Suchergebnisse

Author's introductionWhile teaching about racism can be challenging in a number of respects, the concept of 'racism' is not a particularly difficult concept to teach or to learn. Controversies occur primarily over how or when the concept should be applied, rather than over its basic meaning. The situation can be quite different for extensions of the concept of racism, including 'institutional racism' and a variety of other new racisms. It can often be difficult to convey to students, or even to understand oneself, exactly what authors are referring to by such terms. Addressing how or why the terms are confusing and controversial can potentially add to the confusion and controversy. While I have suggested in the past that a clear understanding of institutional racism will involve understanding the confusions or controversies surrounding the term, this type of pedagogy is not always effective or appreciated. Instructors should carefully consider whether to address institutional racism in undergraduate courses, and if so, how to make the course material as accessible as possible, including time for fielding questions. My own coverage of institutional racism with undergraduates has been motivated in part because textbooks raise the issue in such a manner as appeals to some students, but without effectively defining and explaining the meaning and significance of the term.In my experience, it is very helpful to illustrate the institutional nature of institutional racism with a variety of examples of social institutions which are implicated in reproducing racial inequality (e.g., institutions associated with criminal justice, with education, and with real estate). It is also very helpful to emphasize that institutional racism is claimed most often when no direct racism is apparent. Although slavery was a racist institution, references to institutional racism frequently mean to draw attention to more indirect forms of racism, in contemporary society. Although institutional leaders or staff may be racist, many authors distinguish between the problem of individual racism in institutional contexts ('bad apples') and the problem of institutional racism, which is more subtle and more pervasive. So the concept 'institutional racism' is frequently meant to refer to something more specific than racist institutions, and also something more specific than racism within institutions, getting at the role of many social institutions in the reproduction of racial inequality by means that can appear quite professional and race‐neutral and impersonal.It is important to emphasize to students that they look in any particular source for what the author has to say about the meaning and significance of the term 'institutional racism', or related terms for new racisms. Unfortunately, many authors can employ such terms without clearly addressing their meaning or significance. For students who are up to the challenge, it can be quite effective to start by distinguishing the conventional individualist understanding of racism as a type of belief or motive, from institutional disparate impact by race, the latter defined simply in terms of an institution's unequal racial outcomes (unequal graduation rates, unequal arrest rates, etc.). While institutional disparate impact can be caused by racism, in the conventional sense of racist beliefs or motives, there are other potential explanations for institutional disparate impact on racial minorities, whether in terms of social attributes which can be highly correlated with race, such as family wealth, or in terms of differential rates of behavior across racial categories, as is the case with robbery in the contemporary USA (as acknowledged by a variety of critical race scholars, in light of pronounced statistical differences). Once one has communicated that institutional disparate impact by race may be, but is not necessarily, caused by racist beliefs or motives among institutional leadership or staff, the concept of institutional racism can be introduced. Essentially, the concept of institutional racism is defined in such a manner, for example, by reference to racial inequalities in institutional outcomes, as to blur the distinctions between racism and disparate impact. In this way, institutional disparate impact is reconceived as a new type of racism, putting aside questions about what is going on in the institutions to produce disparate impact, and frequently dismissing appearances of professional personnel and color‐blind policies as misleading or irrelevant. For courses in the social sciences and in law, especially, it can be very effective to suggest that many important questions about the nature of the people and the processes which produce disparate impacts are displaced by the way institutional racism is defined or inferred. By contrast, social science should be interested in studying what is going on in these institutions to produce or reproduce racial inequalities for citizens or clients, and legal scholarship should be asking about legal standards of proof, which often address questions of intent which are not addressed by claims of institutional racism.Focus questionsWhat does 'institutional racism' mean?How is 'institutional racism' different from more conventional and older understandings of racism?Is the term 'institutional racism' useful for the purposes of social criticism?Is the term 'institutional racism' useful for the purposes of social science?Author recommendsCarmichael, Stokely and Charles Hamilton. 1967. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York, NY: Random House.This is the original inspiration of the institutional racism literature and influential more generally on the literature addressing 'new racisms', especially the first chapter, which remains an engaging and relevant discussion despite being dated in some respects.Cashmore, Ellis. 1996. Dictionary of Race and Ethnic Relations 4th ed. New York, NY: Routledge.This provides succinct entries on a variety of relevant terms, including a very respectable entry on 'institutional racism'. It is potentially useful for students and/or as reference material for course/lecture preparation.Feagin, Joe, and Clairece Feagin. 1986. Discrimination American Style: Institutional Racism and Sexism 2nd ed. Malabar, FL: Krieger.This work addresses both institutional racism and sexism, and with substantial discussion of multiple institutional contexts. The second chapter, on institutionalized discrimination, provides one of the most sophisticated social–scientific statements on institutional racism.Leach, Colin. 2005. 'Against the Notion of a "New Racism" '. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 15: 432–445.This article smartly challenges the conventional wisdom that there is a marked historical discontinuity between 'old racism' and 'new racism', and also goes beyond the conventional focus on one national context, suggesting the need for a more historically informed and comparative understanding of racism.Marger, Martin. 2007. Social Inequality: Patterns and Processes 4th ed. McGraw Hill.This textbook provides coverage of social inequality generally, including relations between different social dimensions of inequality. There are two chapters covering racial/ethnic differentiation and racial/ethnic stratification. Importantly, this text covers issues which go well beyond race but are essential for understanding racial inequality, such as stratification and social mobility, and ideology and the legitimation of inequality. Marger's coverage is noteworthy for being both accessible in style and reliable in substance. McGraw Hill can customize textbooks as well through Primis Online (e.g., by publishing versions with only the chapters you will assign, or mixing selected content from different textbooks; e.g., from Marger's text and Newman's text discussed below), often with significant savings, making it more practical to assign readings from multiple sources.Miles, Robert. 1989. Racism. New York, NY: Routledge.This succinct book includes one of the most notable critical discussions of the concept 'institutional racism', as well as providing an important critical perspective linking racism to class relations and capitalism.Newman, David. 2007. Identities and Inequalities: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality. New York: McGraw‐Hill.This is a noteworthy textbook in social inequalities, with a discussion of institutional discrimination (pp. 181–184) which is substantive but accessible for undergraduates.Smith, Robert. 1995. Racism in the Post‐Civil Rights Era: Now You See It, Now You Don't. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Smith provides one of the more sustained and thoughtful discussions of institutional racism in the last generation of scholarship, including crucial attention to matters of class as well as race, and examples across many institutional contexts in the USA.Tonry, Michael. Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America. 1995. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.This book may be of interest as illustrating a critical analysis of institutional disparate impact upon racial minorities, in a manner that attends to important questions of policy analysis frequently overlooked in the 'new racism' literature. Tonry suggests, for example, that the disparate impact of US criminal justice policies upon African Americans is often due more to malign neglect than purposeful discrimination. In this manner, Tonry attends to the same type of problem identified in the new racism literature, namely institutional disparate impact upon racial minorities, but with more attention to what drives institutional policies and practices, and how exactly the relevant institutions and policymakers might be culpable even if racial disparate impact is unintentional. Such an analysis arguably makes for more illuminating, compelling and constructive critical analysis.Video resourcesThe Public Broadcasting Service sells a three‐part documentary from California Newsreel titled 'Race: The Power of an Illusion.' The first 'volume' deals especially with the science of racial categories, the second with American history and society through the 19th century, and the third with 20th century American history and society. Each is just under 1 hour in length. The series is complemented by a very useful companion website (see below) which includes transcripts of the videos, among many other resources. The third 'volume', while not addressing the concept of institutional racism specifically, provides a very accessible and effective lesson about the relevance of race for understanding social inequality in recent US history and society. For purposes of addressing institutional racism, specifically, course instructors may want to build on the third video's coverage of the correlation between racial and class inequalities, including the inter‐generational reproduction of inequalities. This would be an opportunity to discuss the many social disadvantages related to class position and family wealth, and whether disadvantages of an economic nature, which apply to many poor whites and don't apply to many middle class blacks, are examples of 'institutional racism'. Specific institutions and institutional policies are also illustrated, especially immigration and citizenship laws which affected, e.g., South Asian and Japanese immigrants to the USA, and financial and real estate practices of red‐lining and blockbusting, and to a lesser extent 'urban renewal', which have affected African Americans. With respect to real estate, the third video facilitates a discussion comparing different types of racial disadvantage associated with quite different institutional contexts, including blatant racial exclusion in a large suburban housing development, and a variety of practices (red‐lining, blockbusting, white flight) which can have financial rationales or motives while nevertheless reproducing racial inequalities and segregation.Online materialsMost on‐line materials on institutional racism are useful only as examples of common usage, and are susceptible to the same criticisms noted in the article, 'The Neglected Social Psychology of Institutional Racism'.One useful resource which addresses a variety of issues relevant to racism, although not the issue of institutional racism specifically, is the companion web‐site to the three‐part documentary by California Newsreel, 'Race: The Power of an Illusion', made available by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS; http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00‐Home.htm).This site links to a wealth of background readings, which are divided into three categories: science, history, and society, roughly corresponding to the three 'volumes' of the video series, respectively. Generally, readings from the science section can be used to discredit the belief that racial classifications are biological in nature, readings from the history section can be used to instruct students on how to understand racial classifications as historical and social constructions of a political, legal, and ideological nature, and readings in the society section can be used to illustrate the role of a variety of American institutions in causing and perpetuating racial inequality, above and beyond issues of individual racism.Note
* Correspondence address: Kent State University. Email: tjberard@alumni.reed.edu

In May 2015, the IFC Corporate Governance Group called together 40 experts in the field and members of the IFC Corporate Governance Private Sector Advisory Group. These participants explored key changes in international corporate governance standards and codes of best practice in the wake of the recent global financial crisis and how these changes have helped draw corporate attention to sustainability issues. The group found that many issues that became evident regarding banks in the financial crisis, and led to changes in the governance of banks, also have flowed through into broader corporate governance developments. This publication arises from the issues and information from these discussions. Specifically, part A discusses developments from global or regional groups involved in corporate governance. Part B addresses developments in corporate governance practice, and part C looks at developments in corporate governance codes and standards.

This report, developed for policy makers and sector development partners, highlights the manner in which the domestic private sector is successfully participating in the delivery of water and sanitation services in Niger. It outlines the factors for success as well as the challenges that need to be addressed to harness private sector resources and motivation for improved and sustainable services.There is a need to further strengthen the capacities of various rural water supply stakeholders, particularly communes, which contract and supervise the work of the operators. The capacities of operators and users' associations also need to be developed to pursue ensure the operational sustainability of the systems.The technical assistance (TA) described in this Note has, over the past five years, supported the sector's stakeholders' efforts to work in synergy to foster the participation of domestic private entities in the management of rural water supply systems (RWSSs).The purpose of the TA hasbeen to ensure improved operational policy applicationof the PPP frameworks in the context of water supplyand urban sanitation in rural and small towns , which hasnot evolved much over time in relation to urban waterservices. The TA program consisted of training activities,market assessments, and options development studiesto inform decision-making and consensus-building ofdifferent stakeholders on resolving some challenges facingthese subsectors.Opportunities exist for the Government to promote the emerging domestic private operators with a view to raising their level of professionalism for better service delivery.

The portability of social benefits is gaining importance given the increasing share of individuals working at least part of their life outside their home country. Bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) are considered a crucial approach to establishing portability, but the functionality and effectiveness of these agreements have not yet been investigated; thus, important guidance for policy makers in migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries is missing. To shed light on how BSSAs work in practice, this document is part of a series providing information and lessons from studies of portability in four diverse but comparable migration corridors: Austria-Turkey, Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco. A summary policy paper draws broader conclusions and offers overarching policy recommendations. This report looks specifically into the working of the Belgium-Morocco corridor. Findings suggest that the BSSA is broadly working well, with no main substantive issues in the area of pension portability, except for the non-portability of the noncontributory top-up pension and issues with widows' pensions in case of divorce and repudiation, and in health care, the pending introduction of portable health care for retirees with single pensions from the other country. Process issues around information provision in Morocco and automation of information exchange are recognized.

Kazakhstan's gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed in 2014 because of weak demand and the fall in oil prices. Government policies were directed to mitigating the impact of lower oil prices on growth. So far labor market and poverty reduction outcomes do not seem to have been affected by the downturn, thanks to continued job creation, inter-sectoral and geographic mobility, and new employer social arrangements. The same factors that slowed growth in 2014 are also clouding the outlook for the medium term. Trade and transport services will be affected by a knock-on effect from lower mining and industrial exports. However, GDP growth is projected to recover gradually along with oil prices. Continuing the current policy mix of modest fiscal expansion and tight monetary policy will not boost the economy; for the medium term a more neutral monetary policy stance and a more flexible exchange rate regime will more sustainably support growth.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is still dealing with the aftershocks of the global financial crisis that have weakened financial sector asset quality and profitability. System-wide solvency and liquidity indicators appear broadly sound, but significant pockets of vulnerability exist among domestically-owned banks. Banking and insurance oversight have improved since the 2006 financial sector assessment program (FSAP), but a number of important shortcomings in some segments remain. Decisive and immediate actions to deal with weak banks are critical for preserving financial stability. The legal framework governing creditor and debtor relationships is comprehensive, however neither debt resolution, businesses reorganization, nor bankruptcy liquidation work effectively. The financial reporting framework has improved recently and is substantially aligned with the acquis communautaire and harmonized between the two entities. Governance processes of state-owned banks reveal a number of concerns. There is a need to further strengthen the supervisory board selection process and internal audit functions of state banks. The Development Bank of the Federation of BiH is only partially supervised by the Banking Agency of the Federation of BiH (FBA). Specific strategies and exit plans for the Republika Srpska (RS) government's support of the financial sector are undefined.

Recent studies in the DRC tend to focus on human rights abuses or on the status of women, however few investigations examine the link between mining and sexual violence. There is a dearth of research specifically into the gender dimensions of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) as a means to economic security for both men and women. Further, there has been insufficient analysis of the real and potential threats to women's human rights in the artisanal mining sector in DRC. Once these threats are identified, governmental and other partners can be informed as to protective and restorative actions they can take to assure the rights of vulnerable groups within mining communities. With improved understanding of the vulnerabilities, opportunities, and human rights threats facing women in conflict-affected small-scale mining areas, governmental and NGO partners can be better informed both how to prevent violations of rights, as well as how to promote rights and improve economic and social outcomes for women and communities. The ASM sector has been noted as a significant element in the ongoing conflict in DRC, with particularly negative implications for women, but also has the potential to lead to considerable economic gains. The objectives of the study will be to: (i) identify the key gender dimensions of ASM in the Kivus, particularly in terms of how conflict exacerbates or changes what is already known about the gender dimensions of ASM and to understand the human rights issues facing women; (ii) identify specific sources of gendered vulnerability to human rights abuses within AMS communities and identify ways to address these vulnerabilities; and (iii) identify methodologies of resilience or positive coping in communities.

Liberia had an estimated 4.3 million hectares of forests in 2011, comprising approximately 50 percent of Liberia's landmass. These forests support very high levels of biodiversity, provide a wide range of ecosystem services (for example, bush meat, medicines, construction materials, and charcoal), and generate employment and revenue from commercial and chainsaw logging. Encouraging inward investment while striking a sound balance between different interests, respecting the legal and customary rights of local people, and conserving biodiversity represents a major challenge. This project focuses on the mining sector, which has the potential to become a significant engine for growth and broader-based development. It explores the feasibility of implementing a national biodiversity offset scheme in Liberia to help minimize adverse impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services resulting from mining. A Liberian national offset scheme will entail the application of a common methodology to ensure that conservation benefits are at least equivalent to biodiversity losses due to mining investments. The report is presented in seven chapters. Chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two discusses the conservation imperatives for Liberia and conveys a sense of the quality and extent of biodiversity within Liberia. Chapter three describes the challenge of securing conservation outcomes in Liberia as well as the prevalence of threats to biodiversity. Chapter four discusses the potential for biodiversity offsets to help secure conservation outcomes. Chapter five covers the legal, policy, and institutional framework in support of biodiversity offsets. Chapter six discusses the methodological aspects of implementing a national biodiversity offset scheme, together with the challenges of securing and effectively managing sources of funding. Chapter seven summarizes the report's suggested next steps to implement a road map for biodiversity offsets in Liberia.

To evaluate and reflect the sustainability of services in the region, an overall sector maturity assessment was done taking into account four main dimensions: access to services, quality of services, efficiency of services, and financing of services. Each of these dimensions is measured through three simple and objective indicators. For each indicator, best practice values are established by looking at the best performers in the region, and countries closest to those best performers are deemed to have a more mature sector. A more complete description of the methodology to assess the sector maturity is included in the annex of the state of the sector regional report from the Danube Water Program. The outcomes of this assessment for the Austrian water sector are presented, which also shows average and best practices in the Danube region. The Austrian sector maturity score is 96, which is significantly higher than the Danube average maturity of 64, and the highest score in the region. The assessment shows that, on average, the country performs very well in terms of access to piped water and flushes toilet, wastewater treatment coverage, customer satisfaction, continuity of service, wastewater compliance, collection ratio, and nonrevenue water.

To evaluate the sustainability of services in the region, an overall sector sustainability assessment was done taking into account four main dimensions: access to services, quality of services, efficiency of services, and financing of services. Each of these dimensions is measured through three simple and objective indicators. For each indicator, best practice values are established by looking at the best performers in the region, and countries closest to those best performers are deemed to have a more mature sector. A more complete description of the methodology to assess sector sustainability is included in the annex of the state of the sector regional report from the Danube Water Program. The outcomes of this assessment for the FYR Macedonia water sector are presented in Figure 9, which also shows average and best practices in the Danube region. The Macedonian sector sustainability score is 61, which is below the Danube average of 64. The assessment shows that, on average, the country performs well in terms of access to piped water and flush toilets, continuity of service, staffing level, and affordability. The main deficiencies of the FYR Macedonia water sector identified through the sector sustainability assessment are investment level, operating cost ratio, wastewater treatment coverage, and the nonrevenue water level. The main sector challenges are: securing a multiyear investment budget; improving the efficiency of service providers; and implementing fully the existing water laws.

Georgia has an impressive growth record but social vulnerabilities persist. The current government has therefore made spending on social sectors and agriculture a high priority and has launched a decentralization reform to support regional inclusive growth. It remains a challenge to tackle social vulnerabilities within a sustained macroeconomic framework. The government has intensified its efforts to reduce social vulnerability, as evidenced by the increase in social spending from 7.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012, to 9.6 percent in 2014. As a result, the fiscal deficit widened from 2.8 percent of GDP in 2012 to 3.0 percent in 2014. This public expenditure review (PER) analyzes the impact of recent reforms including the social programs that were either introduced or scaled up in 2013. It gives an overview of the recent macroeconomic and fiscal developments, including the fiscal implications of the social programs in chapter one. As requested by the government, it addresses three questions in the rest of the report: (1) has the realignment of spending toward social sectors resulted in better distributional outcomes; (2) have the agriculture support programs been targeted at productivity growth to support real incomes in poor rural regions; and (3) what is the fiscal and equity impact of the ongoing decentralization process? The first question is addressed by combining micro household survey data with administrative fiscal data to analyze the distributional impact of both taxes and government spending on poverty and inequality in Georgia in chapter two. The second question is addressed by comparing the cost of new agriculture programs with their estimated impact on agricultural productivity in chapter three. Finally, the issue of regional inequalities is partially addressed in this report by discussing three different aspects of the current decentralization process: the expected fiscal impact of decentralization, the need to rationalize current capital grant programs to make public investment more effective, and the implications of introducing free preschool education administered at the local government level in chapter four.

The Government of Benin has requested an update of the 2005 Diagnostic Trade Integration Study and has asked the World Bank to take the leading role in this exercise. The update's objectives are to (a) take stock of progress in the mainstreaming of trade in the government's national development strategy and of implementation of the Action Matrix recommendations; (b) complement and deepen the analysis in selected areas; and (c) revise and update the Action Matrix to take account of the evolving context since 2006. The aim of the analysis is to assist the Government of Benin in defining an overall competitiveness strategy for inclusive, job-creating export-led growth in accordance with the key priorities identified in the 2013 Plan Stratégique de Développement du Commerce (PSDC), and to further mainstream trade into the general policy orientation defined by Benin's key policy documents, including the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (GPRSP) update. The DTIS Update (DTISU) offers a diagnosis, analytical framework and action plan, giving trade expansion a key role in the reduction of poverty and vulnerability. As mandated by the Paris Principles, the DTISU's approach is strongly aligned with the MICPME's PSDC (Trade Development Strategy Plan, henceforth TDSP) and draws also from the diagnosis in the Government of Benin's recent poverty assessment (INSAE 2014) as well as the 2011 update of the GPRSP. It emphasizes the linkages between poverty, jobs, and trade with two key objectives: (i) reducing poverty through trade-led growth, and (ii) reducing vulnerability.

Urbanization is occurring rapidly in Melanesia at 3-4 percent per annum. Due to unaffordable land and housing in formal urban areas, new migrants settle on marginal land without formal legal titles ('informal settlements'). These settlements are growing and new settlements are emerging within and on the outskirts of towns and cities across Melanesia, at a rate that outpaces efforts to serve them. Settlements in the Melanesian capitals of Suva, Port Vila, Honiara, and Port Moresby comprise 20 percent-45 percent of the city population and at current urbanization rates will be between 30 percent and 65 percent by 2023. Information about informal settlements is scarce. This report provides a rapid review of water and sanitation services in the informal settlements in and around the capital cities of Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea.

Although keeping bank supervision independent from macroprudential supervision may ensure more checks and balances, placing bank supervision in the central bank could exploit synergies with macroprudential supervision. This paper studies whether placing microprudential supervision of banks, typically the systemic part of the financial system, under the same roof as financial stability policy, typically entrusted to the central bank, can improve financial stability. Specifically, the paper analyzes whether having bank supervision in the central bank mitigated the likelihood of banking crises during 2007–12. The analysis conditions on crisis indicators commonly found in the early-warning models of banking crises, the quality of microprudential supervision, and the quality of macroprudential supervision. The authors find that countries with deeper financial markets and those undergoing rapid financial deepening can better foster financial stability when they put bank supervision in the central bank.

In this contribution we present three case studies of physiologically based toxicokinetic (PBTK) modelling in regulatory risk assessment. (1) Age-dependent lower enzyme expression in the newborn leads to bisphenol A (BPA) blood levels which are near the levels of the tolerated daily intake (TDI) at the oral exposure as calculated by EFSA. (2) Dermal exposure of BPA by receipts, car park tickets, and so forth, contribute to the exposure towards BPA. However, at the present levels of dermal exposure there is no risk for the adult. (3) Dermal exposure towards coumarin via cosmetic products leads to external exposures of two-fold the TDI. PBTK modeling helped to identify liver peak concentration as the metric for liver toxicity. After dermal exposure of twice the TDI, the liver peak concentration was lower than that present after oral exposure with the TDI dose. In the presented cases, PBTK modeling was useful to reach scientifically sound regulatory decisions.