The face of global development is changing rapidly, and the CSIS Global Development Monitor seeks to address the complex issues highlighted by the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals. Over a dozen CSIS experts and affiliates examine the role and purpose of official development assistance against a backdrop of global trends, including forced migration, human rights, global health, urban planning, and the rise of competing multilateral development banks. In particular, the essays in this report explore ways in which official donors and key partners, such as the private sector, civil society, and multilateral institutions, can improve livelihoods, strengthen governance, and facilitate access to key resources, including food, energy, and infrastructure.

EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. The globalized era is characterized by a high degree of interconnectedness across borders and continents and this includes human migration. Migration flows have led to new governance challenges and, at times, populist political backlashes. A key driver of migration is environmental conflict and this is only likely to increase with the effects of climate change. Bringing together world-leading researchers from across political science, environmental studies, economics and sociology, this urgent book uses a multifaceted theoretical and methodological approach to delve into core questions and concerns surrounding migration, climate change and conflict, providing invaluable insights into one of the most pressing global issues of our time.

This timely book offers revealing insights into the changing role of China in world governance as exemplified by the Silk Road Initiative, the People’s Republic’s first published major initiative for external affairs. Focusing on various aspects of the Silk Road Initiative, particularly those that are largely neglected in current discussions, including culture and philosophy, finance and investment, environmental protection and social responsibility, judiciary and lawyers, the authors explore a wide range of contexts in which China’s role as an emerging power in international relations and international law is examined. In the current era of ever-increasing populism, protectionism and challenges to globalization, the authors explore the Chinese philosophy underpinning Chinese norms of regional and international development. Bearing in mind the political and economic uncertainties hampering the establishment of such norms, the authors offer crucial insights into how the Silk Road Initiative could or should be developed and regulated.Given its depth of coverage, the book is an indispensable read for anyone interested in the Initiative and its social-legal implications.

This book is the first-ever comprehensive analysis of international law from Global South perspectives with specific reference to Bangladesh. The book not only sheds new light on classical international law concepts, such as statehood, citizenship, and self-determination, but also covers more current issues including Rohingya refugees, climate change, sustainable development, readymade garment workers and crimes against humanity. Written by area specialists, the book explores how international law shaped Bangladesh state practice over the last five decades; how Bangladesh in turn contributed to the development of international law; and the manner in which international law is also used as a hegemonic tool for marginalising less powerful countries like Bangladesh. By analysing stories of an ambivalent relationship between international law and post-colonial states, the book exposes the duality of international law as both a problem-solving tool and as a language of hegemony. Despite its focus on Bangladesh, the book deals with the more general problem of post-colonial states’ problematic relationship with international law and so will be of interest to students and scholars of international law in general, as well as those interested in the Global South and South Asia in particular.

Though mankind has traded tangible goods for millennia, recent technology has changed the fundamentals of trade, in both legitimate and illegal economies. In the past three decades, the most advanced forms of illicit trade have broken with all historical precedents and, as Dark Commerce shows, now operate as if on steroids, tied to computers and social media. In this new world of illicit commerce, which benefits states and diverse participants, trade is impersonal and anonymized, and vast profits are made in short periods with limited accountability to sellers, intermediaries, and purchasers. Louise Shelley examines how new technology, communications, and globalization fuel the exponential growth of dangerous forms of illegal trade--the markets for narcotics and child pornography online, the escalation of sex trafficking through web advertisements, and the sale of endangered species for which revenues total in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The illicit economy exacerbates many of the world's destabilizing phenomena: the perpetuation of conflicts, the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destruction, and environmental degradation and extinction. Shelley explores illicit trade in tangible goods--drugs, human beings, arms, wildlife and timber, fish, antiquities, and ubiquitous counterfeits--and contrasts this with the damaging trade in cyberspace, where intangible commodities cost consumers and organizations billions as they lose identities, bank accounts, access to computer data, and intellectual property.

Over the past 20 years, social scientists, government officials, and investors have expressed mounting interest in the BRICS countries, which include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These countries are widely viewed as both key actors in the global economy and important regional powers. The Political Economy of the BRICS Countries is a three-volume set that aims to address various crucial issues regarding these countries.Volume 1 analyzes whether economic growth in the BRICS countries has been broad-based and promoted equitable economic and social outcomes. The authors examine specific dimensions of growth in these five economies that constrain their ability to act effectively and cohesively in international affairs.Volume 2 considers how the BRICS have affected global economic governance and the international political economy.Volume 3 provides various approaches to economic informality in the BRICS. Moreover, the chapters deal with several connections between informality and important political, economic, and institutional phenomena such as economic globalization and international aid, economic development, political regimes, social capital, political networks and political participation, labor market rules, and social policy preferences.The BRICS countries have attracted rising attention over the past two decades. The volumes provide an in-depth analysis of various key issues regarding these countries and chart a course for future research.

Around the world, 250 million children cannot read, write, or perform basic mathematics. They represent almost 40% of all primary school-aged children. This situation has come to be called the global learning crisis and it is one of the most critical challenges facing the world today. Work to address this situation depends on how it is understood. Typically, the global learning crisis and efforts to improve primary education are defined in relation to two terms: access and quality. This book is focused on the connection between them. Through a mixed-methods case study, it provides detailed, contextualized analysis of Ugandan primary education. As one of the first countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to enact dramatic and far-reaching primary education policy, Uganda serves as a compelling case study. With both quantitative and qualitative data from over 400 Ugandan schools and communities, the book analyzes grade repetition, private primary schools, and school fees, viewing each issue as an illustration of the connection between access to education and education quality. This analysis finds evidence of a positive association, challenging a key assumption that there is a trade-off or disconnect between efforts to improve access to education and efforts to improve education quality. Embracing the complexity of education systems, and focusing on dynamics where improvements in access and quality can be mutually reinforcing, can be a new approach for improving basic education in different contexts around the world.

A fresh appraisal of the nature and significance of the democratic left in the Global South.

In a rapidly changing world, in which religious identities emerge as crucial fault lines in political and public discourse, this volume brings together multiple disciplinary perspectives in order to investigate shifting conceptions of, and commitments to, the ideals of religious pluralism. Spanning theology, sociology, politics and anthropology, the chapters explore various approaches to coexistence, political visions of managing diversity and lived experiences of multireligiosity, in order to examine how modes of religious pluralism are being constructed and contested in different parts of the world. Contributing authors analyse challenges to religious pluralism, as well as innovative kinds of conviviality, that produce meaningful engagements with diversity and shared community life across different social, political and economic settings. This book will be relevant to scholars of religion, community life, social change and politics, and will also be of interest to civil society organisations, NGOs, international agencies and local, regional and national policymakers.

Focusing on pro-poor growth and income poverty, Promoting Pro-Poor Growth: Policy Guidance for Donors identifies binding constraints and offers policies and strategies to address them.