Browse by: "PRE-2012"

Framed in terms of the Third Mission, the “enterprise” or “entrepreneurial” university has increasingly become normalised in public policy; however there remains much contention about the implication of third stream activities. There is little rigorous evidence as to whether the Third Mission adversely affects teaching and/or (basic) research. Martin and Etzkowitz (2000) note there is some anecdotal evidence that the Third Mission has had a positive impact. Indeed, it is to this debate that this paper seeks to contribute. It considers how the Third Mission can positively reinforce teaching and research activities and how this is arguably more significant than the Third Mission itself. Indeed, it proposes that triangulating teaching, research and third stream activities should reinforce the respective dynamics of each through their recursive and reciprocal development. Conceptualising institutional engagement with the third stream holistically in terms of entrepreneurial architectures may enable universities to stimulate institutional development beyond the Third Mission. The paper concludes by reflecting upon and looking towards the future of higher education policy and the management of higher education institutions.

The survey submissions indicate that bilateral donors and multilateral agencies have become much more active in TRTA/CB over the last few years, particularly since the 2001 WTO Doha Ministerial Conference. This increased activity is not only reflected in increased funding for TRTA/CB, but also in the number of donors/ agencies with explicit strategies and programming guidelines for TRTA/CB; enhanced awareness among donors of the importance of TRTA/CB for development and poverty reduction; and the strengthened, and sometimes institutionalised, dialogue between development and trade practitioners. In addition, several donors and agencies have recently embarked on ambitious reviews of their own bilateral TRTA/CB programmes and/or their participation in multilateral programmes, in order to assess the effectiveness of their TRTA/CB activities.

Developing countries differ greatly in their potential for development and in the challenges they face. In one respect, however, many share a common problem: too little aid from too many donors. This report traces up to 3 700 aid relationships between all 151 aid recipient countries and the 46 largest donors, covering all members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and the largest multilateral agencies. This complex reality is often referred to as fragmentation of aid. This 2009 report examines the concept of aid fragmentation across countries, and what has happened since the adoption of the Paris Declaration. It also proposes measures for concentration and fragmentation, and options for tackling excessive fragmentation. Where a donor-partner aid relation is not considered non-significant from either the donor’s or the recipient’s point of view, there is an opportunity for some rationalisation. This report shows that a decrease of 23% in the number of relationships is possible when only 4% of aid is reorganised. This reorganisation, in turn, would lead to an increase in the volume of the average donor-partner aid relation of 30%.

In recent years a greater demand for strengthening the role of the legislature in the budget process has become evident worldwide: more than a quarter of countries have revised their constitutions over the last 15 years to give Parliament more powers. In particular, several African countries are experiencing pressure to increase the legislature’s role in the preparatory stage of the budget process and as a check on the executive. This article argues that there are risks in allowing greater parliamentary activism, but that a greater risk is associated with marginalising the role of Parliament in the budget process. The article sets out options for designing a role for Parliament that allows it sufficient oversight, while managing the risks of ill-disciplined parliamentary action leading to excess spending or of Parliament becoming a conduit for narrow, ineffective spending demands.

Many African countries are benefiting from reductions in their external debt. One important objective is to redirect the budgetary resources released from servicing external debt towards poverty-reducing expenditures. Several questions arise in this context. First, are the public expenditure management (PEM) systems of African countries robust enough to allow specific povertyreducingexpenditures to be identified in annual budgets and tracked in countries’ accounting systems? Second, does the expenditure control system allow poverty-reducing expenditures to be protected from cuts should there be unforeseen shortfalls in revenues? Third, are internal and external audit mechanisms effective, so as to ensure the integrity of expenditure reports, both in-year and annually? To answer these and other questions, an assessment of the entire PEM system is required in each country. Such a study has already been prepared.1 During 2001, the PEM systems of 24 low-income countries were assessed based on a common set of 15 questions in the areas of budget preparation, budget execution, and fiscal reporting. Figure 1 shows the results for two regions of Africa (Anglophone countries and Francophone countries) – well below what is required to meet the objectives of effective PEM systems (both regions attained only about 40% of the required benchmarks)...

Market Exchange Rates (MER) balance the demand and supply for international currencies, while Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) exchange rates capture the differences between the cost of a given bundle of goods and services in different countries. When undertaking multi-country analysis of environmental issues (such as climate change) that includes different currencies, a decision has to be made as to whether to use PPP or MER in the analytical framework. The distinction between them is particularly germane in inter-temporal studies that postulate future scenarios. PPPs are generally favoured for their closer link to welfare, but MERS are necessarily the basis of international trade, so it is difficult to choose between them. Some authors have noted some empirical regularity between them and have sought to exploit this to avoid choosing between PPP and MER. In this paper, it is shown that such ad hoc adjustments are not necessary when structural changes are accounted for.