

The state of food and nutrition security in Nigeria

Between 1990 and 2016, Nigeria made modest achievements in FNS, especially with regard to undernourishment, stunting, and access to potable water (Figure 1). The escalation of insurgency and the displacement of 2.6 million people since 2014 have compounded the country’s challenges. According to the ERH database, Nigeria’s overall FNS needs are less severe than the average African country, although it is still ranked 81 out of 116 developing countries in terms of severity. In addition to its exceptional burden of malnutrition, Nigeria particularly struggles with a low agricultural productivity gap, inadequate access to food, and vulnerability to shocks.

The persistence of food and nutrition insecurity in Nigeria is due to several factors, including rapid urbanization, high population growth, low agricultural productivity, restricted access to education and health services, inadequate supply of basic amenities, poor hygiene and sanitation, limited access to potable water, and poor infant and young child feeding practices.

The Nigerian food and nutrition security policy environment

The social intervention policies of the current administration are wide-ranging and aim to create job opportunities, promote school feeding programs for 5.5 million children, and provide financial support for up to 1 million vulnerable beneficiaries through a conditional cash transfer scheme. All of these interventions, in turn, support the government’s response to FNS needs. Another area of strength in Nigeria is the Zero Hunger Initiative, which organizes the efforts of a multiplicity of partners including state governments and international donors in implementing programs to meet the SDG2 targets. Despite these and other steps, the linkage between policy and FNS needs is still weak, and interventions are often underfunded. There remains a strong need for FNS interventions to sharpen the policy process and create an effective coordination mechanism in order to have more meaningful impact.

Nigeria’s ERH policy score falls below the regional average and ranks 97 out of 116 countries. While policies related to nutrition policies and agricultural pricing and trade distortions are strong, those for rural investment climate, research skills and extension, rural social assistance, and women’s enabling environment are weak. Furthermore, Nigeria’s overall policy environment scores worse than the regional average in terms of corruption, political stability, and the rule of law, due in large part to insurgency and militancy over the past five years and the massive looting of public funds.

Notably, there is also a glaring lack of correspondence between FNS needs and resource flows from domestic and external sources. With regard to resources allocated to addressing FNS needs, domestic public investment in FNS is higher than external flows, including official development assistance and private external investment. However, all the indicators capturing resource flows to FNS are very low, and they all fall below regional average.

Nigeria’s targeted FNS policies and strategies have evolved over time, and in the newest iteration of the agricultural policy is the Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP). Released in August 2016, the APP focuses on food security, job creation, import substitution, and economic diversification. The relaunched National Policy on Food and Nutrition (NPFN), which aims to halve hunger and malnutrition by 2025, has three main goals:

Increase the number of relevant ministries, departments, and agencies at all levels with a functional nutritional unit by 75 percent in 2017.
Identify programs and projects for implementation in the short-, medium- and long-term and design the NPFN to be a 10-year blueprint for eradicating malnutrition to ensure sustainable economic growth and development in the country. This is a departure from previous policies and action plans usually designed for a five-year period.
Mainstream nutrition objectives into social protection and safety net programs of all nutrition-related ministries, departments, and agencies by 2020. It is expected that the institutional restructuring and flexibility in programming of activities will be adequately captured in the budgetary process and commensurate resources will be allocated to achieve the new targets identified in the NPFN.

Policy recommendations

To improve FNS in Nigeria, the government should strive to strengthen policy and institutional frameworks for implementing FNS programs and better target some key priority areas. Specifically, the Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning should establish a platform to accommodate federal, state, and local government collaboration in FNS programs. Likewise, the platform should coordinate development partners, NGOs, CSOs, and relevant committees. Furthermore, the ministry should prepare an investment plan for FNS intervention programs to form the basis for annual budgetary allocations and coordinate with development partners so that financing of FNS intervention programs is not so thinly spread.

Given the prevailing resource constraints, investments in FNS could offer the greatest impact in terms of ending rural hunger if there is a paradigm change in the partnership arrangements involving government, NGOs, CSOs, and development partners. There is need to shift emphasis away from excessive advocacy and politicization of the intervention programs. Budget lines for FNS programs must be prioritized to ensure adequate resource allocation by all partners and timely release of funds to finance relevant programs. Finally, emphasis must be placed on empowering vulnerable groups through non-contributory social protection, lifting them out of poverty, providing health and nutrition facilities in addition to basic amenities in the rural areas, and developing the skills of those implementing FNS programs

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By Roselyne Alphonce

Ending hunger, an ambition enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), specifically SDG2, which focuses on ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030.

In Tanzania, where more than 67 percent of the total population lives in rural areas and reliance on agriculture and agriculture-related activities is a vital source of employment, food is a matter of life and death. And this population is under a high nutrition deficit: Nearly three-quarters of the country’s undernourished and 80 percent of its hungry are found there. By mapping the specific food and nutrition security (FNS) needs and policies in Tanzania, the Ending Rural Hunger (ERH) project identifies gaps and recommends policies for achieving FNS.

Food and nutrition security gaps in Tanzania

Low access to food, high nutritional needs, the agricultural productivity gap, and vulnerability to environmental shocks are the most salient problems facing Tanzania’s rural population. A significant proportion of rural people suffer from undernourishment (39.3 percent), a low average dietary energy intake (33.9 percent), and poverty (26.7 percent). The ERH database shows undernourishment in the country to be even higher than the government’s statistic (81 percent) (Figure 1). Even though Tanzania is food self-sufficient at the national level, food is not accessible to all. Indeed, 34 percent of the population is not able to meet daily caloric requirements. The reasons for this low supply include poverty—Tanzania has high rural poverty and multidimensional poverty rates (Figure 1)—logistical barriers due to poor road networks, and low productivity due to drought, disease, inadequate inputs, and rudimentary technology.

Equally important, Tanzania is also nutrition insecure. Poor availability of diversified foods and poor food utilization due to low nutrition knowledge confront the country’s rural population. As a result, high rates of malnutrition are observed, especially among children under five, leading to above-average national malnutrition rates compared to other countries in the region. According to the ERH database, Tanzania receives a score of 90—where 100 represents the greatest need—on average protein supply needs and 59 on calories extracted from staples as a percentage of total energy supply. Furthermore, under-five stunting and anemia in children are also prevalent in Tanzania (Figure 2).

Micronutrient deficiencies cost the country around 2.65 percent of GDP (equivalent to $518 million every year). Deficiencies—especially in iron and vitamin A—are highest among women of reproductive age (between 15-49 years) and children under five. In line with findings from the ERH database, 58 percent of children and 45 percent of women are anemic; and 33 percent and 37 percent of children and women, respectively, are deficient in vitamin A.

In terms of agricultural production, the country performs poorly compared to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in cereal productivity, labor productivity, and the ratio in which agricultural land is allocated to family farms. These poor performances often stem from a number of factors, including low investment in research and development and high dependence on rudimentary technology (around 70 percent of Tanzanians still depend on hand hoes for cultivating their crops). Another factor at play is the poor access to improved seeds and fertilizer; in 2016/17 the use of fertilizer was around 19 kilograms per hectare, a rate below the 50 kg/hectare set by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). A third influential factor is poor access to finance in agriculture-related activities; only 8.5 percent of rural households have accessed agricultural loans in recent years.

Regarding vulnerability to environmental shocks, the country faces relatively fewer risks compared to other countries in the region, owing to the fact that the country is endowed with water bodies suitable for irrigation. However, this opportunity is largely unexploited, as much of the agriculture is rain fed (90 percent), and only 450,392 hectares out of 29.4 million hectares of land with the potential for irrigation are actually under irrigation—a situation that exposes the country to volatility in agricultural production and cereal crop yields.

Adequacy of country policies to address food and nutrition needs

Assessing the role of Tanzania’s policies in addressing its food and nutrition security needs is an important aspect of tracking the country’s progress in achieving SDG2. Tanzania does not have a strategy that is solely aimed at achieving SDG2, but rather its strategies are fragmented and embedded in various national and development policies and programs. These strategies can be seen in the Tanzania Development Vision (TDV 2025), which is implemented in five year phases; CAADP, which translates to the Food Security Development Plan (TAFSIP); ASDPI and II; the National Multi-sectoral Nutrition Action Plan (NMNAP), District Agricultural Development Plans (DADPs), Land Tenure Support Programme (LTSP), and the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT).

Despite the efforts to address the country’s poverty, food and nutrition security, and agriculture productivity, current needs are not being met. In-depth interviews with stakeholders identified a mismatch between policy formulation and actual implementation; poor coordination among agriculture-related ministries and between regulatory bodies; and insufficient resource allocation and commitment. Government allocation of resources is also small—many of the agriculture development strategies and programs are donor funded. Other explanations for the large gaps are related to poor infrastructure development—particularly roads, electricity, and irrigation—and low-quality human resources (unskilled labor and low technical know-how).

While many factors contribute to reaching SDG2 by 2030, some interviewees in the Tanzania ERH case study felt that, to be able to close the gaps, the government needs to operate like the private sector (i.e., be profit-oriented) and allow business to drive the agriculture sector.

recommendations

Although Tanzania has a number of strong strategies, programs, and policies relevant for combating rural poverty, hunger, and food and nutrition insecurity, the country has yet to close the gaps and reach SDG2 by 2030. To do so, the Tanzania ERH case study recommends six priority areas:

First, the country must increase access to food and nutrition through:

Food distribution by investing in good road networks;
Education campaigns on food quality/utilization as well as an emphasis on the importance of the different food groups in diets (especially for pregnant women and children);
And social marketing to farmers and small-scale food processors on the importance of supplying nutritious foods through fortification, soil nutrition, and growing bio-fortified crops and different food groups.

Second, Tanzania should aim to reduce vulnerability to environmental shocks in rural areas by increasing the capacity of small-holder farmers to exploit the vast irrigation potential available in the country.

Third, the government and development partners should commit more resources in activities/programs/infrastructure related to boosting agricultural growth.

Fourth, the pace of policy reforms should go hand-in-hand with changes in other issues affecting the economy like demographic changes, climate change, urbanization, and changes in the income distribution.

Fifth, there should be improved coordination and complementarity between related ministries, donor projects, NGOs and between regulatory authorities in the agri-food systems.

Sixth, Tanzania should ensure an up-to-date implementation plan, including regular monitoring and evaluation of the stated plan/programs/strategies and policies.

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By Jenny Perlman Robinson, Molly Curtiss

“Education is the civil rights struggle — the human rights struggle — of our generation: quality education for all. It’s the freedom fight that we’ve got to win.”

In a featured TED Talk released today, Amel Karboul, Secretary General of the Maghreb Economic Forum, Commissioner for the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (Education Commission), and former Minister of Tourism for Tunisia, underscores the true urgency of the global learning crisis. Karboul begins with her own education story; how Tunisia’s first president made the bold decision to invest 20 percent of the national budget in education, expanding access to high quality, free education for millions of young Tunisians, including her. Without similar bold leadership to accelerate progress, Karboul argues, half of the world’s children and youth will be out of school or not learning by 2030.

In this video, Karboul makes a clear case that countries looking to address this learning crisis can and should learn from the “best in the class,” observing and drawing on successes taking place in countries making the fastest education improvements. She highlights the example of Media Center in Brazil, a case study also featured in the Brookings Millions Learning report, which demonstrates how an innovative distance learning model has provided high-quality secondary schooling to 300,000 students living in remote communities in the Amazon since 2007. Karboul acknowledges that identifying what is working is easier than implementing these lessons. In light of this, she highlights how the Education Commission is helping to train country leaders in a new methodology called the “delivery approach” that brings together multi-stakeholders in an education planning and follow up process.

Hoping to contribute to these implementation-related challenges as well, the Center for Universal Education’s Millions Learning Real-time Scaling Labs are taking a similar iterative, adaptive learning approach of collectively addressing technical and political-related challenges in scaling quality education initiatives.

By Christina Kwauk, Amanda Braga

This paper draws from evidence of the psychology of learning and theories of gender empowerment to present a framework for girls’ life skills education that links life skills development to wider social change for marginalized girls. The paper offers guidance to program designers and implementers, policymakers, and other girls’ education actors delivering girls’ life skills education programming around the world. The paper first outlines shortcomings in current approaches to girls’ life skills education and then presents the key components and principles of a gender-transformative approach to girls’ life skills education—an approach that goes beyond a focus on individual self-improvement toward a focus on transforming the structures and relations of power perpetuating gender inequality. The paper redefines life skills as a broader set of competencies comprised of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that strengthen over time, across contexts, and through practice and critical reflection. The paper also discusses the important process of translating such competencies into empowered action, and identifies two important mediating factors (opportunity structures and agency) that ultimately influence the outcomes of this process of translation.

Life skills education for marginalized and vulnerable girls around the world is common parlance in the field of girls’ education and in efforts focused on empowering adolescent girls. Research demonstrates that skills like critical thinking, perseverance, and decisionmaking can be important for improving adolescent girls’ education, health, and livelihood outcomes at a time when puberty and the transition to womanhood means an ever-shrinking world defined by strict gender norms, practices, expectations, and opportunities.¹ While there is a consensus on the importance of life skills education, there is less consensus on how to design, deliver, and measure effective and empowering life skills education.

At the heart of this conundrum is a lack of attention to social change. Specifically, practitioners often overlook the dynamic and social processes through which life skills development in the individual girl can actually help girls to transform their life outcomes and circumstances. Underlying this gap are three foundational questions: What is the process through which life skills development translates into empowered action—not just action that falls within or perpetuates the status quo, but action that enables them to pursue choices previously denied to them? What are the mediating factors that facilitate this process of translation? And when in a girl’s life course should programs aim to target life skills development?

These questions have remained unanswered largely due to a lack of clarity around what we mean when we talk about life skills.² A recent review of the literature shows that there are as many definitions of life skills as there are life skills programs (see Appendix 1 for a sample of how girls’ education-focused organizations define life skills).³ Heavy hitters like U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have developed frameworks and provided lists of the specific skills or categories of skills that should be prioritized. These frameworks and lists provide some answers to the question of what life skills are needed.⁴ While some such actors view life skills as a range of protective cognitive, economic, social, and developmental assets,⁵ others have defined them as key sets of information upon which girls may develop the awareness necessary to change their life outcomes. Building on these definitions, we define life skills as the mix of interpersonal, intrapersonal, and cognitive skills (what one has), coupled with knowledge (what one knows) and attitudes (what one believes and values), that constitutes a set of competencies (what one can do) that enable youth to function, thrive, and adapt in their lived realities.

However, the key to moving this work forward is progressing beyond a terminology debate. There needs to be a discussion on the key components and underlying principles of social change for which life skills implementers and policymakers must design. Identifying such core components and principles will enable girls’ life skills practitioners to achieve sustainable transformative outcomes for girls—whatever the definition of life skills or the skills deemed necessary for life. This paper attempts to spark such a discussion by applying evidence, theories, and practice from neuroscience, developmental psychology, and gender empowerment to reconceptualize girls’ life skills education as a process of transformative learning. It proposes a framework that focuses on building the competencies that enable girls (and boys) to not only adapt to and deal with the realities of their gender-unequal environments, but to overcome and transform the obstacles they face in living a successful and meaningful life as equal human beings. In short, we bring science and gender perspectives to the skills discussion to offer a more comprehensive approach to thinking about both the whats and hows of life skills.

Since each life skills implementer operates in a unique context and within distinct program objectives, this paper does not attempt to prescribe an implementation pathway. Rather, it aims to provide life skills implementers with a common framework from which to design holistic life skills programming that purposefully links life skills development to transformational action and social change for girls that is contextually relevant. And while our work is focused on girls, the key components and underlying principles discussed are applicable to life skills programming targeting boys specifically, or marginalized youth in general.

In the sections to follow, we provide an overview of the trends and gaps in girls’ life skills programming before introducing the key components and underlying principles to a transformative approach to girls’ life skills education. These components include life skills—conceptualized as knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs)—as well as factors like opportunity structures and agency that mediate the translation of competencies—conceptualized as networks of KSAs—into empowered action. The paper also emphasizes the continuous, dynamic, and non-linear nature of life skills development, and the interdependent relationship between the individual and her context in determining the possibilities for change in her life outcomes.

Download full paper here

By The Study Group on Global Education, John McArthur

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