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Unlocking constraints to industries without smokestacks to catalyze job creation for youth in Kenya

Unlocking constraints to industries without smokestacks to catalyze job creation for youth in Kenya | Speevr

Unlike in much of the developed world, the promise of manufacturing to spur economic growth and jobs in Africa has remained elusive, with most of the continent’s economies facing deindustrialization. This trend is characterized by declining share of manufacturing in gross domestic product (GDP) and wage employment. All is, however, not lost considering emerging structural shifts, with services and other non-manufacturing industries promising economic transformations. These promising nonmanufacturing industries, termed “industries without smokestacks” (IWOSS), demonstrate key features of manufacturing such as high productivity, agglomeration, and job opportunities. The IWOSS sectors are diverse, cutting across financial services, horticulture, information and communication technology (ICT), tourism, transit trade, and wholesale trade. As part of a broader research project, the Brookings Institution’s Africa Growth Initiative partnered with the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) to assess which of these IWOSS might be best poised to unlock jobs in Kenya.

Right now, the country faces significant labor-market challenges in the form of unemployment, time-related underemployment, and inactivity—all of which are more severe for the youth and women. Between 2009 and 2019, the country’s population grew by an average of 2.2 percent annually, but the labor force expanded by an even higher rate of 3.1 percent per annum over the same period, rising from 15.8 million people to 20.7 million people. Unemployment is high: In 2016, the overall unemployment rate of the working-age group (15 to 64 years) was estimated at 7.4 percent, that of women was 9.6 percent, and that of the youth (15 to 24 years) was 17.7 percent. Time-related underemployment was estimated at 20.4 percent for the working-age population, and 26 percent and 35.9 percent for the women and youth, respectively. In addition, despite Kenya’s long prioritization of industrialization as an avenue for mass employment creation and economic growth, the manufacturing sector contribution to GDP has declined from 11.3 percent in 2010 to 7.5 percent in 2019. The formal sector wage employment contribution of manufacturing has also remained stagnant, averaging 13.0 percent over the last two decades.
Can support to horticulture, ICT, and tourism help address Kenya’s youth unemployment problem?
To examine the potential of IWOSS more closely, the KIPPRA team chose three IWOSS with strong sectoral growth performance, contribution to GDP, and strong export performance—horticulture, ICT, and tourism—and found that all three sectors demonstrate above-average output growth and projected that they can be significant sources of wage employment for youth up to the year 2030. At the aggregate level across all IWOSS, labor-output productivity is twice that of manufacturing and 1.7 times that of other non-IWOSS. Except for construction, the industrial sectors performed below average with respect to output growth over the two decades up to 2018.
Within IWOSS, we also found that ICT, tourism, and trade have the highest potential for wage-employment growth resulting from respective GDP growth of these sectors (Table 1). However, horticulture is characterized by nonwage employment in the form of family labor.
Table 1. Changes in formal employment and its share in IWOSS and non-IWOSS, 2001-2018

Note: Manufacturing excludes agro-processing.Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from KNBS (Various), Statistical Abstract.
The projections to the year 2030 reveal that there will be wider sex disparities in wage employment if the prevailing growth trends persist and no policy interventions are put in place. Male youth (15 to 24 years) will dominate manufacturing, construction, and trade, with their respective numbers projected to be 1.5, 13.8, and 1.2 times higher than females. In ICT, there will be 3 times more males than females if present growth trends persist. The projections also reveal that there will be more females in horticulture (1.3 times more) and tourism (1.1 times more) relative to males.
Constraints to growth for horticulture, ICT, and tourism
Importantly, for these sectors to meet—or even surpass—their job-creation potential, a number of constraints must be addressed. The study identified both crosscutting and sector-specific constraints affecting the output and employment growth of the three IWOSS sectors. The crosscutting constraints relate to investment climate, which encompasses infrastructure, the business and regulatory environment, and skills gaps.
Infrastructure
The high cost of electricity and the lack of a reliable power supply to firms pose challenges not only across firms in the IWOSS sectors but also across the entire economy as these obstacles hurt firm-level competitiveness and deter investment. The cost of road and railway transport in Kenya is generally higher than in its comparator set of countries. Not only that, but many firms are grappling with poor infrastructure of feeder roads, which leads to large post-harvest losses in the horticultural sector estimated at 42 percent. While Kenya’s ICT infrastructure is among the best in Africa, the relatively high cost of mobile broadband services and the large digital divide between urban and rural areas still hinder the sector’s expansion. These constraints are related to weak competition in Kenya’s ICT sector. Importantly, there is limited (but increasing) interoperability between mobile-payment operators, which affects the ability of smaller players to grow, thus potentially creating an inefficient market with one or a few large players.
Business and regulatory environment
While Kenya was ranked third in Africa in the 2020 World Bank Doing Business Report on account of ease of getting credit and to some extent getting connected to electricity, the regulatory business environment remains complex, especially with regard to starting a business, cross-border trade, and getting construction permits. These constraints hamper the country’s ability to improve its competitiveness, attract investments, and create more jobs and improvements, and will require deeper and broader reforms.
Persistent skills gaps
Skills gaps and mismatches resulting from low educational attainment levels relative to a typical middle-income country also persist in Kenya. About 43 percent of the working-age population have only a primary education (of eight years) as their highest education level, yet the IWOSS sectors heavily depend on post-primary level skills. Further, education quality is characterized by inadequate skills and gaps in required skills even among tertiary graduates.

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Skills gap analyses across the three IWOSS sectors reveal that horticulture has skills deficits for occupations requiring post-primary education and skills surpluses for occupations that require at least some secondary education. Tourism has skills deficits for all skill levels, particularly those related to external communications, product quality, value packaging, and quality management.
While over the last decade IWOSS sectors such as horticulture had relatively strong export performance relative to aggregate exports, there are still significant cross-border constraints related to inadequate skills among customs officials, lack of an integrated quality system, limited coordination among exporters, insufficient systems to handle food-safety compliance, and inadequate capacity to trace horticultural commodities. Further, ICT faces additional challenges related to a weak framework to identify and nurture innovations.
Policy recommendations
The relatively high productivity across IWOSS sectors presents a case for policy support to enhance growth and employment opportunities. However, IWOSS are not currently meeting their potential, and a number of policy changes are necessary to help them grow and absorb labor. Thus, the government and other stakeholders should:

Enhance investments in infrastructure including trunk roads as well as feeder roads and a host of supportive facilities such as cold rooms for horticulture produce.
Address regulatory bottlenecks through a continuous process of monitoring and evaluation as well as by conducting regulatory impact assessments. For example, an improved policy and regulatory framework on net-metering and wheeling systems would enhance entrants into alternative sources of energy and off-grid systems. Better regulations would also open up markets for more players and hence enhance the role of ICT as an enabler.
Expand the creation of wage jobs rather than informal jobs in the growing sectors. Reducing barriers to formalization linked to complex regulations, high taxes, and other aspects of cumbersome investment climate is essential.
Focus education and training systems to produce skills demanded by the market compared to academic credentials. This can be achieved by strengthening partnerships for skills development and enhancing programs that combine on-the-job and in-class training.
Monitor and forecast skills needs to ensure the youth are equipped for available jobs, and then develop skills of the youth to meet the increasing demand for more educational qualifications. Skills development should take into account basic skills and social skills needed in specific sectors.

For horticulture, the following are the priority interventions:

Ameliorate the possible effects of the dynamic nontariff trade barriers (NTTBs) by supporting continuous skills transfer and extension services support to local producers, including small-scale farmers.
Enhance further investments in supportive infrastructure—the feeder roads and cold chain infrastructure such as “cold” collection centers and pack houses.
Open up more options for transport—especially maritime transport of exports—by investing in a dedicated maritime line to key export destinations.
Mold the preference of youth toward agricultural training to attract more youth to higher productivity jobs within the sector.

For ICT, a key intervention would be to put in place a policy framework that enhances competitive markets to improve affordability/access to services by the last-mile users. Fast-tracking an all-encompassing policy for e-commerce will open up further investments in the sector. On skills and capacity development, there is a need to promote private-sector-led, skills-development initiatives in high-level ICT skills such as programming. In ICT, best-practice models can be adopted by Kenya to enhance the benefits of ICT services. These include:

Encourage sharing of communication infrastructure (e.g., masts) by encouraging cross-sector consultations for infrastructure developments.
Create planning databases containing detailed information of infrastructure available for sharing.
Enhance interoperability through moral suasion.

For tourism, policies for supporting growth in the sector include:

Enhance access to reliable electricity and transport infrastructure to reduce operational costs and enhance competitiveness.
Reform the regulatory and tax regime, with a focus on eliminating multiple taxation and clarifying the unclear tax regime.
Promote the development of specialized training institutions for crucial high-level and diverse skills. Examples of these skills are film production, decisionmaking and problem-solving, food technology, information technology, and leadership.

How teacher expectations empower student learning

How teacher expectations empower student learning | Speevr

In primary school, we were both lucky to have teachers who thought we were brilliant: Ms. Darrow believed Sameer was an excellent student despite average grades, and Ms. Lewis made Niharika feel like she could survive anything. Looking back, neither of us knows why they thought this way, but we’re certain that they both truly felt this way, and their feelings made us believe it as well. Our time with these teachers made us believe in our ability to take on academic challenges, building a base of confidence that we would draw on throughout our lives.

We experienced firsthand that what a teacher expects from a student can have a powerful effect. But we also know that there are many students who never have a teacher who believes in them. There is a strong perception among teachers and other stakeholders that students from disadvantaged economic and social backgrounds cannot learn as well. These beliefs adversely impact what teachers do in the classroom and in turn how much students learn and grow. It’s precisely these students from disadvantaged backgrounds who have been hit hardest by COVID-19 and who need the most help. To bridge this growing inequality in learning, we must design support for teachers to nurture the belief that all students can learn.
The problem: The belief that all students can learn is not universal
We recently surveyed school leaders and teachers from India, Kenya, Malaysia, and Indonesia and found that only 48 percent of teachers in our sample believed that all students can learn, regardless of familial background or educational experience. This confirms a comprehensive World Bank survey of 16,000 teachers from eight low- and middle-income Latin American, African, and Asian countries, which found that a substantial portion of teachers believe they can’t help students who start out below grade level or come from troubled homes (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Teacher beliefs on their students’ learning abilities
Source: World Bank, 2018.
Teachers underestimate the abilities of their students because of social attitudes and community prejudices. In low-income countries, the high social gap between teachers and students may reduce teacher empathy and motivation to work with their students.
Further, because school leaders and government officials rarely track teaching practices and student progress, teachers don’t internalize their responsibility toward ensuring all students are learning.
All of the above coupled with persistently low levels of prior student performance may reinforce teacher beliefs that not all students can learn.
Why the problem matters: There is a vicious cycle of low expectations
What teachers expect students to learn influences outcomes for their students. In a famous psychology experiment from 65 years ago, Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968) falsely told teachers that selected students were identified by a test to be “late bloomers” and would learn great amounts over the course of the years when in fact the researchers had selected students at random. A year later, the students identified as “late bloomers” had learned more than their peers because the teachers increased their support to these students.
Since this experiment, many other psychology studies have been done to replicate and understand the impact of teacher expectations on student achievement. In a landmark review of more than 30 years of research, Jussim and Harber (2005) find that while the original study may be overstating its results, teacher expectations do impact students, and this can be particularly strong for students from stigmatized groups. Rubie-Davies and colleagues (2006) found that teacher expectations of Maori students in New Zealand were lower than their peers, and can lead to lower outcomes. Recent research in economics to understand school effectiveness (here and here) in the United States find that schools that develop a culture that assumes all students can learn at high levels are best at raising the achievement of students from marginalized backgrounds.
Teacher expectations create a reinforcing cycle. Teacher beliefs about students’ growth potential shape those teachers’ actions, which then, in turn, impacts students’ growth, feeding back into teachers’ beliefs about students. In low- and middle-income countries, decades of underperformance of school systems have created a deeply ingrained belief that not all students can learn, which continues to limit the potential of these school systems to improve what they deliver to students (Figure 2).
Figure 2. The reinforcing cycle of teachers’ beliefs on student outcomes
Source: Katie Wright, 2017.
How we can address the problem: Shift teacher expectations and behavior
Behavioral science has taught us that we must understand the mental models of key actors in a system to shift its outcomes. Sectors like health have extensively relied on learnings from behavioral science to improve health outcomes. In education, we must similarly research, develop, and test behavioral approaches to improving teacher performance. We suggest three broad categories of interventions for school systems to explore.
1. Develop leaders that build a culture of high expectations in the system
In a Global School Leader survey, we find that in schools where leaders do believe that students can learn, 54 percent of teachers also share this belief, compared with 37 percent of teachers that hold high expectations when the school leader does not. This reinforces studies that suggest that school leaders can increase teacher responsibility for student learning through organizational structures and discourse that help challenge existing beliefs. School systems should invest in understanding how they can grow and empower leaders to create an environment where the primary focus is on improving learning outcomes.
2. Explicitly discuss the power of teacher expectations
Pre-service and in-service teacher training must address the power of teacher expectations directly. Teachers can be supported to develop a growth mindset so that they view the problem of low student-learning levels as something they can change. Highlighting positive case studies that illustrate challenges that teachers and students face on a regular basis and ways they can overcome them can encourage teachers to reflect on the link between their classroom practices and the impact on students. Experiential training models can help teachers experience firsthand how their empathy for and expectations of students can drive learning.
3. Improving practices can shift beliefs
Beliefs can be deep rooted and hard to shift, but when teachers succeed in the classroom, that can also shift their beliefs on what students can achieve. Encouraging teachers to adopt classroom tools and effective pedagogical practices could help improve students’ learning levels, which could, in turn, shift teachers’ beliefs on student abilities.
Ensuring that all students have teachers like Ms. Darrow and Ms. Lewis with high expectations for their students’ success will require a totally fresh perception of students’ intelligence and ability. Until current practices address teacher expectations head-on and shift the “soft bigotry of low expectations” into the tangible empowerment of high expectations, students won’t reach their full growth potential.

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Washington Consensus reforms and lessons for economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa

Washington Consensus reforms and lessons for economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa | Speevr

Abstract
Over three decades after market-oriented structural reforms termed “Washington Consensus” policies were first implemented, we revisit the evidence on policy adoption
and the effects of these policies on socio-economic performance in sub-Saharan African countries. We focus on three key ubiquitous reform policies around privatization,
fiscal discipline, and trade openness and document significant improvements in economic performance for reformers over the past two decades. Following initial declines in
per capita economic growth over the 1980s and 1990s, reform adopters experienced notable increases in per capita real GDP growth in the post–2000 period. We
complement aggregate analysis with four country case studies that highlight important lessons for effective reform. Notably, the ability to implement pro-poor policies
alongside market-oriented reforms played a central role in successful policy performance.

Citation

Archibong, Belinda, Brahima Coulibaly, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
2021.

“Washington Consensus Reforms and Lessons for Economic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Journal of Economic Perspectives,

35 (3):
133-56.

DOI: 10.1257/jep.35.3.133

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

E23
Macroeconomics: Production

E62
Fiscal Policy

F34
International Lending and Debt Problems

H63
National Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

L33
Comparison of Public and Private Enterprises and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out

O11
Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

O23
Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development

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How government donors engage with the Sustainable Development Goals

How government donors engage with the Sustainable Development Goals | Speevr

In 2015, 193 nations signed on to Agenda 2030 setting forth the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The predecessor Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were a narrower set of eight objectives targeted specifically at enhancing economic and social progress in lower- and middle-income countries—with first-order implications for focusing donor development assistance. In contrast, the 17 SDGs are universal—they cover a broader scope of economic, social, environmental, and political elements of development. They are designed for all countries of the world—in recognition that “sustainable development” is an ongoing process in all countries, no matter their level of economic development.

In a new report, I review how 20 of the largest donor countries encompass the SDGs in their international development cooperation policies and programs. They have all committed to the SDGs. All, except for the United States, have in various ways built them into policies guiding their own development and their international development programs. Referencing publications and web pages, the report captures how each country proposes or reports incorporating the SDGs at three levels—strategy/policy, programs, and reporting on outputs and results for their investments in international development. All countries surveyed, except the U.S., have produced at least one Voluntary National Review (VNR), the formal mechanism for countries to share their progress. Although principally aimed at reporting on national progress on the SDGs, some VNRs also cover international development cooperation.
‘Sustainable development’ is an ongoing process in all countries, no matter their level of economic development.
This stocktaking is based on how each country presents its engagement with the SDGs and does not assess the extent to which those policies and plans are translated into practice. There is no single common way donors incorporate the SDGs in their international development policies and programs. Efforts range from expression of support at a very general level to embedding the global goals in policies and strategies or building strategies around the goals. Some countries address commitments to the SDGs in a comprehensive manner with a single strategy covering both domestic activities and development cooperation, although distinguishing separate priorities for each. At the program level, a few donors tie each program, and even budget levels, to the relevant goals but many use the SDGs only as a general reference point. A few donors report against the SDGs. In actuality, country action can range from grand policy pronouncements that are little more than “SDG-washing” to pragmatically designing programs around specific SDGs, reporting results against SDGs, and independently auditing implementation.

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Some incorporate reporting on their international work in their VNRs, others restrict the VNR just to their national SDG program. Some use Agenda 2030 as the principal frame for their international development work, others embed the SDGs, or particular goals, in their international policies and programs.
Some approaches are unique to one or a few countries. Canada incorporates the SDGs in its Feminist International Assistance Policy. Denmark sorts countries into one of three categories and links each category to specific SDGs. Several donors have websites that report programs and results for each SDG, and several connect their development finance to the SDGs. Finland connects theories of change to specific SDGs. Some countries engage in public consultations in setting their SDG commitments. Several countries have outreach programs to educate their populace on development cooperation and the SDGs. Japan has posted videos that explain its international engagement on the SDGs. Spain has a policy of undertaking an SDG analysis of the global impact of proposed legislative initiatives.
Some countries, including Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia, evidence high-level political ownership of the SDGs in establishing a central government mechanism for policy coherence on Agenda 2030. Several countries follow the SDG principle of “leave no one behind” and employ some or all of the “five Ps”—People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership.
As Agenda 2030 is the international development currency of this decade, incorporating the SDGs in U.S. development cooperation policy would be an important step in the Biden-Harris administration commitment to reengage the U.S. with the world community.
For the most part, the MDGs lived in the realm of internationalists, specifically with practitioners of international development, international organizations, and international NGOs. The SDGs, in contrast, are truly universal, not just in scope but also in application. Their use extends from the international, to the national, to the local. By 2020, 168 countries had written VNRs, with another 43 VNRs expected in 2021.While the U.S. government has not issued a national VNR, New York pioneered the Voluntary Local Review (VLR), an innovation based on the VNR where local governments assess their progress on the SDGs. Several other American cities have also completed VLRs, including Los Angeles and Pittsburgh; and Hawaii completed the first-ever statewide VLR. New York has since signed up more than 300 cities worldwide to do the same, and universities have adopted a unique SDG framework  to assess their contribution to economic, social, and environmental progress. As of 2018, 78 percent of S&P 500 companies had issued recent sustainability reports, many of which make reference to specific SDGs.
The SDGs have become so ubiquitous that they serve as a common language.  Reference SDG 5, and many people know you are talking about gender equality. For an individual looking to make a responsible investment or a government looking to attract responsible corporate actors, if a corporation has a commitment—better yet a specific target—on SDG 8 on decent work and growth or SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy, it might well be worth a look.

The catalyst for this report is the opportunity for the Biden administration to incorporate the SDGs in its development strategies and programs. While the U.S. was an active partner in the development and initial commitment to the SDGs, over the past four years U.S. development policies have referenced the SDGs but not embraced them. Candidate Biden committed to the SDGs, and the administration reportedly is deliberating on how it might incorporate the SDGs in its development cooperation.
As Agenda 2030 is the international development currency of this decade, incorporating the SDGs in U.S. development cooperation policy would be an important step in the Biden-Harris administration commitment to reengage the U.S. with the world community. More specifically, it would align U.S. development policies and agencies—in particular, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Development Finance Corporation (DFC), U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)—with their donor counterparts and partner-country national strategies. It would facilitate U.S. development agencies in setting common goals and targets with other development actors, and it would provide benchmarks for tracking and measuring the results of U.S. development cooperation.
Knowing how other donors have done so should be a useful guide for how the U.S. might best do likewise.

Donor engagement with Agenda 2030: How government agencies encompass the Sustainable Development Goals

Donor engagement with Agenda 2030: How government agencies encompass the Sustainable Development Goals | Speevr

Overview
In 2015, all members of the United Nations adopted an ambitious agenda known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals. The agenda consists of 17 development goals to be achieved by 2030. This report examines how government donor agencies encompass SDGs in international development cooperation, covering 20 of the 30 members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). It reviews how they propose to incorporate the SDGs at the level of strategy and policy, programs, and reporting of outputs and results. Eighteen of the 20 members (excepting the United States and the European Union) have produced at least one Voluntary National Review (VNR). Although principally aimed at reporting on national progress on the SDGs, some VNRs cover international development cooperation and so are specifically noted. This review is based on how each country presents its engagement with the SDGs and does not assess the extent to which those policies and plans are translated into practice.

All the government donors surveyed here have to varying degrees endorsed the SDGs at the level of policy and strategy, ranging from expression of support at a very general level to embedding the Global Goals in policies and strategies or building strategies around the goals. Some countries address commitments to the SDGs in a comprehensive manner with a single strategy covering both domestic activities and development cooperation, even as a unitary commitment, although distinguishing separate priorities for each. A number of countries follow the SDG pledge to “leave no one behind” and employ some or all of the “5 Ps”—People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership—that show the integrated nature of the goals.
At the program level, a few donors tie each program, and even budget levels, to the relevant goals but most use the SDGs only as a general reference point. Only a few donors actually report against the SDGs.

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At least five countries have established a central government mechanism for policy coherence on Agenda 2030. In Germany, the Federal Chancellery has the lead on SDG implementation, with responsibility extending across the government and coherence provided through ministry secretaries serving on the State Secretaries’ Committee for Sustainable Development. In Finland, the prime minister’s office coordinates SDG implementation, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is represented on the coordination secretariat. In New Zealand, the Treasury develops a Wellbeing Budget. The Swedish Government has a National Coordinator for the 2030 Agenda,1 and multiple Swedish governmental agencies, including the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), form the DG Forum to work jointly on the global goals. In Australia, a senior officials group co-chaired by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provides coordination on the 2030 agenda, both domestically and internationally.
Briefly, the SDG engagement of the 20 DAC members include:
Australia embraces an SDG strategy in its domestic and development cooperation policies that is integrated across government departments. It aligns its foreign assistance budget directly with each of the SDGs. In 2018 it issued a Voluntary National Review (VNR) covering both domestic and development cooperation activities.
Belgium uses Agenda 2030 as an overall framework for its development cooperation. It incorporates the SDGs into certain programmatic areas and maintains a website that allows the user to sort projects by various categories, including the SDGs. Its 2017 VNR includes reporting on its development cooperation activities and provides links not just to SDGs but also to SDG targets.
Canada is noted for having incorporated the SDGs in its Feminist International Assistance Policy. In early 2021 it commenced an exercise in Global Affairs Canada to integrate the SDGs across all of its business functions. Canada used the 2018 VNR to report on both domestic and international activities.
Denmark builds its development cooperation program on the SDGs and links each activity to the relevant SDGs. It sorts partner countries into one of three categories by level of development, each linked to specific SDGs. Denmark requires that the appropriation note for each activity identify the relevant SDGs. Denmark has established an SDG investment fund.
The European Union embraces the SDGs in its development cooperation at the levels of strategy/policy, program, and reporting. It maintains an interactive website that tracks EU work toward achieving each SDG and a website that provides data on EU assistance, including by SDG.
Finland presents its domestic and development cooperation approach to Agenda 2030 in a common strategy. It creates a comprehensive approach in its international development cooperation programs through linking objectives, theory of change, and results reporting to the relevant SDGs.
France has integrated the SDGs in its development strategy and links them to its two principal objectives, 100 percent compliance with the Paris agreement on climate change and to its social link2 interventions. It has issued SDG bonds to finance development activities.

Germany issued a strategy, with several subsequent updates, that explains its approach to each SDG in both domestic and development cooperation policies. For development cooperation, it links priorities and program areas to the relevant SDGs.
Ireland incorporates the SDGs in its domestic and international development cooperation policies and reporting. It has an extensive program for educating the Irish people about development cooperation.
Italy embraces the SDGs in both its domestic and development cooperation policies and reports on both together. It structures its priorities on specific SDGs under the fifth P of Partnership.
Japan comprehensively incorporates the SDGs in its development cooperation strategies/policies, programs, and reporting. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has a video on its website that explains its approach to the SDGs. It has issued social bonds linked to the SDGs.
South Korea places achievement of the SDGs as one of four strategic goals for the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). The mission of KOICA is “Leave no one behind with People-centered Peace and Prosperity.”
The Netherlands integrates the SDGs in its development cooperation strategies/policies, programs, and reporting. Its country development strategies use the SDGs as the narrative. Several websites present the goals, programs, and reporting on its development activities structured on the SDGs.
New Zealand utilizes Agenda 2030 as the overall frame for its development program. It uses the SDGs as the measure of progress for its partner countries in the Pacific, which is the principal focus of its development cooperation program. It explains that it tracks its contribution to the SDGs but that aligning official development assistance (ODA) with SDG outcomes is conceptually and empirically challenging.
Norway sets Agenda 2030 as the overarching frame of its development cooperation program and integrates the SDGs in strategies/policies, programs, and reporting. Its strategy includes communicating with the Norwegian people about the global goals.
Spain uses Agenda 2030 for the frame for its development cooperation. Its 2018 VNR calls for an SDG impact analysis on legislative initiatives to assess their external and global impact on the SDGs.
Sweden sets Agenda 2030 as the overarching frame for its development cooperation program. It publishes strategies on specific development programs and how they incorporate the SDGs, both for geographic regions (e.g., the Middle East and North Africa) and specific program areas (e.g., capacity building). SIDA works with investors and the private sector to advance the SDGs.
Switzerland incorporates the SDGs in its development cooperation strategy. A draft 10-year strategy has completed the phase of public consultation. Switzerland publishes factsheets for priority countries that connect its development activities to the SDGs. Results linked to the SDGs are reported on a website.
The U.K. uses the SDGs as the overall frame for its development cooperation program and incorporates them into partner country profiles. The 2019 VNR reports on progress on each global goal.
The United States has supported Agenda 2030 but has not brought the SDGs into its domestic or international development policies and programs.

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EUROPE: Managing the pandemic – what we are watching

EUROPE: Managing the pandemic – what we are watching | Speevr

This updated weekly piece provides snapshots of how selected European governments are dealing with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you want to discuss any of the countries mentioned in more detail. Graph of the week Spain – The Delta vari…   Become a member to read the rest […]