S6 Ep14: Graduation programmes: BRAC’s approach to targeting the ultra-poor
The Graduation approach to helping people to escape from poverty was pioneered in 2002 by BRAC in Bangladesh. Today the approach is used around the world. In more than 20 years, what have we learned about how it works, when it works best, and how to implement it at scale? Shameran Abed, the Executive Director of BRAC International talks to Tim Phillips about how the Graduation approach reaches people that other programmes miss, why it works, and how it can be scaled up to meet needs around the world.
Read the full show notes
The BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative
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34:17
S6 Ep13: Profit shifting hits developing countries hardest
Multinational enterprises in every industry are shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions. These corporate tax havens reduce tax revenues everywhere, but that hits hardest in developing countries where corporate taxes are a larger part of the overall tax take. The International Growth Centre has published a policy toolkit report into corporate tax havens. Ludvig Wier, the author, explains to Tim Phillips how profit shifting works, how a global initiative is reducing the allure of tax havens, and how AI might level the playing field for overstretched developing country tax offices.
Read the full show notes on VoxDev: https://voxdev.org/topic/public-economics/profit-shifting-global-challenge-hitting-developing-countries-hardest
IGC Policy Toolkit: Corporate tax havens and their impact on development
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24:26
S5 Ep4: Development Dialogues: Are vocational training programmes effective?
Vocational training is often seen as a silver bullet for unemployment and poverty, but does the evidence support that view? Why do so many training programs fail to lead to real job opportunities, and are we asking too much of these programs – or maybe the wrong questions entirely? In the latest episode of the collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and VoxDev, host Catherine Cheney is joined by Oriana Bandiera, professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, Stefano Caria, professor of economics at the University of Warwick, and Munshi Sulaiman, Director of Research at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development and a professor in the Master of Development Studies program at BRAC University, to ask what it takes to make job skills programs work.
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37:40
S6 Ep12: Can safe transport unlock women’s labour force participation?
A fundamental part of women’s economic empowerment is helping women who want to work outside the home to find and keep a job. A major part of that decision is ensuring that they can travel to work without fear of stigma, harassment or violence on public transport. In Pakistan, a study set out to discover whether an offer of safe commuter transport would tempt women who are currently not looking for a job.
Kate Vyborny of the World Bank spoke to Tim Phillips from Lahore, where the study
took place, about the challenges women face in commuting to work and about how safe transport can change career opportunities for millions of women.
Photo credit: ADB
Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/infrastructure/how-safe-transport-could-unlock-womens-labour-force-participation-pakistan
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S6 Ep11: Is debt leading to the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources?
How does rising external debt in low-income countries affect the natural capital that
sustains our livelihoods? A new paper focuses on three river basins that are vital to the
livelihoods and biodiversity of the countries that surround them, suggesting ways that
we can both measure and conserve that natural capital in the face of the economic
forces that threaten it. Pushpam Kumar of UN Environment Programme talks to Tim
Phillips about the alarming rise in the ratio of debt to natural capital for the 21 countries whose wealth relies on the river basins that they border, and how debt-for-nature swaps may be our best hope of avoiding both an economic and ecological disaster.
Read the full show notes here: https://voxdev.org/topic/energy-environment/debt-leading-unsustainable-exploitation-natural-resources
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