Suchergebnisse

This 2014 Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes in Accounting and Auditing (ROSC A&A) is the second review for Ghana. Its main objectives are to: assess the degree to which the policy recommendations of the 2004 review have been implemented, identify any emerging issues since the last review and develop policy recommendations that, once implemented, would further enhance the quality of financial reporting in the country. While growth has been spurred by favorable commodity prices for gold and cocoa, the start of commercial production of oil and a booming services sector, there is still room for improvement in the business environment, business confidence and financing of the economy. The implementation of the policy recommendations contained in this report will contribute to improved business environment and investor confidence, an essential factor for economic growth.

Social insurance and other arrangements for funding health-care benefits often establish long-term relationships, effectively providing insurance against lasting changes in an individual's health status, engaging in burden-smoothing over the life cycle, and entailing additional elements of redistribution. International portability regarding this type of cover is, therefore, difficult to establish, but at the same time rather important both for the individuals affected and for the health funds involved in any instance of an international change in work place or residence. In this paper, full portability of health-cost cover is taken to mean that mobile individuals can, at a minimum, find comparable continuation of coverage under a different system and that this does not impose external costs or benefits on other members of the systems in the source and destination countries. Both of these aspects needs to be addressed in a meaningful portability framework for health systems, as lacking or incomplete portability may not only lead to significant losses in coverage for an individual who considers becoming mobile which may impede mobility that is otherwise likely to be beneficial. It may also lead to financial losses, or windfall gains, for sources of health-cost funding which can ultimately lead to a detrimental process of risk segmentation across national health systems. Against this background, even the most advanced sets of existing portability rules, such as those agreed upon multilaterally at the EU-level or laid down in bilateral agreements on social protection, appear to be untargeted, inconsistent and therefore potentially harmful, either for migrants or for health funds operated at both ends of the migration process, and hence for other individuals who are covered there.

Violent conflict is the multifaceted and cyclical problem that the international community is trying to grapple with. To date, there has been a clear hierarchy concerning what forms of violence are seen to matter most, with political violence that threatens the state taking pole position. In examining this argument, this paper sets out a number of issues relating to security and justice definitions. It will then examine some of the problems associated with placing conflict into a box-set typology: mass violence associated with war and genocide carries unique features but also spawns new challenges which are often being ignored. The paper will then examine in brief some of the measures used by communities, governmental actors and international partners in contending with violence before outlining some key conclusions and recommendations. In reading this paper two further points need be borne in mind: 1) this does not provide a comprehensive overview of violence and security - that is the role of the World Development Report (WDR) itself, and 2) this paper does not present fresh research, but more an overview, along with the other papers in the security-justice series, of some of the key issues confronting policy makers in the domain of security and development.

The provention consortium was created in February 2000 as a formal partnership between the World Bank, other International Financial Institutions (IFIs), bilateral donor organizations, the insurance sector, the academic community, and civil society. Designed as a think-tank to commission research and to disseminate risk reduction tools, the provention secretariat was to rotate from one partner organization to another. Thus, after three years at the Bank, the secretariat was transferred to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva. The overall goal of provention is to reduce the social, economic, and environmental impacts of natural disasters on vulnerable populations in developing countries in order to alleviate poverty and contribute to sustainable development. This is achieved through (a) forging partnerships; (b) promoting policy; (c) improving practice; and (d) sharing knowledge. Under the Washington-based Secretariat, provention supported four types of activities: applied research studies, pilot and demonstration projects, education and training activities, and workshops and conferences. Provention was repeatedly criticized for its weak governance structure. Therefore, the secretariat commissioned a governance review in 2005. The governance review recommended reactivating the presiding council (PC); replacing the Steering Committee (SC) by a forum to discuss the impact of disasters in developing countries; and creating an Advisory Committee as the main governing body.

This edtion of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) economic developments and prospects reports highlights the recent key economic developments as well as the forces underlying the region's economic outcomes. It analyzes the region's medium term growth prospects given global forecasts, and charts the region?s progress with implementing comprehensive structural reforms needed for longer-term growth. For the third year in a row, MENA enjoyed a spectacular year of growth, buoyed by record high growth rates among the region's oil exporters. As oil prices continued their upward climb, the MENA region grew by an average of 6.0 percent over 2005, up from 5.6 percent over 2004, and compared with average growth of only 3.5 percent over the late 1990s. On an annual basis, MENA's average economic growth over the last three years, at 6.2 percent per year, has been the highest three-year growth period for the region since the late 1970s. MENA's regional growth upturn has not been universally shared, however, and resource poor economies are increasingly feeling the adverse impact of higher oil prices. Growth patterns among oil producers, on the other hand, have been increasingly harmonized, reflecting a trend toward common development strategies. Over the medium term, general conditions for maintaining a solid pace for growth appear promising. The oil shock MENA is experiencing has had important financial spillovers. Over the last few years, MENA has seen an upsurge in financial activity, as abundant liquidity has fed a rapid rise in credit growth, surging stock markets, and a booming real estate sector. A troubling aspect about MENA's financial markets is the seeming disconnect between the financial sector and the real private economy, despite the appearance of a relatively deep financial sector by macroeconomic indicators. Along with across the board policy reform, MENA economies continue to look to selective industrial policies designed to enhance specific sector competitiveness and growth to complement more broad-based structural reform. Although the views on industrial policy are changing, and a variety of economic justifications can be made for their use, MENA's own unsuccessful history with industrial policies (and the difficulty in transitioning out of them) should serve as a cautious reminder that the most effective policies for promoting growth rely on strategies to create a neutral and internationally competitive business environment.

The debate over work requirements for social programs is hot and heavy. I'll chime in there as I don't think even the Wall Street Journal Editorial pages have stated the issue clearly from an economic point of view.  As usual, it's getting obfuscated in a moral cloud by both sides: How could you be so heartless as to force unfortunate people to work, vs. how immoral it is to subsidize indolence, and value of the "culture" of self-sufficiency. Economics, as usual, offers a straightforward value-free way to think about the issue: Incentives. When you put all our social programs together, low income Americans face roughly 100% marginal tax rates. Earn an extra dollar, lose a dollar of benefits. It's not that simple, of course, with multiple cliffs of infinite tax rates (earn an extra cent, lose a program entirely), and depends on how many and which programs people sign up for. But the order of magnitude is right. The incentive effect is clear: don't work (legally). As Phil Gramm and Mike Solon report, Since 1967, average inflation-adjusted transfer payments to low-income households—the bottom 20%—have grown from $9,677 to $45,389. During that same period, the percentage of prime working-age adults in the bottom 20% of income earners who actually worked collapsed from 68% to 36%.36%. The latter number is my main point, we'll get to cost later. Similarly, the WSJ points to  a report by Jonathan Bain and Jonathan Ingram at the Foundation for Government Accountability thatthere are four million able-bodied adults without dependents on food stamps, and three in four don't work at all. Less than 3% work full-time.3%. Incentives are a budget constraint to government policy, hard and immutable. Your feelings about people one way or another do not move the incentives at all. A gift of money with an income phase-out leads people to work less, and to require more gifts of money.  That's just a fact. What to do? One answer is, remove the income phaseouts. Give food stamps, medicaid, housing subsidies,  earned income tax credits, and so forth, to everyone, and don't reduce them with income. Then the disincentive to work is much reduced. (There is still the "income effect," but in my judgement that's a lot smaller for most people in this category.) Rather obviously, that's impractical. Even the US, even if r<g or MMT are true, would run out of money quickly. That's the problem with Universal Basic Income. Even $20,000 x 331 million = $6.6 trillion, essentially the entire federal budget right there, and $20,000 of total support is a lot less than people with $0 income get right now. (Gramm, Ekelund and Early, and Casey Mulligan estimate about $60,000 is the right number here.)  Put another way, to eliminate the work disincentive in the social programs, we would have to jack up marginal tax rates on everyone to such stratospheric levels that nobody works. You can't escape disincentives. So, support for the unfortunate must be limited somehow. That's why we limit it to people below a certain income level. But even if each individual program maintains a reasonable marginal phaseout, they add up across programs, and next thing you know we're back to 100% phase out. Posit that work is still desirable,  to earn some money, to contribute to your fellow citizens, to reduce the need for income assistance, and to build human capital.  (Plus the more ephemeral goals all sides of the debate ascribe to work -- self reliance, life meaning, self-respect, participation in society, and so forth. I promised no moral or sociological arguments, but these values being shared by both sides of the debate, I can make a little exception. Nobody thinks that an entire lifetime of living on a government check, doing nothing but drink take drugs and play video games all day, makes for a desirable society, no matter who they vote for.)  If so, if the social safety net creates a 100% marginal tax rate on work, and if abandoning income phaseouts will bankrupt the state, then we have a problem. Work requirements are an imperfect method to try to replace the incentive to work that social programs eliminate. Our government does this sort of thing all over to transfer income but contain the disincentives: Subsidize gas, and then regulate against its use for example. It is inefficient, as you can tell from the brouhaha. It's much more efficient to get people to work by saying "if you earn a dollar, you can keep it," rather than "if you earn a dollar we'll take it away from you but we're going to force you to work." As the WSJ details here and often, the rules are complex, and people and governments game them. Just who should work? Progressives will quickly find a sick single mother taking care of elderly parents and commuting to some horrible fast food job who falls through the cracks, and they are right. Rules and bureaucracies are very rough substitutes for market incentives. More importantly, if you're working for money, you find the best job you can, you work hard, you look for better opportunities. If you're working to satisfy a bureaucratic work requirement in the face of a 100% tax rate, you find the easiest job you can, you don't care about the money and thereby the social productivity of the work, and you do as little as possible. So I'm not defending work requirements as a perfect offset to a 100% marginal tax rate. But they are there for a reason, as a very rough offset to some of the huge disincentives that means-tested programs pose. The point today is that we should start to understand and debate work requirements in this framework. If you're going to remove market incentives, you need some replacement. By the way, supposedly socialist Europe, after its experience with "the dole" in the early 1990s, is much more heard-hearted about these sorts of incentives than we are. Progressives who think we should both emulate nordic countries and also expand our safety net should go look at nordic countries. Is there a better way? I've long played with the idea of limiting help by time rather than by income. That's how unemployment insurance works. We understand that replacing people's paycheck forever if they lose their job has bad incentive effects. Unemployment is understood as a temporary misfortune, and understanding the incentives, you get unemployment checks for a limited amount of time. Could not many other programs aimed at misfortune also be limited by time -- but then allow you to keep each extra dollar of earnings? Perhaps even unemployment should be a fixed amount of time, and you can keep receiving it for the full (normally) 26 weeks even if you get a job. The trouble with that, of course, is that some people will not get their acts together in the required time, and then you have to be heartless. But is it not just as heartless to say to a person who had been on food stamps, earned income tax credit, social security disability and housing voucher, "well, congrats on getting  a job, and a good one, that pays $60,000 per year. Now we're taking away all your benefits. Enjoy the $1?" Also, the safety net does include a detailed bureaucracy to determine who is needy. Disability, unemployment, and so forth look hard at these issues. Replicating that with a different set of rules for each program seems mighty wasteful. Another wild idea: Good economists all understand that consumption, not income, is the right measure of well being. That's why consumption taxes are a good idea, and we should measure consumption diversity not income diversity. (I don't use the word "inequality" anymore as it prejudices the right answer.) One advantage of a consumption tax is that it would be easier to condition benefits on consumption rather than income. If you work and save the results, you can keep your benefits. One last point, which maybe should be the first point. It is a bit scandalous that income phase outs in social programs take away benefits based on market income, but not social program income. If you have food stamps and earn an extra $10,000 of income, you can lose your foods stamps. If you get housing worth $10,000, you don't lose anything. Ditto in the entire social program system. This is an immense distortion towards putting effort into obtaining more social programs rather than working. Phasing out based on consumption, including cash and non cash benefits, would make a lot more sense. But one could phase out benefits based on which other benefits you receive too. Disincentives come from the social program and tax system overall, and any hope of continuing disincentives and saving money must take a similar integrated system approach. The argument also is over how much money the programs cost. That leads to "how could you be so heartless" vs. "but the country will go broke," also going nowhere. A focus on incentives offers the way out. Fix the incentives, and we end up helping people who need it a lot better, we end up with a lot fewer people who need help, and spend a lot less money. Win win win. There is no clean answer. A main lesson of economics is that there is always a tradeoff between help and disincentives, between insurance and moral hazard. We can make this tradeoff a lot more efficient than it is, but we can't totally eliminate the tradeoff. The bottom line remains, this discussion would be a lot more productive discussion if we talked about the constraint posed by incentives, rather than the usual moral mudslinging.    Update:So work requirements are a little tightened, but not if you have Medicaid. WTF? Medicaid is limited by income. The incentive spaghetti here would be fun to unravel. Of course, we have an  additional reason to stay below the income cap for Medicaid. We have an additional incentive to sign up for Medicaid, which may be the idea here. "Get a job, lose your food stamps, or sign up for this free government program." Hmm. Feel free to riff on this one in the comments...   

Tutkimuskohteena Emmanuel Macron on mielenkiintoinen ja jopa historiallinen hahmo. Macron oli valituksi tullessaan Ranskan nuorin johtaja Napoleon Bonaparten jälkeen. Macron oli niin ikään kokematon ja lähes tuntematon poliitikko, joka oli asettunut ensimmäistä kertaa ehdolle ylipäätänsä missään vaaleissa ja joka valittiin ensimmäisenä kansanliikkeen ehdokkaana Ranskan viidennen tasavallan kahdeksanneksi presidentiksi. Macronin vaalivoittojen jälkeen Ranskan vanhat mahtipuolueet tasavaltalaiset ja sosialistit olivat menettäneet täydellisesti asemansa maan tosiasiallisina hallitsijoina. Lyhyesti sanottuna: Macron toteutti täydellisen demokraattisen vallankaappauksen, jollaista kukaan ei ollut kyennyt ennakoimaan vielä vuotta aikaisemmin. Tässä lyhyesti faktat, jotka innoittivat minua tekemään väitöstutkimuksen Macronista liittyen nimenomaan hänen politiikkaansa ja poliittiseen ajatteluunsa. Varsinaisesta vaalitutkimuksesta ei siis ole kysymys, koska minua kiinnosti päästä kiinni eniten Macronin politiikan ja arvomaailman ydinkysymyksiin. Väitöskirjani nimen otsikko Ideologioiden tuolla puolen? perustui useisiin ristiriitaisiin näkemyksiin, jotka olivat ympäröivät presidenttiä koko hänen verraten lyhyen poliittisen uransa ajan. Äärivasemmisto ja äärioikeisto näkivät Macronin ehdokkaana ja poliitikkona, joka edusti uusliberalismia ja hallitsematonta globalisaatiota, jossa suuryritysten ja EU:n edut olivat etusijalla Ranskan kansallisten etujen sijaan. Macronia on myös kuvailtu populismiin taipuvaiseksi ideologialtaan ohueksi poliitikoksi, jonka kritiikki vanhojen poliittisten puolueiden ja poliitikkojen edustamaa elitismiä kohtaan ei ollut uskottavaa. Maltillinen oikeisto puolestaan kommentoi Macronia vuoden 2017 vaalien aikana presidentti Francois Hollanden epäonnistuneen hallinnon jatkeena ja edustajana. Keltaliiviliikkeen mielenosoituksissa Macronia syytettiin myös rikkaiden presidentiksi, joka oli unohtanut tavallisten ranskalaisten arkipäivän ongelmat tarjoten avokätisiä verohelpotuksia jo ennestään varakkaille kansalaisille ja yrityksille. Koska ristiriitoja oli huomattavan paljon jo pelkästään Macronin vastustajien suunnalta, oli aiheellista pohtia voiko Emmanuel Macronia arvioida perinteisellä oikeisto–vasemmisto ulottuvuudella vai pitäisikö häntä sen sijaan lähestyä kokonaan uudella tavalla? Tämä on toinen syy, miksi nimesin tutkimukseni ensimmäisiksi sanoiksi jo mainitun Ideologioiden tuolla puolen. Edellä mainittujen väitteiden ja näkemysten perusteella lähtökohtani oli pohtia Macronin politiikkaa ja ajattelua perinteisen ja dogmaattisen tavan sijaan tavalla, joka edustaisi myös Macronin henkilökohtaisia näkemyksiä ja lausuntoja ideologioiden ja politiikan suhteesta. Tässä kohtaa löysin Macronin ajattelussa yhtymäkohdan politiikan teoreetikon Michael Freedenin ajatteluun ideologioista, liberalismista ja niiden merkityksestä nykyisessä maailmassa ja politiikassa. Edellä mainittuihin seikkoihin perustuen, oli luonnollista, että lähestyisin Macronin politiikkaa pääosin retorisen analyysin avulla. Retorinen analyysi oli luonnollinen valinta myös sen vuoksi, koska suurin osa tutkimusaineistosta oli Macronin kampanjan aikana ja valituksi tulemisen jälkeen pitämiä puheita ja muita julkisia kannanottoja. Toinen tärkeä syy menetelmäni takana oli luonnollisesti itse ranskalainen poliittinen kulttuuri ja historia. Ranskassa politiikassa on aina korostunut poliitikon ja varsinkin presidentin kyky esiintyä ja käyttää erilaisia retorisia keinoja vakuuttaessaan kansalaiset vaalien aikana, mutta myös vaalien jälkeen. Edellä mainitut taidot ovat olleet myös poliittisen menestyksen ja uskottavuuden perusedellytys. Tutkimuksen kaksi tärkeintä teoriaa ovat saksalaisen politiikantutkijan ja sosiologin Ulrich Beckin luoma riskiyhteiskunta, jota seuraa Anthony Giddensin luoma kolmannen tien poliittinen teoria. Beckin globaali näkemys oli, että vanhat perinteiset instituutiot (kirkko, poliittiset puolueet, perhe, ammatit) ja niiden asema ovat rapautuneet, mikä on lisännyt epävarmuutta esimerkiksi työmarkkinoille ja kansalaisten henkilökohtaiseen elämään liittyen. Beckin teorian mukaan vakituisten työpaikkojen määrä vähentyy edelleen ja erilaiset määräaikaiset ja epätyypilliset työsuhteet yleistyvät tulevaisuudessa entistä enemmän ja vastuu menestymisestä tai menestymättömyydestä on aina selätetty kuitenkin aina yksilölle itselleen. Toinen tärkeä ilmiö liittyy globalisaation ja riskiyhteiskunnan väliseen suhteeseen, jossa päätökset mm. paikallisten työpaikkojen säilymisestä voidaan tehdä tuhansien kilometrien päässä itse tarkasteltavasta maasta. Riski-yhteiskunnan myötä globaaliksi ilmiöksi on tullut myös edelleen kasvanut riski ajautua työttömyyteen, ja tämä koskee myös useita akateemisia ammatteja. Kolmannen tien politiikan teoria oli luonnollinen valinta tutkimukselleni, koska Macronin poliittinen ajattelu perustui kolmeen kolmannen tien keskeiseen pilariin, joissa työ, yrittäjyys ja henkilökohtainen vastuu olivat politiikan lähtökohtia yhdessä markkina myönteisen ajattelun kanssa. Macron siis haastoi myös perinteisen ranskalaisen etatistisen eli valtiovetoisen talousajattelun, jossa pro-business-ajattelu hallitsi taloutta ja talousympäristöä ja jossa usein valtio-omisteiset yritykset olivat nauttineet usein valtion avokätisestä tuesta ja asemasta suhteessa pienempiin toimijoihin. Macronin mukaan säännöt tulisi olla kaikille samat ja tämä koski myös digitaalisia jättiläisiä (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple), joiden verovälttelyyn presidentti Macron on halunnut puuttua kovalla kädellä. Edellä mainittujen yksityiskohtien perusteella Macronin politiikka lähestyi Britannian entisen pääministerin Tony Blairin (1997–2007) politiikkaa, jossa kolmannen tien politiikan teoria muodosti keskeisen New Labourin ja Blairin poliittisen ja ideologisen sisällön. Macron halusi myös puuttua ranskalaisen yhteiskunnan ruohonjuuritason epäkohtiin, jotka ovat aiheuttaneet paljon negatiivisia seurauksia viimeisen kolmen vuosikymmenen aikana. Viimeksi mainittuun kuuluu pitkäaikaistyöttömyys, köyhyys ja yhteiskunnallinen syrjäytyminen. Tarkemmin sanottuna ruohonjuuritason ongelmiin puuttuminen tarkoitti sitä, että Ranskan hallitus ja Macronin hallinto olivat valmiita tekemään suuria investointeja peruskoulutukseen ja alueille, jotka olivat kärsineet eniten mm. heikosta opetuksesta ja tuetun opetuksen vähyydestä. Tasavallan presidentti kyseenalaisti myös Ranskan korkeakoulujen nykytilan ja tulokset. Macron oli huolissaan opintojensa keskeyttäneistä opiskelijoista ja hän näki myös, että Ranskassa oli vanhoja elitistisiä instituutioita, kuten ENA (National School of Administration), jotka eivät palvelleet maan etua tulevaisuudessa. Macronin ajattelussa oli myös useita yhtymäkohtia Ranskan myöhäiseen valistukseen ja erityisesti filosofien ja poliitikkojen Francois Guizot'n ja Benjamin Constantin ajatuksiin, joihin Macronin ajattelua peilasin. Macronin, Guizot'n ja Constantin ajatukset koskivat erityisesti työn, koulutuksen ja ammatin roolia yhteiskunnallisen edistyksen takaajana. Myös poliitikkojen rooli eräänlaisena roolimallina kansalaisten edessä yhdisti niin Macronia, kuin Constantia ja Guizot'a toisiinsa. Macron nosti esiin kampanjansa aikana useasti Ranskan poliittisen järjestelmän ongelmat, jossa poliitikot käyttivät hyväkseen järjestelmän porsaanreikiä ajaessaan omia ja intressipiiriensä etuja. Viime vuosituhannen ajattelijoista nostan esiin Ranskan liberaalien kärkinimen Raymond Aronin ja Macronin mentorin Paul Ricœurin. Aronia, Ricœuria ja Macronia yhdisti kiinnostavalla tavalla kriittisyys ideologiota kohtaan ja totuuden ensisijaisuus politiikan keskeisenä hyveenä. ; As an object of research Emmanuel Macron makes an interesting, and even a historic figure. The youngest leader of France since Napoleon Bonaparte, he was an inexperienced and almost unknown politician, when elected as the President of the Republic from neither of the two traditional parties. Emmanuel Macron was a political actor and a candidate of a new unknown political movement, which he founded alone only about a year before the Presidential elections. The name of my dissertation Beyond Ideologies? Risk Society in Emmanuel Macron's Reformist Politics is based on the several contradictory views that have surrounded Macron since the very beginning of Macron's career. The far left and the far right saw Macron as a candidate and politician who represented neoliberalism, and uncontrolled globalisation, in which the interests of big business and interests of the EU had priority instead of the French national interests. Macron has also been described as a politician with a thin ideology prone to populism, whose critique of the elitism represented by the old political parties and politicians was not credible. The moderate right, in turn, commented on Macron during the 2017 election as an extension and representative of President François Hollande's administration. During protests of the Yellow Vest movement, Macron was also accused of being the President of the rich, who had forgotten the everyday problems of ordinary French people and offered generous tax reliefs to the already wealthy citizens and companies. These were the main reasons behind my motivation to study Macron. Given all this controversy it was relevant to ask: is it even possible to evaluate Macron in terms of classical French ideologies or should his politics be approached in a whole new way? That is the second reason why I have named my research first: Beyond Ideologies. Starting point was to reflect on Macron's politics and thinking without resorting to the traditional and dogmatic approaches, in a way which would also represent his personal views and his statements about the relationship between ideologies and politics. Related to the previous it was relevant that I would approach Macron's politics using mainly rhetorical analysis as most of the research material consisted of the speeches and other public declarations Macron made during his campaign, and after he entered into the office in May 2017. The second important reason behind my method was of course the French political culture itself that has always emphasised the politician's ability to use various rhetorical skills and speak well in public debate. The skills have formed a precondition to one's political success and credibility. Two of the most important theories of the research are the risk society created by the German scholar Ulrich Beck and the third way political theory created by Anthony Giddens. Beck's global view was that the fragmentation and lower status of the old institutions (church political parties, family professions) have increased insecurity in the job market and in citizens' lives as the share of permanent jobs has decreased. At the same time the risk of unemployment has increased, and this concerns even academic professions. Third way theory was a natural choice as Macron was for example keen on using public money and investments on basic education and various internships programmes. Education policies were directed especially at suburban areas where the societal challenges were the most difficult. Macron's politics resembled the former Prime Minister of UK Tony Blair's politics where the third way politics was a leading political doctrine. Macron was also keen to intervene into various grass root grievances of French society which have caused a lot of negative consequences during the last three decades such as long term unemployment, poverty and social exclusion. In addition to the French government and Macron's administration making huge investments in basic education. The President of the Republic also questioned the current status and the current results of French higher education. Macron was concerned of the dropout figures and saw also that there existed old elitist institutions, such as ENA (National School of Administration) that did not serve country's interest. As my research continued it became clear quite soon that Macron's values and the goals he presented for France differed from his predecessors, and there were elements France had not actually faced during the political history of the Fifth Republic. Macron's political thinking was based on three pillars where work, entrepreneurship, and personal responsibility were the starting points together with pro-market thinking. Macron challenged also the traditional French statism thinking where the role of state dominated economic activity. One of the negative features was distorted competition with state-owned companies that had governmental support behind them. Specifically, this meant that these companies were able to receive cheap loans and other financial support guaranteed by the government. Macron wanted to create the same rules policy for all in domestic markets and this applied also to the European level. According to Macron GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) companies' tax evasion should be finished. Finally, I included several confluences from the late French Enlightenment where ideas of the philosophers François Guizot and Benjamin Constant ideas influence Macron's thinking. These ideas concerned especially the role of work, education and politicians role models in front of the citizens. A precondition to the fair and civilised society was openness and accountability. One of the typical problems in France has been how the politicians and political parties have used various loopholes in the political system as they have financed their campaigns.

Background and aims of the research The research for this report was commissioned by the Historical Child Abuse Team of HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS), to inform its response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). Their aim was to enhance HMPPS's institutional memory, and to suggest avenues for improved practice in safeguarding children in custody. The research set out to review the operation of past safeguarding frameworks within what is now known as 'the secure estate for young people'. Research methods The initial research strategy was twofold: to conduct an orienting review of risk factors for institutional abuse using existing research and the reports of child abuse inquiries; and to review which kinds of establishment held children sentenced to custody for criminal offences by the courts, and under what policy and legal frameworks they did so. These reviews framed our consideration of inspection reports, archival records, and other primary records concerning institutions of interest. The latter were selected according to where known allegations of sexual abuse have been made. All were male-only; to ensure that female custody was included in our analysis, we added the small number known to have held girls to the list. Systematic catalogue searches were then carried out to identify relevant records in the two principal repositories used for the study (the Radzinowicz Library in Cambridge and The National Archives). The results of these searches were uneven. Archival records for the earlier period (1960 to the 1990s) were sparse, and some issues and institutions of interest were not well-covered. We therefore adopted a more pragmatic strategy, pursuing 'leads' by browsing the archive catalogues, following cross-references in archival records, drawing inferences about institutions for children using available information (for example, by reviewing how complaints were handled in adult prisons where information was lacking for complaints by children) and turning to academic literature where archival sources lacked information relevant to certain issues. Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were also made to access relevant closed archival records but no files of interest were opened in time for inclusion in the report. The review of records covering the later period (1990s onwards) faced a contrasting challenge: the volume of documents published on secure institutions for children is enormous. Due to the three-month time limit for the whole project, it was not possible to comprehensively review the available material on specific institutions, and we therefore focused on published reviews of the children's secure estate overall, and on overviews of the running of all establishments (such as annual reports and thematic inspection reports). References to specific institutions were then chased up in inspection reports. Summary of key developments in safeguarding in the secure estate Safeguards against abuse from 1960 to the 1990s Changes in the nature and scope of the secure estate (and the youth justice system more generally) during this period were highly complex. Between 1960 and 1998, there was particular turbulence; since 1998 things have stabilised somewhat. The period as a whole, however, remains one in which there have been frequent revisions of institutional aims, management problems, resourcing pressures and cycles of expansion, reorganisation and decline. This turbulence is part of the context for historical abuse; it has not been uncommon, at different times, for institutions to become detached from their original aims, and instead to 'drift', sometimes with the result that the duty of care was diluted or suspended. In general, from 1960 until at least the 1980s, policies of all kinds were ill-developed, and often poorly implemented. Responses to abuse were reactive and often failed to recognise or counteract the potential harms which custody might inflict on children. It was common for staff to use their power in irregular ways, and penal institutions often featured violent cultures, in which victimisation of some inmates by others was routine, and sometimes carried out with the tacit consent of staff. Systems aiming to balance children's interests against those of staff (for example, by enabling them to complain) were often ineffective because they failed to correct the disparities in power that were inherent to institutional life. In penal institutions, complaints could be dangerous to raise: there were significant formal and informal barriers to raising a complaint, and significant risks of formal or informal reprisal from staff members. Investigative procedures were also weak, usually relying on investigation within the institution, or (rarely) external investigation by Boards of Visitors. The independence of Boards from prison authorities was not guaranteed. Arrangements to protect the 'welfare' of children were also hampered by resourcing, and by the narrow definition of the issue: Welfare Officers were, for the majority of this period, probation officers mostly responsible for heavy resettlement caseloads, and with limited time for other tasks. In the care system, checks and balances against abuse were often weak, left the same people and organisations responsible for the administration and oversight of institutions, and led to serious conflicts of interest. By the 1970s and 1980s, secure custody within the care system was developing along different lines to that in penal institutions. New justifications for custody were being advanced: that it was not a deterrent, or a training opportunity, but a form of treatment. These ideals were not always achieved in practice, but they led to a shift in official thinking whereby secure conditions were reframed as a way of meeting children's needs, rather than compelling their compliance. One result was to increase awareness of the risks that could be posed by inadequate safeguards. Catalysts for change, 1990-2000 New discourses and practices regarding child protection emerged in the care system during the 1980s and 90s, most particularly as the result of a series of public inquiries which exposed abuses in residential homes. Increasingly, it was recognised that residential institutions possessed their own risks and were particularly vulnerable to certain characteristic risks of abuse. The new practices were formalised into a single legislative framework by the Children Act 1989, which transformed the regulation of the care system. However, its applicability to children in YOIs was legally uncertain until a High Court ruling in 2002. Legal ambiguity did not prevent observers of the prison system making strong criticisms of YOIs (and later, STCs) a major plank in their prison reform agenda. These criticisms were powerful because they drew on the general rights and protections which the 1989 Act had created for children and which, it could be argued, they were denied in custody. These calls for reform applied the 1989 Act to child imprisonment in novel ways, leading to a 'new orthodoxy' in safeguarding. The implementation of a 'new orthodoxy', 2000-2016 Since 2000, there have been further developments in the policy framework for the secure estate, but also new indications that policies have not been perfectly implemented. Imbalances of supply and demand for places in the secure estate, and a gradual shift towards a more vulnerable and damaged population, have been among the factors making implementation challenging. Even so, some safeguards are undoubtedly more effective than previously. For example, greater controls are applied through staff vetting, and several custodial practices such as restraint and strip-searching have been reassessed in light of children's lived experience of these forms of power. Yet these new policies have also been circumvented in new ways. Abuses have come to light which possess both new features and others familiar from past inquiries. Most fundamentally, the arrival of new safeguarding policies has led to the recognition of forms of abuse which went unrecognised before. This has had an unforeseen effect: it has expanded the boundaries of what can potentially be considered abusive. The outcome of this shift remains unclear. Conclusions The safeguarding of children in secure institutions can only be evaluated fully through close attention to organisational culture, as well as the actions and motivations of 'bad' individuals. Cultural beliefs affect day-to-day decision-making and are not always congruent with what is laid down formally in policy; indeed, in some circumstances culture is used to justify the circumvention or relaxation of standards which are officially sanctioned. This is particularly likely in residential institutions for children, which feature inherent disparities of power. Race and learning difficulties added to vulnerability, though it is unclear whether this resulted in an increased likelihood of sexual abuse. The apparent absence of allegations of sexual abuse in establishments for girls is difficult to explain using the evidence we have reviewed, but does not appear to be because girls in custody were less vulnerable. New safeguarding policies implemented since the 1990s contain their own vulnerabilities and have generated their own forms of illegitimacy. It is difficult for institutions to recognise these. It is a consistent pattern, throughout the history we have reviewed, that abusive practices had often seemed unlikely or unthinkable, but later became visible. Thus while preventive safeguards are, in themselves, important, it is also important that institutions do everything possible to promote trusting, positive relationships between staff members and the children in their care, and to ensure that both staff and children are able to make meaningful challenges to aspects of custodial practice. The size of institutions appears relevant here, as do structures of accountability which avoid excessive formality. It is also important that institutions are open to outside scrutiny. This is not merely a question of regular inspection: it is clear from the historical record that those responsible for scrutinising the secure estate could become acculturated, so that their ideas about what is 'normal' and acceptable began to reflect those of the culture around them. Contemporary arrangements for inspection and oversight need to retain awareness of this risk. Abusive cultures develop largely because it is relatively easy for staff, in the context of organisations with steep power differentials, to present certain practices as justifiable means to legitimate ends. Over the long term, the operational context for the secure estate is always likely to be characterised by fluctuations in resourcing, and imbalances between supply and demand. Shifting priorities (of the sort which have been associated with the development of abusive cultures) are likely always to affect provision. In consequence, cultural blind spots will always be possible, and identifying them will always impinge on the interests of those who hold power. This makes protections for whistleblowers a key measure to protect children against abuse. In short, despite safeguarding policies and frameworks and inspection regimes, the potential for abusive practices to develop must be viewed as evolving, and thus always possible. This points to three final reflections: • the use of custody for children should be limited as far as possible, because of the inherent tensions in residential institutions where there is a marked disparity of power and an element of coercion in the allocation of residents; • there are distinct benefits to historical research in this area, because it enables a long view to be taken on present-day safeguards and abuses, and reveals continuities in the kinds of risks affecting the implementation of safeguards; • child safeguarding must be understood as an ongoing, iterative process, rather than as the attainment of a defined standard of practice. ; The report was commissioned by HM Prison & Probation Service and funding for the project came from them. Their aim was to improve their institutional memory and prepare their evidence to the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse. Further details of the research questions agreed with them can be found in the appendices of the report at page 69.

Madagascar is one of the richest countries when it comes to natural and mineral resources. As is the case in many tropical countries, however, this wealth is bluntly coupled with an ever increasing poverty, where more than 92 % of the 21 million inhabitants are living below $US2 a day. Madagascar has received international aid and conservation interests for years, as part of which, millions of dollars have been donated to the country, but with very little to show for it (Horning 2008). When Madagascar appeared to hit rock bottom in 2009, a political coup d'état took place which led to the international donor community curtailing financial support (Randrianja 2012). During the following years, the transitional government did not receive the international support that the previous government had benefitted from. Here we will analyze the pattern of two cases of natural resource governance, both coinciding with a political event.Case 1 pertains to rosewood: Since 2009, illegal logging and exporting of rosewood has reached unprecedented levels in Madagascar (Schuurman and Lowry 2009, Innes 2010, Randriamalala and Liu 2010) affecting the entire east coast, with highest intensity of pillage in the national parks of Masoala and Marojejy. In 2011, reportedly over 500,000 tons of rosewood were in stocks; discussions among experts at the global table revolved around a solution finding to best deal with these stocks (Randriamalala et al. 2011). However, the issue then went mysteriously silent to a remarkable degree for almost two years. In the meantime, the African Union supported by the international community pushed the current government to organize presidential elections with a first round on 25 October 2013, and the second and final round scheduled for 20 December 2013. Coincidently, in mid 2013 the World Bank requested a "Study to Assess the Options of Disposal of the Illicit Stocks of Rosewood and Ebony"1 issued 31 July 2013 with a deadline for the expressions of interest fixed at 13 August 2013.During the last year, a new phenomenon has emerged: inventoried rosewood logs have slowly but regularly been ferreted out of the depots they were stored in. During the early months of 2013, traffickers from Maroantsetra visited the Masoala peninsula and generously offered 1 million MGA per household to turn a blind eye regarding any rosewood. Simultaneously, large vessels positioned just too far to be seen from any shore, were collecting logs transferred to them at night in smaller boats. Encouraged by the incredulous ineptitude on the part of the local legal authorities, this process has been ongoing, even during daylight hours, with the 'mother ships' eventually even clearly visible from the shores. The timber stocks in the known depots have almost been completely cleared out by now. At the end of September 2013 a petition was suddenly circulated by EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency) bearing the message "Urgent Sign - on To Stop Madagascar Illegal Sale of Massive Stockpiles of Rosewood and Ebony" that many people and international and national NGOs have signed2. Interestingly, the concerns revolved around the estimated value of stocks, whether they were worth US$5 billion or only US$600 million. The question which goes begging is, why is the World Bank suddenly trying to find a legal solution for the stocks, when they de facto have already been removed from Madagascar and transported to Asia? We propose the following hypotheses as some food for thought: (i) There is insufficient information to assess the quantity and value of the remaining stocks. If any stock does indeed remain, it does represent a threat to the natural resources, and in principle, conservation NGOs cannot support the legalizing of the sale of such stocks. This implies that in the past, the legalizing and therefore selling of timber held in stocks represented a threat to the remaining precious trees, i.e., it has led to further illegal logging (Randriamalala and Liu 2010). (ii) The stockpiled timber has already steadily and consistently been exported to China: the government, the conservation community, and the public are all cognizant of this. There is a complex financial arrangement proposed by the international funding agencies and promoters of democracy, to appease all the parties involved in the case of dealing in illegally-felled rosewood3.Hypothesis 1 appears naïve and almost unrealistic, given that the case is well known by all the parties involved. Hypothesis 2 requires a deeper understanding of the financial, legal, and institutional mechanisms involved, since international funding agencies and the World Bank are not allowed to support an illegitimate government (i.e., one which assumed power through a coup d'état). The question which remains alludes to a problem which may be described as "wicked", for lack of a better prescriptive (cf. Rittel and Webber 1973): how can someone make more money from a product which has already been sold?We will try to shed some light by performing a reductio ad absurdum, which entails a step - by - step hypothetical appeasing of every party or individual involved in the rosewood traf­ficking process. To begin with, we ask the question: where do the interests of the various actors, really lie? This may be answered as follows: (i) Some, such as international funding agencies and NGOs seek a 'green' image. (ii) Others wish to be seen as promoters of democracy (western countries). (iii) Some are in a position of being in dire need of funding: they include certain NGOs and the Malagasy government. (iv) Some are lenders of money: these are the funding agencies and foreign governments. (v) There are some seeking to launder money, i.e., timber sellers and buyers.To 'green - wash' the illegally - sourced logs, necessitates the issuance of a CITES permit, something which could be lobbied for by NGOs, who would then receive money from the funding agencies, officially to help them protect the wildlife. On the other hand, timber traders and buyers would thereby legalize their business, and push for the supporting of the required democratic process, i.e., the ongoing elections. Therefore, the value of the legalized stocks of wood would lie in its 'greening - up' of the buyers' profiles, and allow some of the laundered money to flow back to Madagascar so that 'business as usual' could continue.Let's take a step back though: Hypothesis 2 appears to be in the realms of the absurd. The World Bank and other international funding agencies should not take such a risk: despite their interests to support democracy, development and conservation, they should not get involved in the green - washing of illegal timber. Furthermore, international NGOs should never invest effort in lobbying for a CITES permit allowing for sale of illegally logged ebony and rosewood. NGOs are well aware of the risks involved in such a procedure, and legalizing illegally-traded logs could potentially once again open up the forests to further illegal tree felling and trafficking. Which takes us back to square one: the million dollar question that goes begging pertains to the true level of transparency when it comes to the intentions of all parties involved in this process.The second case is on a smaller scale, and concerns wetlands, which are among the most threatened ecosystems in Madagascar (Thieme et al. 2005, Rabearivony et al. 2010).Case 2: Alaotra marshlands, vanishing in a puff of smoke? The Lake Alaotra wetland constitutes the biggest wetland system in Madagascar and is of national importance for its fish and rice production. About 23,000 hectares of marshlands fringe the lake, delivering crucial ecosystem services (water, plant material, fish stock) while hosting unique wildlife such as Hapalemur alaotrensis, the only primate species living constantly in marshland, or the recently described carnivore Salanoia durrelli, also adapted to wetland. International conservation efforts have been ongoing since the 1990s to sustain this wetland biodiversity and ecosystem, leading to the inscription of the entire Alaotra wetland as the third Ramsar site in Madagascar in 2003. The government of Madagascar then acknowledged the system's biodiversity and conservation values by classifying the wetland as a New Protected Area within national law N°381-2007/ MINENVEF/MAEP on 17 January 2007. Though formally protected, there are increasing pressures on this wetland. The region is dominated by rice paddies, with all the terrain already claimed; the marshlands hence represent a future reservoir for rice production. The increasing scarcity in production capacity is further accentuated by changing hydrologic balance and leads to an underproduction of the existing rice fields. This forces resource users further into the remaining marshlands. For example, the number of rice fields within the lakefront (the so called riz de contre-saison) has increased significantly in the past years (Ratsimbazafy et al. In press). The same accounts for the number of fires. According to the same authors, the years 2000 and 2004 have been extreme fire years affecting more than 40% of the entire marshland area. In 2012, the number of fires from October to December exceeded 150 cases (ibid). The year 2013 appears set to break any previous records. According to MWC (Madagascar Wildlife Conservation) and DWCT (Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust), the marshes are being burnt at an unprecedented level with, for example, a few fires affecting several hundred hectares within a few days in October 2013 alone. The local management and monitoring entities such as VOI (Vondron'Olona Ifototra) and CFL (Comité Forestier Local) are hopelessly overwhelmed by the many fires, while national actors such as DWCT and MWC can only gather evidence to describe the breaches of the legal or regulatory framework that are being perpetrated. It is very interesting to note that marsh (and forest) fires have reached a peak during this electoral period, where some political actors have repeatedly been observed promising land in exchange for votes. Alaotra represents a case specifically where actors outside of the system, instigate local communities to burn marshland for the sake of rice production (Ratsimbazafy et al. In press). However it is difficult to judge clearly when the smoke is so heavy over the lake. As is the case with many other governments, the Malagasy government is faced with the challenge of balancing the interests of its citizens, which are often in stark contrast with those of players or parties within the international community. The value of Madagascar's resource richness is measured differently by the different stakeholders, and thus governance of these natural resources has become increasingly more complex, and promises to do so even more in the near future. What constitutes a serious hindrance in sound governance is the fact that many of the processes are difficult to trace and assess due to an evident lack of transparency as discussed in these two cases. To strengthen governance depends first and foremost on the political will of the hosting country to improve its governance system, and hence to accept monitors to maintain observation over its performance. This however, requires a marked stepping up of transparency and accountability. At present, the bleak and questionable scenario painted by the above two cases presented here, seem to imply that for the people of Madagascar, its rich biodiversity may be more of a curse than a blessing.

This report presents an account and evaluation of the Hidden Drop-Out project being implemented in Albania by the 'Development of Education' Association with the support of UNICEF and the backing of the Ministry of Education and Science. The initiative, which was launched in 2001 and piloted in five regions, set out to address the widespread but largely hidden phenomenon, whereby teachers engage in whole-class teaching, and consequently focusing solely on achieving students and ignoring the rest of the class. Such practices lead to a process of disengagement on the part of thousands of pupils in the first cycle at the basic school level, a process that leads to lack of achievement in learning core competencies, and eventually to the abandonment of the school. The report describes the initiative, its design and piloting, the difficulties encountered in implementing it and how such problems were tackled or overcome, particularly with a view to ensuring its sustainability. The report also considers the extent to which the initiative proved to be relevant, effective and efficient, given the specificity of the overall sociocultural and educational environment in which it was introduced, and the broader reform effort in the country. The research methodology used in this review was largely qualitative, with the international consultant spending a two-week period in Tirana, Korçë and Gjirokastër interviewing students, parents, teachers, Principals, deputy Principals, inspectors and Regional Education Directors, and observing classes which were being taught by teachers involved in the project, in schools that were piloting the approach. Interviews were also carried out with key staff from the DoE Association, UNICEF, the Ministry of Education and Science, and several NGO's working in the field of education. Fieldwork was supplemented by desk research, as well as by preliminary data provided by a local consultant on the review team. The report describes the key strategies used by the project in order to address the hidden dropout phenomenon. Focusing on the first cycle of the basic school sector, i.e. Grades 1 to 4, and on two key curricular areas, i.e. Albanian language and Math, the initiative: 1. Trained teachers to design 'Minimum Necessary Learning Objectives' (MNLO's) relating to the learning units for the Grade that they taught. 2. Helped teachers and Principals develop continuous assessment techniques, through the use of 'mini-testing', in order to constantly gauge the extent to which different pupils were mastering the MNLO's, and to keep track of progress or lack of it. 3. Provided teachers with support in the goal of supporting at-risk pupils by initiating peerlearning programmes, and by engaging adult volunteers from the community. 4. Trained Principals in a new approach to annual school planning, ensuring that the process was more open to partnership with teachers and the community, and more focused on learning achievement and learning outcomes. The findings suggest that after four years of piloting, the project has had a positive impact on the pupils, schools and communities were it was implemented. It has also had a broader 'multiplier effect' on several other aspects of educational policy and practice in the country. The achievements and impact of the HDO initiative are detailed in Chapter Four of the report: 1. All qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that there were significant gains in learning achievement for pupils involved in the MNLO approach, and that consequently there were less 'hidden drop-outs' in the pilot schools. 2. The focus on learning outcomes led to a valuing of accountability and transparency, with schools and teachers being more open about the learning objectives that had to be reached, and more willing to facing up to their responsibilities when such objectives had not been attained. 3. Teachers became much more aware of the variegated needs of different learners in their classrooms, and organised their teaching, assessment and homework-setting practices in ways that took account of such difference. 4. Teacher evaluation practices on the part of Principals and inspectors became more supportive and formative in scope, leading teachers to becoming less insular and defensive, and more open to considering alternative ways that could enhance effectiveness. 5. Teachers also found it easier to work together in the planning of MNLO's for their classes, and were prepared to move away from their classroom isolation in order to be pro-active members of a community of reflective practitioners. 6. Teachers and schools developed a heightened awareness of the fact that improved learning achievement for all required the support of other partners, including members of the student body (through peer learning programmes), and members of the wider community. Despite such achievements, the evaluation report also highlights challenges that the project has to face up to in order to reach its goals more effectively. Two types of challenges are considered, those that are internal to the initiative itself, and those that related to the environment and context in which the initiative is embedded. Endogenous challenges include: 1. The difficulties that teachers are finding to cater for the learning needs that are present in a heterogeneous classroom setting. Included in this challenge is the difficulty that teachers tend to face in designing MNLO's and minitests that, while respecting the principle that there are minimum competences that all students must master, nevertheless are articulated in such a way as to take into account of the different abilities in the classroom. 2. The propensity for competency approaches to present knowledge in fragmented ways rather than holistically, leading students to see lessons as a series of isolated, discrete sequences rather than as a part of a network of connected knowledge structured around powerful ideas. 3. The need to develop a more integrated, whole-school approach to educational change, given that piloting in only the first four Grades and in only two curricular areas creates discontinuities of practice that are confusing for teachers and pupils alike. 4. The unintended consequences of the public display of the results of learning outcomes per Grade, and the comparison of these results within and across schools. Such practices tend to perpetrate the belief that achievement is unrelated to school intake, and that schools and teachers, on their own, can completely address injustices that have their origins elsewhere, i.e. in the way resources, power and life-chances are allocated and distributed in Albanian society. 5. The persistence of whole-class, traditional teaching styles among teachers who are involved with the HDO project, to the extent that few seem to be implementing childcentred, joyful forms of learning that are normally associated with primary schooling. 6. The negative impact that the term 'hidden drop-out' can have on pupils thus labelled, given that it reinforces a perception of oneself as a weak student, thus proving damaging to the process of the construction of their selfidentity. Other challenges—that are not the responsibility of those leading the initiative, but which nevertheless need to be addressed if the project is to be successful and replicated on a nationwide basis—include the following: 1. A more unequivocal and enthusiastic support of the project and MNLO approach on the part of the MoES, given that both the DoE Association and its partner UNICEF have completed the phases for which they had responsibility for. While UNICEF will certainly support the MoES in attaining EFA and quality education—through, for instance, promoting whole-school, holistic interventions that build on the experience gained in implementing the HDO project—it now behoves the Ministry to mobilise its resources to take the pilot project to scale. 2. A greater connectivity between the different educational reforms, so that each initiative complements and sustains the other. This is, in large part, the responsibility of the Ministry, given that they have the overall responsibility for the system, and the duty to ensure that the different parts of the mosaic come together in meaningful ways. This is especially important in the case of the HDO project, where the assumption is that teachers are being trained in interactive, learner-centred pedagogies through their involvement in other projects. 3. A more principled appointment of leading staff in directorates and schools, given that political appointees take the place of persons who have received training to implement the HDO project strategies, and that their unwarranted replacement jeopardises the stability and continuity of the initiative, leading to demotivation and disengagement on the part of many. 4. A more clear articulation of the roles and obligations that are proper to the teaching profession, in such a way that inhibits the present practice of expecting extra remuneration for work which, in most countries, would be considered part and parcel of teachers' regular duties. Such expectations can seriously threaten the sustainability of the project, which has hitherto proven itself as low cost, high impact initiative. Recommendations for the future and for the way forward flow naturally from a consideration of the above-mentioned endogenous and exogenous factors. The report concludes that the HDO project is now at a critical stage, when a firm decision has to be made about going beyond the piloting phase to one that is more national in scope. Despite the challenges that the project has to overcome, there is little doubt that the initiative has grown strong roots in educational communities in the country, and that it has developed the breadth of vision, the effective tools, and the legitimacy and credibility that any project aspiring to go to scale must have. As importantly, the HDO initiative has shown that it is sufficiently well-conceived as to promote 'multiplier effects'—in other words, it has the ability to vehicle with it the paradigm shift that is much talked about in Albania, and to help bring about a radical change in outlook that will have an impact on the way educational communities go about their work. UNICEF has gained much experience in supporting the piloting of the initiative, and has much to offer in ensuring that this knowledge is applied in deepening the impact of the project in the pilot schools, and taking it to other regions across the country, and beyond. No project, however, can go to scale without the State's backing and the State's resources. It is the State that, with the strategic help of its international partners, has the capacity to sustain a fledgling initiative that has proven itself, but which now requires major investment so that training programmes can be implemented, and practices that have been piloted in a few schools replicated across all the regions—particularly the poorer and more remote ones. This is particularly important given the fact that Albania is one of 25 countries selected in the framework of the EFA-Fast Track initiative. Vigorous State support in improving, deepening and extending the principles underlying the HDO initiative would certainly assist the government face the major challenges of MDG 2 and EFA-FTI implementation, which are crucial and critical issues for Albanian education in the next decade. ; peer-reviewed

Thank you Chairman I would like to extend a warm welcome to our keynote speakers, David Byrne of the European Commission, Derek Yach from the World Health Organisation, and Paul Quinn representing Congressman Marty Meehan who sends his apologies. When we include the speakers who will address later sessions, this is, undoubtedly, one of the strongest teams that have been assembled on tobacco control in Europe. The very strength of the team underlines what I see as a shift – a very necessary shift – in the way we perceive the tobacco issue. For the last twenty years, we have lived out a paradox. It isnÃ'´t a social side issue. I make no apology for the bluntness of what IÃ'´m saying, and will come back, a little later, to the radicalism I believe we need to bring – nationally – to this issue. For starters, though, I want to lay it on the line that what weÃ'´re talking about is an epidemic as deadly as any suffered by human kind throughout the centuries. Slower than some of those epidemics in its lethal action, perhaps. But an epidemic, nonetheless. According to the World Health Organisation tobacco accounted for just over 3 million annual deaths in 1990, rising to 4.023 million annual deaths in 1998. The numbers of deaths due to tobacco will rise to 8.4 million in 2020 and reach roughly 10 million annually by 2030. This is quite simply ghastly. Tobacco kills. It kills in many different ways. It kills increasing numbers of women. It does its damage directly and indirectly. For children, much of the damage comes from smoking by adults where children live, study, play and work. The very least we should be able to offer every child is breathable air. Air that doesnÃ'´t do them damage. WeÃ'´re now seeing a global public health response to the tobacco epidemic. The Tobacco Free Initiative launched by the World Health Organisation was matched by significant tobacco control initiatives throughout the world. During this conference we will hear about the experiences our speakers had in driving these initiatives. This Tobacco Free Initiative poses unique challenges to our legal frameworks at both national and international levels; in particular it raises challenges about the legal context in which tobacco products are traded and asks questions about the impact of commercial speech especially on children, and the extent of the limitations that should be imposed on it. Politicians, supported by economists and lawyers as well as the medical profession, must continue to explore and develop this context to find innovative ways to wrap public health considerations around the trade in tobacco products – very tightly. We also have the right to demand a totally new paradigm from the tobacco industry. Bluntly, the tobacco industry plays the PR game at its cynical worst. The industry sells its products without regard to the harm these products cause. At the same time, to gain social acceptance, it gives donations, endowments and patronage to high profile events and people. Not good enough. This model of behaviour is no longer acceptable in a modern society. We need one where the industry integrates social responsibility and accountability into its day-to-day activities. We have waited for this change in behaviour from the tobacco industry for many decades. Unfortunately the documents disclosed during litigation in the USA and from other sources make very depressing reading; it is clear from them that any trust society placed in the tobacco industry in the past to address the health problems associated with its products was misplaced. This industry appears to lack the necessary leadership to guide it towards just and responsible action. Instead, it chooses evasion, deception and at times illegal activity to protect its profits at any price and to avoid its responsibilities to society and its customers. It has engaged in elaborate Ã'´spinÃ'´ to generate political tolerance, scientific uncertainty and public acceptance of its products. Legislators must act now. I see no reason why the global community should continue to wait. Effective legal controls must be laid on this errant industry. We should also keep these controls under review at regular intervals and if they are failing to achieve the desired outcomes we should be prepared to amend them. In Ireland, as Minister for Health and Children, I launched a comprehensive tobacco control policy entitled "Towards a Tobacco Free Society". OTT?Excessive?Unrealistic? On the contrary – I believe it to be imperative and inevitable. I honestly hold that, given the range of fatal diseases caused by tobacco use we have little alternative but to pursue the clear objective of creating a tobacco free society. Aiming at a tobacco free society means ensuring public and political opinion are properly informed. It requires help to be given to smokers to break the addiction. It demands that people are protected against environmental tobacco smoke and children are protected from any inducement to experiment with this product. Over the past year we have implemented a number of measures which will support these objectives; we have established an independent Office of Tobacco Control, we have introduced free nicotine replacement therapy for low-income earners, we have extended our existing prohibitions on tobacco advertising to the print media with some minor derogations for international publications. We have raised the legal age at which a person can be sold tobacco products to eighteen years. We have invested substantially more funds in health promotion activities and we have mounted sustained information campaigns. We have engaged in sponsorship arrangements, which are new and innovative for public bodies. I have provided health boards with additional resources to let them mount a sustained inspection and enforcement service. Health boards will engage new Directors of Tobacco Control responsible for coordinating each health boardÃ'´s response and for liasing with the Tobacco Control Agency I set up earlier this year. Most recently, I have published a comprehensive Bill – The Public Health (Tobacco) Bill, 2001. This Bill will, among other things, end all forms of product display and in-store advertising and will require all retailers to register with the new Tobacco Control Agency. Ten packs of cigarettes will be banned and transparent and independent testing procedures of tobacco products will be introduced. Enforcement officers will be given all the necessary powers to ensure there is full compliance with the law. On smoking in public places we will extend the existing areas covered and it is proposed that I, as Minister for Health and Children, will have the powers to introduce further prohibitions in public places such as pubs and the work place. I will also provide for the establishment of a Tobacco Free Council to advise and assist on an ongoing basis. I believe the measures already introduced and those additional ones proposed in the Bill have widespread community support. In fact, youÃ'´re going to hear a detailed presentation from the MRBI which will amply illustrate the extent of this support. The great thing is that the support comes from smokers and non-smokers alike. Bottom line, Ladies and Gentlemen, is that we are at a watershed. As a society (if youÃ'´ll allow me to play with a popular phrase) weÃ'´ve realised itÃ'´s time to Ã'´wake up and smell the cigarettes.Ã'´ Smell them. See them for what they are. And get real about destroying their hold on our people. The MRBI survey makes it clear that the single strongest weapon we have when it comes to preventing the habit among young people is price. Simple as that. Price. Up to now, the fear of inflation has been a real impediment to increasing taxes on tobacco. It sounds a serious, logical argument. Until you take it out and look at it a little more closely. Weigh it, as it were, in two hands. I believe – and I believe this with a great passion – that we must take cigarettes out of the equation we use when awarding wage increases. I am calling on IBEC and ICTU, on employers and trade unions alike, to move away from any kind of tolerance of a trade that is killing our citizens. At one point in industrial history, cigarettes were a staple of the workingmanÃ'´s life. So it was legitimate to include them in the Ã'´basketÃ'´ of goods that goes to make up the Consumer Price Index. It isnÃ'´t legitimate to include them any more. Today, IÃ'´m saying that society collectively must take the step to remove cigarettes from the basket of normality, from the list of elements which constitute necessary consumer spending. IÃ'´m saying: "We can no longer delude ourselves. We must exclude cigarettes from the considerations we address in central wage bargaining. We must price cigarettes out of the reach of the children those cigarettes will kill." Right now, in the monthly Central Statistics Office reports on consumer spending, the figures include cigarettes. But – right down at the bottom of the page – thereÃ'´s another figure. Calculated without including cigarettes. I believe that if we continue to use the first figure as our constant measure, it will be an indictment of us as legislators, as advocates for working people, as public health professionals. If, on the other hand, we move to the use of the second figure, we will be sending out a message of startling clarity to the nation. We will be saying "We donÃ'´t count an addictive, killer drug as part of normal consumer spending." Taking cigarettes out of the basket used to determine the Consumer Price Index will take away the inflation argument. It will not be easy, in its implications for the social partners. But it is morally inescapable. We must do it. Because it will help us stop the killer that is tobacco. If we can do it, we will give so much extra strength to health educators and the new Tobacco Control Association. This new organisation of young people who already have branches in over fifteen counties, is represented here today. The young adults who make up its membership are well placed to advise children of the dangers of tobacco addiction in a way that older generations cannot. It would strengthen their hand if cigarettes move – in price terms – out of the easy reach of our children Finally, I would like to commend so many public health advocates who have shown professional and indeed personal courage in their commitment to this critical public health issue down through the years. We need you to continue to challenge and confront this grave public health problem and to repudiate the questionable science of the tobacco industry. The Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society represents a new and dynamic form of partnership between government and civil society. It will provide an effective platform to engage and mobilise the many different professional and academic skills necessary to guide and challenge us. I wish the conference every success.

Se demuestran las falencias e insuficiencias de los tres títulos tradicionales de imputación de responsabilidad al Estado por las actuaciones judiciales para garantizar el derecho a la indemnidad de los ciudadanos, teniendo en cuenta el rol actual del juez y los postulados teóricos a los cuales debería responder esta institución jurídica. Al confrontar la responsabilidad del Estado por las actividades administrativas y por las actuaciones judiciales, a la luz de las reflexiones sobre los fundamentos teóricos de la responsabilidad civil y de la identidad del juez en el Estado contemporáneo, surge la necesidad de replantear esta institución, con el propósito de que sea expresión de las teorías de la justicia que le subyacen, garantice el derecho a la indemnidad de los ciudadanos y responda a la concepción actual de la judicatura. La estructura del texto consta de tres capítulos teóricos y uno propositivo en el cual se responden las preguntas de investigación planteadas, haciendo uso de la información reseñada al inicio de la investigación. El primer capítulo desarrolla los fundamentos filosóficos y jurídico políticos de la responsabilidad, empleando como método una aproximación teórica conceptual con un componente histórico o contextual, cuya función es la de ser un objetivo investigativo en sí mismo y servir de base para el análisis de las reglas jurisprudenciales expuestas posteriormente, de tal forma que logre llamar la atención sobre la importancia de que el Estado responda equitativamente a los ciudadanos por los daños antijurídicos que le cause con independencia de la rama del poder público que los ocasione, así como sobre las exigencias del Estado social de Derecho a la responsabilidad estatal. El segundo capítulo, denominado "Quién es el juez", empleando la metodología de la primera parte, desarrolla los siguientes aspectos: el rol del juez en los Estados liberal, constitucional y neoconstitucional; los pilares teóricos para develar la identidad del juez en el Estado contemporáneo; y los órganos de cierre en el ordenamiento jurídico colombiano, resaltando el aumento en la importancia de la labor de este sujeto y que las decisiones judiciales son una expresión de los modelos de Estado. En este capítulo se identifica quién es el juez, cómo actúa, cómo se controlan sus actuaciones y de qué forma el Estado asume las consecuencias de estas. Por su parte, el tercer acápite, llamado "Cómo responden el juez y la administración pública", situado en el ordenamiento jurídico colombiano, expone los elementos de la responsabilidad en general, para posteriormente confrontar el desarrollo legal y jurisprudencial de la responsabilidad del Estado por las actuaciones de la administración con la responsabilidad por las actuaciones judiciales, haciendo uso del método comparativo con variables y un componente evolutivo. De esta forma se busca analizar el desempeño de la jurisprudencia; determinar la correspondencia entre la praxis judicial, los fundamentos teóricos y el mandato de indemnidad; y recorrer el camino de la lógica evolutiva de la responsabilidad, según el cual el aumento en las actividades e intervención estatal potencializa la posible causación de daños antijurídicos, como sucede con la creciente importancia del juez en el Estado contemporáneo. Finalmente, el cuarto capítulo, consiste en un diagnóstico cruzado, aplicando a la jurisprudencia las teorías contenidas en los dos primeros capítulos, a raíz de lo cual surgen algunos aspectos propositivos. Este acápite fue titulado "desafíos de la responsabilidad del Estado por las actuaciones judiciales" y se subdivide en tres partes: el análisis de las perspectivas filosóficas que subyacen al desarrollo jurisprudencial de la responsabilidad estatal en Colombia; la explicación de la importancia de que el Estado responda por las actuaciones del juez teniendo en cuenta su identidad en el Estado contemporáneo y los desafíos que ello presenta; y el planteamiento de nuevos escenarios de responsabilidad del Estado juez, distintos a la privación injusta de la libertad, el error judicial y el defectuoso funcionamiento de la administración de justicia. Los desafíos encontrados para el reconocimiento de la responsabilidad del Estado juez son la intangibilidad de la cosa juzgada, la independencia judicial y la responsabilidad de los órganos de cierre de la jurisdicción. De otra parte, los nuevos escenarios de responsabilidad planteados son la responsabilidad por la ejecución de sentencias internacionales, por la adopción de laudos arbitrales y por el cambio de línea jurisprudencial, profundizando en los dos últimos. Con esta propuesta se pretende ajustar la institución estudiada al modelo actual de Estado, respondiendo a fenómenos contemporáneos como la internacionalización del derecho, la privatización de la justicia y la alteración de las fuentes del derecho. ; The lacks and insufficiencies of the three traditional titles for the allocation of responsibility to the State for the legal proceedings in order to guarantee the right to indemnity of the citizens are demonstrated; taking into account the current role of the judge and the theoretical postulates to which this Legal institution should response. When facing the responsibility of the state for the administrative activities and for the legal actions, in the light of the reflections upon the theoretical basis of the civil liability and the identity of the judge in the contemporary State, the need for restating the responsibility of the judge - State arises; with the purpose that this become an expression of the theories of justice that underlie it, guarantees the right to indemnity of the citizens and respond to the current concept of the judiciary The structure of the text consists of three theoretical chapters and a propositional one, in which the research questions are answered. This, using the information referred at the beginning of the research. The first chapter develops the philosophical, legal and political bases of the liability, using as method, a conceptual theoretical approach with a historical or contextual component; which function is to be a research objective itself and serve as a base for the analysis of the jurisprudence rules explained later on; in such a way that it can call the attention about the importance that the state respond equally to the citizens for the wrongful damages that it causes regardless of the branch of public power that cause them, as well as on the exigencies of the Social State of Law to the State liability. The second chapter, called "Who is the judge", using the methodology of the first part, develops the following aspects: the role of the judge in the liberal, constitutional and neoconstitutional states; The theoretical pillars to unveil the identity of the judge in the contemporary state; And the closing bodies in the Colombian legal system, highlighting the increase in the importance of the role of the judge and that the judicial decisions are an expression of the state models. This chapter identifies who the judge is, how he or she acts, how his or her actions are controlled, and the way in which the State assumes the consequences of its actions. As for the third section, called "How the Judge and the Public Administration Respond", located in the Colombian legal system, it exposes the general elements of the responsibility, to confront the legal and jurisprudential development of State responsibility for the actions of the administration with the responsibility for the judicial proceedings, using the comparative method with variables and an evolutionary component. In this way, the aim is to analyze the performance of jurisprudence; to determine the correspondence between judicial praxis, the theoretical foundations and the mandate of indemnity; And to follow the path of the evolutionary logic of responsibility, according to which the increase in activities and state intervention optimize the occurrence of wrongful damages, as with the increasing importance of the judge in the contemporary State. Finally, the fourth chapter consists of a cross-diagnosis, applying to jurisprudence the theories contained in the first two chapters, as a result of which some propositional aspects arise. This section was entitled "Challenges of State Responsibility for Judicial Proceedings" and is divided into three parts: the analysis of the philosophical perspectives that underlie the jurisprudential development of state responsibility in Colombia; The explanation of the importance that the State respond for the actions of the judge, considering its identity in the contemporary State and the challenges that it presents; And the establishment of new scenarios of responsibility of the State-judge, other than the unjust deprivation of freedom, the judicial error and defective functioning of the administration of justice. The challenges encountered for the recognition of the responsibility of the State judge are the intangibility of res iudicata, the judicial independency and the responsibility of the closing bodies of the the jurisdiction. On the other hand, the new scenarios of responsibility presented are the responsibility for the execution of international judgments, for the adoption of arbitration awards and for the change of jurisprudential line, deepening into the last two. This proposal aims to adjust the institution studied to the current state model, responding to contemporary phenomena such as the internationalization of law, the privatization of justice and alteration of the sources of law.

This Country Partnership Framework (CPF) presents the World Bank Group (WBG) program and the associated results framework for Lebanon for the period FY17-FY22. In a fragile and conflict-prone environment, this CPF aims at mitigating the immediate, and potentially long-lasting impact of the Syria crisis on Lebanon, while strengthening state institutions, addressing existing vulnerabilities, and bolstering efforts on longer term development challenges, all through interventions that foster inclusion and shared prosperity. The CPF will work through two focus areas as a way to renew the social contract between the state and the citizens: (i) expand access to and quality of service delivery; and (ii) expand economic opportunities and increase human capital. Through these two focus areas, the WBG will help Lebanon mitigate the economic and social impact of the Syria crisis, safeguard the country's development gains, and enhance the prospects for stability and development in the coming years. The CPF will contribute to strengthening the relationship between the state and its citizens, a critical ingredient for peace and stability. The CPF will contribute to strengthening the relationship between the state and its citizens, a critical ingredient for peace and stability. The CPF benefited from a series of stakeholder consultations, including those held in connection with the Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) and the WBG Gender Strategy.

The World Bank Group has come a long way in supporting structural reforms in its member countries. The most remarkable feature of its long 35 years and continuing journey has been its ability to listen, learn and adjust over time. It learnt relatively quickly that reform ownership is a necessary requirement for countries to support and sustain reforms. At the same time, it realized that reform implementation critically depends on credible institutions and good governance, which are frequently missing in its member countries, particularly the low-income ones. It also noted that over time the structure of reforms for promoting growth and development evolves, reflecting both changes in internal country conditions and a changing global environment. These important realizations are reflected in the evolution of the World Bank Group's policies and practice for supporting structural reforms, and help sustain a culture of learning from experience.

Central America is undergoing an important transition, with urban populations increasingat accelerated speeds, bringing pressing challenges as well as opportunities to boost sustained,inclusive and resilient growth. Today, 59 percent of Central America's population lives in urban areas, but it is expected that within the next generation 7 out of 10 people will live in cities, equivalent to adding 700,000 new urban residents every year. At current rates of urbanization, the region's urban population will double in size by 2050, welcoming over 25 million new urban dwellers, calling for better infrastructure, higher coverage and quality of urban services and greater employment opportunities. As larger numbers of people concentrate in urban areas, Central American governments at the national and local levels face both opportunities and challenges to ensure the prosperity of their country's present and future generations.