Slum-free cities in India? The implementation realities of central government policies

Renee Ho, MPA


In 2009, as part of an effort to promote “slum-free cities,” the Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) announced a new initiative, the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY).[1] The RAY aims to upgrade and bring all slums within the formal housing system. It also intends to prevent the development of new slums by providing more affordable housing options and developing more land to meet growing needs. As a prerequisite to RAY funding, states must first assign legal title to slum-dwellers over their living space.

In theory and on paper, the RAY includes a number of positive measures for slum-dwellers, especially the emphasis on property rights and the lack of distinction between government-recognized and unrecognized slums. If implemented properly, it could result in improved housing and access to services for many more of the urban poor.

However, in India there is a large disconnect between policy and implementation. The RAY Guidelines for Slum-free City Planning lack appropriate measures to ensure that slum-dwellers’ interests will be protected against arbitrary eviction and relocation, especially when private builders are involved in slum re-development. Without strict provisions for community participation, transparency, monitoring, and accountability, there is a danger that the RAY could be used to grab valuable slum lands in the center of the city while relocating poorer residents to faraway locations.

Potential problems with the RAY can be broken down into several categories:

1) Lack of Monitoring Mechanisms and Transparency

• States must develop a Plan of Action (POA) that follows central government RAY guidelines in order to receive funding. The reality? Inadequate plans are approved and since the POAs are not statutory documents, they are legally non-binding on states.
• Transparency is not emphasized in the functioning of the RAY. For example, maps and survey information about slums are not mandated to be publicly available, nor is information such as detailed project reports, lists of beneficiaries, consultants involved, and names of members of RAY governing and planning committees. A similar lack of transparency has led to corruption in the Slum Rehabilitation Authority in Mumbai.

2) Problems with Surveys and Slum Enumeration

• Frequency: the RAY does not stipulate with what frequency data should be updated, and in what timeframe measurable slum improvements should be made. Because slums are dynamic, living communities, regular surveys are required to maintain data that is useful for policy and planning.
• Limits of Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Using satellite imagery alone to identify slums may result in smaller slums going unnoticed, particularly in cities like Chennai, which have a large number of smaller slum clusters rather than a few large slum clusters.
• Lack of participation in data collection: Although community participation is recommended for data collection in the POA guidelines, it is not mandatory. Already, in Chennai, surveys have begun, but it does not seem that non-governmental organizations /community-based organizations or individual slum-dwellers have been involved in collecting survey information.

3) Risks of Private Sector Partnerships

• The RAY guidelines stipulate that the POA should emphasize Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) in slum redevelopment. Private players implementing RAY will be allowed to make commercial use of some areas or sell a few flats at market rates. Learning from the case of Mumbai’s Slum Rehabilitation Authority, there is a particular need for institutional safeguards to prevent the mismanagement of land use and to protect the rights of vulnerable slum-dwellers.

4) Lack of Integration and Technical Capacity

• Thus far, it is unclear how the RAY will be unified. In the state of Tamil Nadu, the state Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) has taken the planning lead but how the TNSCB will work with other agencies with the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, the Town and Country Planning Department, the Tamil Nadu Housing Board, community groups, and the new “slum-free city technical cells” is unclear. Furthermore, once a Property Rights to Slum-Dwellers Act is passed, there will be additional agencies to coordinate around the question of land tenure.
• GIS-based slum planning, planning to prevent slums, and providing security of tenure to the poor are all complex tasks for which cities and housing agencies have little experience. Even with some money for technical consultants, it is unclear whether municipalities will have enough technical capacity to implement the RAY.

But beyond these implementation difficulties, as noble as its efforts are, India needs to slow down its plans to create slum-free cities and first readdress some very basic issues. What is a useful coherent baseline definition of ‘slum’? Aside from being perhaps an eyesore to rising middle and upper classes, what positive, in fact critical, value do the slums provide to the lifeblood of a city? And getting back to topic, what institutional safeguards can be put in place to guarantee that slum-dwellers’ well being is prioritized over local politics, corruption, and land deals? More broadly yet, how can India begin to move good policy ideas into effective implementation?



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Notes

[1] While there is no exact translation of "Rajiv Awas Yojana," in Hindi "yojana" means "scheme," which in India is the word used for government programs or policies. "Awas" is commonly used for yojanas dealing with housing related issues. While Rajiv literally translates as "lotus flower," we think the term refers to something else. In India there is also a program called Indira Awas Yojana, started in 1985, to provide housing for the rural poor. Indira was the name of a female prime minister of India named Indira Gandhi, who served from 1966-1977 and from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. Her son, Rajiv Ghandi, was also a prime minister and he served following his mother's death until 1989. (He was later assassinated in 1991.) Since the Indira Awas Yojana was launched under Rajiv's administration and was named for his mother, this program was most likely named after him.

The Leadership Merry-Go-Round: The mystery behind the ever-changing Japanese prime ministers

Masayuki Kameda, MPA


Former Brazilian president Lula da Silva once joked about Japanese prime ministers that you say “good morning” to one and “good afternoon” to another. Granted, it’s an exaggeration, but Japan is the only country in which the head of state delivering a speech at the annual UN General Assembly has been different in three consecutive years: Taro Aso in 2008, Yukio Hatoyama in 2009, and Naoto Kan in 2010. And this year, it will be the newly appointed Yoshihiko Noda, the sixth prime minister that Japan has seen in the last five years.

While many point out Japan’s political culture of habatsu (inner party factions) or the fickle public and the media as the main reasons for the instability of Japanese leadership, one fundamental factor that is often overlooked is the short election cycles of the house and party leadership.

In a way, clinging onto the position of prime minister in Japan is like having to compete in and continually win a popularity contest held every one or two years. The average time between national house elections are roughly two years, with ballots cast every four years for the lower house and every three years for half of the the upper house. Each election has a direct impact on the longevity of the prime minister, as the cabinet (headed by the prime minister) is chosen by members of both houses following the election. If the ruling party loses in the lower house elections, the opposing party naturally chooses a different house member from among its ranks to serve as the new leader. This occurred in September 2009 when Taro Aso of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was replaced by Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) following a general election which resulted in a historic landslide victory for the DPJ.

And if the ruling party loses in the upper house elections, even though by law the prime minister doesn’t have to change (since the lower house – still controlled by the ruling party – can override the decision of the upper house in choosing the leader), the prime minister is often coerced to resign by his or her own party members as a way of taking the responsibility for the defeat. For instance, Shinzo Abe (prime minister from September 2006 to September 2007) stepped down a month after his party’s devastating loss in the upper house election, facing a stalemate in the legislature and criticisms from both inside and outside his party.

Moreover, the prime minister doesn’t even have to lose an election in order to be replaced. Merely the fact that an election is coming up creates incentives to oust the prime minister. Sometimes, before a national election the prime minister is pressured by his or her own party members to step down if the cabinet’s approval ratings are too low. This way, the party can go into an election with a more popular leader. This occurred twice in the past five years. Facing plummeting approval ratings, Yasuo Fukuda (prime minister from September 2007 to September 2008) submitted to voices in his party which argued that they will not be able to succeed in the lower house election scheduled to take place within a year with him as the head. The same happened to Yukio Hatoyama (prime minister from September 2009 to June 2010), resigning just one month before the upper house election.

In addition to these national elections, each party has its own rules for electing its party leader. For instance, the term of the party leader for the DPJ, the current ruling party, is two years. And if the leader steps down before the term expires and an election is held to replace him or her, the newly elected leader only serves the remainder of the predecessor’s term. For instance, the new Prime Minister Noda’s term is limited to the remaining one year that he succeeded from former Prime Minister Kan’s term. If he is to serve for over a year, he will have to survive another party leadership election that is scheduled to be held next year. And even if he does succeed in defending his position in a party leadership election in 2012, he will have to face a general election of both houses in the summer of 2013.

Of course, critics are correct that the habatsu and the capricious public also carry some responsibility. In this unhealthy political climate, even if election cycles were elongated, things may still remain the same. After all, the recent change in leadership was brought forth not by an immediate election but because of Kan’s inability to get things done. Plunging approval ratings, interparty power struggle, and the legislative stalemate resulting from a divided parliament all made it extremely difficult for Kan to continue.

However, it is also true that short election cycles have been and will continue to be an obstacle for any prime minister to stay in office for an extended period. And while political culture is extremely hard to change, the election cycles can be revised. In order to end Japan’s unfortunate record at the UN General Assembly, and more importantly, to allow the prime minister to develop better long-term strategy for Japan as well as close relationships with other world leaders, this fractious election system must be reconsidered urgently.

Buying local: Will the US troop pullout pull the afghan out from under the Afghan economy?

Andrew Shaver, MPA


American military officials have initiated plans to withdraw the first contingent of US forces from Afghanistan this year despite the Afghan government’s dependence upon US operations for its own security and political survival. No less important, though infrequently mentioned, is the very uncertain economic future for Afghanistan in the wake of American withdrawal. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee cautioned earlier this summer that, without proper planning, Afghanistan “could suffer a severe economic depression when foreign troops leave…” Meanwhile, the Congressionally-mandated Commission on Wartime Contracting (an independent, bipartisan group established to study wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan) warned in its final report this summer that many social and security programs developed in Afghanistan by the US government likely cannot be sustained by the government of Afghanistan.

While significant investigation has been done into the nature and possible effects of the significant State, Defense, and USAID spending in Afghanistan, similar scrutiny has not been applied to a major Department of Defense (DoD) program established in 2006 under which many billions of dollars have been spent on goods and services procured from Afghan firms.

Last month, Defense officials provided me with data recently made public on all contractual obligations made to Afghan firms by US Central Command’s primary contracting entity. The data are impressive. Based on commitments already made this year, DoD is on track to make more than $2 billion in obligations with Afghan firms by in fiscal year 2011. (To put matters in perspective, Afghanistan’s 2010 gross domestic product was roughly $27 billion.) While the US military begins to reduce its presence in Afghanistan, CentCom spending on goods and services provided by Afghan firms continues to increase significantly – obligations this fiscal year are 100% greater than 2009 and are set to exceed 2010 obligations by more than half a billion dollars.

Policymakers should consider possible effects on Afghanistan’s security conditions of terminating, quickly or slowly, billions of dollars in business with local firms. Has DoD business with local firms created industries that will remain functional in the years following America’s withdrawal? Has military spending created bubbles of economic activity that threaten to implode as the war effort grinds to a halt, leaving ranks of young males unemployed and susceptible to terrorist recruiting?

It is possible that the effect will be minimal. Of the roughly $1.7 billion already committed this fiscal year, nearly $1 billion are slated for purchases of various commodities. Because contracting guidelines do not require that Afghan businesses satisfy strict local-content or local-hiring requirements, little deters these firms from importing such commodities from abroad. Thus, the cessation of spending in Afghanistan may do little more than sound the death knell for an inflated market of Afghan middlemen. My discussions with contracting officials deployed in theater tend to corroborate this possibility. However, no formal study has been undertaken in this regard.

However, on the services side, data indicates that there may be jobs at stake, albeit within a somewhat narrow set of industries. Of the remaining approximately $700 million obligated this fiscal year, most are designated for the provision of “professional, administrative and management support services,” “utilities and housekeeping services,” and “transportation, travel, and relocation services.” Central Command also reported recently employing over 46,000 Afghans and estimated that a further 18,000 Afghans are employed as private security contractor personnel. Granted, many of these jobs may remain in place following a draw-down. But research into the way such industries have developed through US military spending is needed to provide policymakers with better understanding of how the timing and magnitude of troop withdrawal might ultimately affect Afghanistan’s economy.

Getting at such a question may not be as challenging as might otherwise be the case. Last year, now-retired General David Petraeus *85 *87 and Admiral Mike Mullen established Task Force 2010 to examine whether the Department’s contractual spending in Afghanistan is undermining efforts to stabilize the country. So far, this mandate has translated into investigations into whether funds have fallen into the hands of insurgency members, culminating with this summer’s finding that that the Taliban has extracted rents on US transportation spending. Yet, as an organization created to “follow the money,” as Petraeus testified to Congress, Task Force 2010 not only enjoys senior-level support but employs the type of civilian and military experts qualified to consider the broader effects of major contract spending on the country and the implications for its withdrawal. If properly resourced and directed, the task force could offer policymakers a unique way forward. Let’s hope.


A version of this article was published earlier this month by the Small Wars Journal blog, and is accessible here.

Smells Like Teen Xenophobia: Chinese “Angry Youth” and anti-Japanese nationalism

Keqin Wei, MPA


In spite of the growing economic cooperation and cultural exchange between China and Japan in recent years, the number of “Angry Youth” in China is also rising commensurately. The phenomenon of “Angry Youth” refers to young Chinese ultra-nationalists with a visceral hatred of Japan. Since most “Angry Youth” were born after the 1980s, they did not live through the Sino-Japanese War of the 1940s, but nevertheless demonstrate much stronger anti-Japanese sentiment than former generations. Importantly, these youth are generally highly educated and children of the internet age – blogs and chat rooms are often the repository for their anti-Japanese polemics. While there are many reasons for the growing numbers of “Angry Youth,” the most salient are the censored media in China and the way history is taught to students.

“The Modern History of China” is an important course in both Chinese middle school and high school. Stereotypes aside about China’s infatuation with inculcating math and science, great efforts have been made to teach students their national history from the Opium War of the 19th century to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Particular concentration is placed on the eight-year Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s-40s. This curriculum is also included on important exams, such as the College Entrance Exam, in order to encourage students to spend more time learning history. For most Chinese young people, having received the compulsory education, Japanese wartime atrocities are described in such vivid details that it becomes deeply ingrained in their memories. In comparison, other aspects of Japan, such as its culture, economy, and politics, are largely neglected.

Furthermore, the internet provides biased reports of modern-day Japan by amplifying its conflicts with China and reiterating tense historical issues. Just a few months ago, if one searched for “Japan” on Baidu, the most popular Chinese internet search engine, the top three news hits were: “Crisis in Fukushima,” “Japan claims its sovereignty over Diaoyu Islands,” and “Japanese history textbooks deny the Nanjing Massacre.” If it were not for the disaster in Japan, there would also very likely be articles criticizing the “basic quality” of Japanese people among the top news articles. As these “Angry Youth” spend their leisure time on the internet and browsing the websites that host such articles, this kind of information is constantly repeated, which intensifies the stereotype of Japanese brutality and hostility towards China.

Psychological research shows that people often make judgments based on accessible information. Most “Angry Youth” don’t have the opportunity to visit Japan, so the information available to them from textbooks and media is often the main resource to make their judgments. Their attitudes towards Japan are biased based on these historical memories and prejudiced news source.

Social norms also help shape people’s behavior, especially in a country like China which has a strong tradition of collectivism. As framed by former PRC president Jiang Zemin: “Forgetting the humiliating Chinese modern history means betraying your country.” In this environment, forgetting or even forgiving Japanese aggression is tantamount to treason. A second example comes from a popular Chinese movie about the Nanjing Massacre, “Nanjing, Nanjing” (2009). The Nanjing Massacre of 1937 is widely regarded as evidence of Japanese soldiers’ brutality and is still a hot topic given current Japanese leaders’ reluctance to apologize for its occupation of China. Upon the film’s release, one influential movie critic was quoted as follows: “You are not qualified to be Chinese if you do not watch this movie.” The assertion that failure to appreciate a movie about Japanese wartime brutality means losing one’s Chinese identity puts extreme pressure on those who do not plan to see the film.

While these social norms partly explain the expansion of anti-Japanese nationalism, why does the anti-Japanese sentiment in the “Angry Youth” surpass that of other age groups, including older generations who actually lived through the brutality of occupation?

One would not be surprised to find out that peer pressure plays a large role in shaping this attitude for teens. The Chinese internet, which is notorious for its censorship of sensitive political topics, has no problem with the proliferation of nationalist comments. Allowing the “Angry Youth” to be the only outspoken adolescent political group in the country gives the false impression that they are the only politically-oriented youth in China. When “Angry Youth” spread their anti-Japanese comments on internet, people their age with similar education backgrounds tend to take this movement as a reference group, and modify their own attitudes accordingly.

Nationalism proves to be an effective tool for totalitarian states to suppress dissidents and maintain social stability. To date, it seems China has been successful at stoking nationalist themes and training “Angry Youth” to vent their frustrations in politically-acceptable directions. Unfortunately, it seems that these “Angry Youth” have already begun to transform their attitudes into behaviors, as evidenced by frequent anti-Japan demonstrations that have taken place since 2004. One way to assuage the hostile attitudes towards Japan is to expand the information channels about Japan, by introducing Japanese cartoons and movies in China in order to show different aspects of the island nation; and most importantly, to revise Chinese modern history textbooks to show the Chinese people that modern Chinese history is much richer than an eight-year war with its neighbor.


Thanks to Eddie Skolnick for his comments and editing.

"Randomized control trials" on trial: Evaluating the efficacy of RCTs

Jake Velker, MPA


Are randomized trials the way to finally start making a dent in reducing poverty, after years of hopeful thinking and disappointing results? Does this tool for evidence-based policymaking hold the key for practitioners to determine which poverty reduction programs work and which don’t? These questions motivate two recent books published by researchers who are at the vanguard of the randomized control trials (RCT) movement: More Than Good Intentions by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). They deliberately introduce randomization in the implementation of anti-poverty measures to provide confidence in the programs’ efficacy (or lack thereof).

The results thus far have been dramatic and not always intuitive: microfinance is less effective than we hoped [1]; free bed nets are used more often (and prevent more malaria) than those that cost money.[2] IPA and J-PAL are currently involved in dozens of trials and are generally credited with bringing an unprecedented level of rigor to the evaluation of development—a field normally dominated by grand theories and polemics.

Enough praise has been heaped on the “randomistas” that I feel confident I can focus on the criticisms of their methodology without sounding uncharitable.[3]

The first criticism—leveled forcefully by Princeton’s Angus Deaton—is that randomized trials do not help us in any systematic way to gain an understanding of why interventions work.[4] In this sense, IPA and J-PAL are part of a broader trend in economic research that eschews theory in favor of real-world applications and problem-solving. This is irksome for many economists, particularly those who believe that poverty cannot be solved without a broader accounting of the mechanisms that keep people trapped in poverty. Randomized trials are beginning to test theoretical frameworks more directly, but there is still much progress to be made.

The most relevant criticism, however, is political. IPA and J-PAL economists have been accused of ignoring the institutional constraints against which their interventions would inevitably contend if scaled up. Often, research from randomized trials offers a conclusion like “we find that intervention X lowers Y disease transmission by Z percent.” While it is extremely helpful to have confidence in the efficacy of a treatment, glaring questions remain. Does the program work when it is implemented by a weak bureaucracy, rather than university-trained researchers? At scale, who will be responsible for administering the recommended program? What are their incentives to perform? Where will the money come from? If the intervention is so successful, were there good reasons it wasn’t tried before?

A troubling case in point involves one of the most heralded studies from the RCT movement to date. Working in Kenya, economists Michael Kremer and Ted Miguel found that providing de-worming medicine to students boosted school attendance cost-effectively.[5] Spurred by their research, the Kenyan government committed to making de-worming medicine available to more than 3,000,000 of its primary school children in 2009. But the policy was recently discontinued due to a dispute between the Kenyan government and international donors over corruption and the administration of education funding.[6] It should go without saying that for the ultra-poor, these sorts of bureaucratic obstacles are the norm, rather than the exception.

If economics is just supply and demand, the work of IPA and J-PAL has focused thus far mostly on demand. It is difficult to quantitatively study governance—imagine what an RCT studying a poor country’s provincial governance, for example, might look like—and even harder to actually improve the quality of basic services in developing countries. So many of the interventions RCTs have found to be effective involve classic public goods, which by definition remain under-provisioned by private markets. But the bureaucracies of developing countries are generally ineffective, if not downright corrupt. This is where economics loses its relevance and institutions and leadership rear their ugly heads.

These problems have not been amenable to ever-more creative randomized trials. In fact, many of the most celebrated finds of the RCT movement are relative “no-brainers.” Who, after all, would argue against treating poor school children for intestinal worms? Esther Duflo and her colleagues have said that we do not know what works. Many would respond that we know perfectly well what works; but do not know how to do it. Perhaps the real questions start once an intervention has been proven to work.

Randomistas respond to this critique as follows. First, it was never their ambition to overhaul the political economy of the developing world. The fact that they have found real evidence of effective interventions is in itself a major accomplishment. They believe that their approach can improve lives even in discouraging political settings. They are not promising a sweeping social revolution, but rather a “quiet revolution” of incremental gains. And even critics will concede that though the modesty of this approach may be unsatisfying, it is nonetheless an improvement on the empty promises all too frequent in the development world.



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References

[1] Abhijit Banerjeey, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, and Cynthia Kinnan, “The miracle of microfinance? Evidence from a randomized evaluation,” Working Paper (unpublished), May 2009.

[2] Jessica Cohen and Pascaline Dupas, “Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Randomized Malaria Prevention Experiment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 125:1, 2010.

[3] For examples of such praise, see: Ian Parker, “The Poverty Lab: Transforming development economics, one experiment at a time,” New Yorker, May 2010; James Crabtree, “Attested Development,” Financial Times, April 2011; William Easterly, “Measuring How and Why Aid Works – or Doesn’t,” Wall Street Journal, April 2011; Ben Goldacre, “How can you tell if a policy is working? Run a trial,” The Guardian, May 2011; and Nicholas Kristof, “Getting Smart on Aid,” New York Times, May 2011.

[4] Angus Deaton, “Instruments, Randomization, and Learning about Development,” Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 48:2, June 2010.

[5] Edward Miguel and Michael Kremer, “Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities,” Econometrica, Vol. 72: 1, January 2004.

[6] Justin Sandefur, “Held Hostage: Funding for a Proven Success in Global Development on Hold in Kenya,” Global Development: Views from the Center blog, Center for Global Development, April 2011.

Farewell to Robertson: Thinking beyond metrics

Payal Hathi, MPA


I met with a woman this week that came into my office with huge bruises on her arms and face. She has been married to the man who gave her those bruises for 16 years, and they have two children together. She believes that she deserved what happened, that although she called the police for help in making the violence stop, she couldn’t actually tell them the truth about what was happening in her home; that if she just stays quiet and stays in the basement, her husband won’t get angry; and that all she needs to do is wait for 5 more years until her daughter is old enough to go to college. Then it will all be over.

Violence against women is not something that comes up often in policy circles – domestic violence in particular is often considered a family issue, or one that is generally addressed by activists. But there is certainly a place for policy to play a role. Societal portrayals and beliefs of women – from the media to childhood socialization to educational and job opportunities – all play a role in allowing the feminine to be seen as the inferior. In addition, the general attitude of blaming the victim and the cultural stigma often attached to women who “can’t keep their families together” perpetuates not only intergenerational cycles of violence, but also silence and shame around the issue.

A major part of the problem is that in the world of metrics and quantitative measures of success that we live in today, it often seems that there is little space or value given to work that cannot be counted using numbers. When I am asked how many women with whom I work have finally left their partners, found a job, or have secured housing for themselves, it seems much of the rest of the work that I do is invalidated because I cannot quantify what it means to get a woman to believe that she has the right to live free of fear or that she deserves to earn a living wage for her work. Of course the importance and power of statistics and clear, concise, and concrete information is critical in making policy issues relevant to people. But having worked in the violence against women movement for over a year now, it is clear that an additional system of evaluation is necessary if we as policymakers are to make the world a safer and more just place.

I came into graduate school with a background in quantitative evaluation work, hoping to gain the skills to enable small non-profits to incorporate evaluation as a routine practice to improve their own work. Through my work this past year with women facing human rights and economic justice violations in almost every aspect of their lives, I have become acutely aware that as policymakers, it is not enough to think about the efficiency with which different ideas can be put into practice, or the cost-effectiveness of one approach versus another. Rights, and the way in which they are put into practice in our families and daily interactions—while not easy to measure—must form the foundations of our policy frameworks in order to make meaningful impacts in the communities we serve. As I graduate, I recognize that as we look towards more sophisticated ways to evaluate the work of service providers, we cannot diminish the work that instills in people an awareness of their rights and gives them the tools to exercise them.

Payal Hathi worked at Sakhi for South Asian Women from 2010 to 2011. If you or someone you know has an issue with domestic violence, please go to Sakhi’s website http://sakhi.org or call their helpline at (21) 868-6741.

Handing China’s Nuclear Power Report Card to Zhou Enlai, Part II

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series on China's nuclear energy sector. Part I examines the program's practicality and safety.

Ruiwen Lee, MPA


As the first leader who pushed for China’s nuclear power in the early 1970s, then-Premier Zhou Enlai laid out four key principles for its development: practicality, safety, economic viability, and self-reliance (适用、安全、经济、自力更生). Forty years on, as the nuclear power industry begins taking off at an accelerated pace, these four principles continue to steer nuclear power developments in China.

This two-part blog post discusses the Chinese nuclear power sector’s performance under each of these principles. Last week we discussed the first two of these principles, practicality and safety. This week we look at the latter two, economic viability and self-reliance.

III. Economic viability: Economies of scale vs. technological lock-in
Given that China is coal-rich and has not instituted measures to internalize the negative health and environment externalities from fossil-fuel combustion, nuclear energy is yet to be price-competitive against coal. The estimated 0.05 yuan per unit supplied cost-gap implies that the cost of generating nuclear power remains an important factor in its economic viability.

Economies of scale in construction allow each subsequent unit of a particular nuclear reactor model to be built at a lower cost. This is important for nuclear power plants since the high construction costs are usually the factor working against its economic viability. The downside is that as older reactor designs become cheaper to build, newer models with greater efficiency and improved safety features are kept out of the market as a result of “technological lock-in.” Technological lock-in describes a situation whereby a technology, typically an older, less efficient one, gains such dominance in a market that it prevents newer, better technologies from being adopted. The market could become locked-in when there are increasing returns to adopting existing technology. This is due to a) decreasing costs from economies of scale and learning by doing, and b) increasing benefits arising from factors like network externalities.

Competition is fierce in the Chinese nuclear energy market today. Although the companies allowed to operate and hold majority stakes in nuclear power plants are all state-owned enterprises, they compete against each other for projects. Against the backdrop of the nuclear energy market, economic factors such as the cost of building and operating nuclear power plants are increasingly important in determining which type of reactors are built. It is in such a market that technological lock-in is more likely to occur.

Further, as Generation III+ reactors are being developed, China’s nuclear power market should avoid becoming saturated with or locked into older models so that it has the capacity to absorb newer models when they are released in the future. Of the more than 25 reactors under construction, 16 are the Generation II+ CPR-1000 model. While on the one hand economies of scale can be achieved by using many units of the same reactor model, there could be technological lock-in as newer, better models become less price-competitive to build and operate.

Similarly, small modular reactors (SMR) should be given ample room to compete in the market when they are introduced. Designed to be simpler and safer, SMRs could prove to be more effective in serving smaller load centres in remote areas and inland regions with small electricity grids that are not well-connected to the national grid. If plans to construct nuclear power plants in more remote areas are allowed to proceed before SMRs are introduced, nuclear operators might preclude SMRs from consideration in their eagerness to compete for market share.

IV. Self-reliance: Indigenizing nuclear power technology
Developing indigenous technology has been a key factor in the industry’s direction. Qinshan 1 in Zhejiang Province uses the CNP-300 reactor, designed by the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). The CNNC subsequently developed the CNP-600 reactor, which is used in Qinshan 2, and is developing the CNP-1000 model, though it has temporary been put on hold. The CNP-1000/600/300 models are all fully Chinese and free from foreign intellectual property rights.

The most popular reactor design in China currently is the CPR-1000. The China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC) developed the CPR-1000 based on the French reactor design used in Daya Bay, progressively indigenizing it with each nuclear power plant it builds.

A major acquisition by the Chinese nuclear power industry is Westinghouse’s AP1000, with the CNNC and the China Power Investment Corporation (CPIC) investing in an initial two reactors each. Besides allowing China to become the first country to build an AP1000 reactor, the deal with Westinghouse is significant for the technology transfer involved. As part of the agreement, China will own the intellectual property rights to subsequent larger models it designs based on the AP1000.

Conclusion: Moving forward in a post-Fukushima Asia
China's nuclear power industry has come a long way, and looks set for an increasing role in the future. Having achieved practical use for nuclear power, the industry will continue growing in its self-reliance, while balancing the dual goals of improving economic cost and safety.

Of course, much of China’s nuclear power development plans going forward would be seen by the government, the domestic public, and the international audience through the lens of Fukushima. While predicting China’s intended nuclear power expansion trajectory in the light of Fukushima is difficult, it is fair to expect the government to now give greater emphasis to safety. However, as a consequence, the country’s diversion of resources and expertise to improving safety is likely to apply natural brakes to the growth of nuclear power. How crippling this will be to the industry remains to be seen.

Disaster risk reduction: Africa’s development challenge

Carolyn Edelstein, MPA


Natural disasters happen. When, where, and how disasters strike is hard to forecast, but they occur often, and increasingly so. Usually, we try to mitigate disasters by shoring up our defenses, mostly through large-scale engineering feats. We apply similar strategies everywhere in the world, regardless of local conditions.

Problematically, this concept of disaster management leaves little room for human agency, and tends to over-rely on skills and resources unavailable in many parts of the developing world. But there is a new conception of disaster management, and the change highlights the need for professionals in developing countries—Africa especially—to generate their own solutions.

The last two decades have witnessed an emerging paradigm of “disaster risk reduction.” It contends that disasters are not just events to which we should respond, but rather the result of human vulnerabilities to environmental hazards in local contexts. The roots of vulnerability may be a matter of an individual’s characteristics, like old age or a disability, or may have structural causes: a lack of affordable housing, poor government service provision, and high crime rates; at a macro level, the legacies of colonialism, the global economic system, and so on. The explanations for vulnerability—and people’s strategies for overcoming vulnerability—quickly grow complex.

As such, disaster risk reduction demands a highly contextualized response. Researchers partner with residents of localities to identify hazards, vulnerabilities, and sources of resilience. Data-gathering and fine-resolution mapping inform local risk management practices. Disaster risk reduction heavily emphasizes preparation and adaptation, not just post-disaster relief. Such efforts are most successful when they incorporate an understanding of existing practices and perceptions. Who better to conduct the work than resident scholars and practitioners?

There is a blanket need for more research, especially in Africa. Existing work has focused on Asia and Latin America, though the need to understand the African context is clear. In spite of rising disaster incidence, deaths from natural disasters have been decreasing everywhere but in Africa. Elsewhere, sudden-onset crises prevail. Africa, by contrast, experiences “creeping emergencies,” when slow-onset hazards like droughts become unmanageable, or when underlying challenges like HIV/AIDS and malnutrition turn a relatively small event catastrophic. In this context, the typical emergency relief-based response to disasters proves less effective than preventative disaster risk reduction approaches.

Not only are relief efforts less helpful, but development suffers when plans ignore local risks. Mozambique offers an illustrative example of this inefficiency. There, the World Bank financed the construction of 487 schools over twenty years, but just one disaster, the floods of 2000, damaged or destroyed roughly 500 primary schools alone. The World Bank, Red Cross, and others have shown that every dollar invested in preventative risk reduction measures saves between $2 and $10 in disaster losses.

To encourage uptake of disaster reduction in development, the UN declared the 1990s the “International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.” In 2005, 164 member nations signed the Hyogo Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, pledging to build a risk reduction approach into disaster management and development.

And yet, myopia persists amongst development agencies. The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group found that disasters are “still sometimes treated as an interruption in development rather than as a risk to development.” Forty-four percent of current World Bank-supported country assistance strategies make no mention of disasters. More broadly, 96% of disaster-related assistance from the industrialized world still comes solely as emergency relief.

Better information may improve vulnerability reduction efforts, with added developmental benefits if Africans drive the effort themselves. Despite potential advantages of an African-led research initiative, the continent’s scholars produced only two of the African disaster risk-related research papers published in 2008. There were also few African programs for educating and training disaster management practitioners.

Early signs exist of a growing Africa-based field of study. A network of ten universities across the continent has started graduate-level programs in disaster risk science. Called Peri-Peri U, they model themselves after a research center based at the University of Cape Town, which primarily uses community-level risk assessments and spatial data mapping to analyze the vulnerability. The unit has the ear of government officials, community organizers, and a growing number of Southern African graduate students.

In 2011, the Peri-Peri network will seek renewed funding from the US Agency for International Development. Program reviews have consistently demonstrated positive yields of the new research centers for disaster management, and certainly for the emergence of a new generation of African-trained researchers, planners, and practitioners. With increased support, the local scholarship program can be scaled up and better tackle the urgent need to increase African preparedness to disaster risks.

Handing China’s Nuclear Power Report Card to Zhou Enlai, Part I

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series on China's nuclear energy sector. Part II examines the program's economic viability and self-reliance.

Ruiwen Lee, MPA


As the first leader who pushed for China’s nuclear power in the early 1970s, then-Premier Zhou Enlai laid out four key principles for its development: practicality, safety, economic viability, and self-reliance (适用、安全、经济、自力更生). Forty years on, as the nuclear power industry begins taking off at an accelerated pace, these four principles continue to steer nuclear power developments in China.

This two-part blog post discusses the Chinese nuclear power sector’s performance under each of these principles. This week we look at the first two of these principles, practicality and safety.

I. Practicality: The nuclear component in China’s energy mix
As with other nuclear weapon states, China’s nuclear energy industry has military roots. But given that political reasons were responsible for the country’s first nuclear power plants, China’s nuclear power capacity remained flat for decades. The early 2000s saw more power plants come online for assorted reasons dating back to the mid-1990s, but not because there was a fundamental shift in energy or nuclear policy. A country with abundant and cheap coal resources, China only began seriously considering nuclear energy as a serious alternative when power shortages hit regions nationwide in 2002.

The domestic thirst for energy to fuel the economy’s rapid growth, coupled with mounting international pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as climate change negotiations gain momentum, are the main drivers of nuclear energy’s recent rise. By 2007, nuclear power contributed only less than 2% of China’s electricity production. However, the Chinese government has plans to greatly expand the country’s nuclear power installed capacity, from the present 10.8 GWe (gigawatt electrical, one gigawatt being equal to one billion watts) to 70GWe by 2020.

Beyond becoming a practical source of energy for China’s booming economy, nuclear power has also emerged as a critical non-fossil fuel source set to reduce the dominance of coal in China’s energy mix, helping China achieve its green goals.

II. Safety: The Fukushima wake-up call
The March 11th Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that struck northeast Japan has given China a timely jolt from the fantasy of its economy growing at an unbridled pace on “clean” nuclear power. Previous nuclear meltdowns at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl occurred in the late-70s and mid-80s respectively, before China had embarked on its nuclear power expansion drive. That, and because it’s been a quarter-century since the previous nuclear crisis might have put significant distance between actual danger and that perceived by the Chinese nuclear authority and industry.

However, in the aftermath of Fukushima, the immediate reaction from the Chinese government was to suspend approvals for proposed nuclear power plant projects while declaring that its plans to develop nuclear energy would not stall. A Ministry of Environmental Protection official has gone as far as to claim that “there is a guarantee for the safety of China’s nuclear power facilities” and that China “will not abandon” its nuclear power plan for “fear of slight risks.”

Before Fukushima, nuclear power enjoyed a generally positive reception from the Chinese public, given its critical role in reducing air pollution and shifting the country to a low-carbon economy. This sentiment quickly vanished as a widespread nuclear scare took hold of China, with people buying large amounts of salt with iodine, mistakenly thinking that it could help ward off any radioactive effects drifting from Japan. The public’s reaction makes it obvious that nuclear power can quickly cease being everyone’s blue-eyed boy, and as such, any positive sentiment toward nuclear—no matter how long-lasting—simply cannot be taken for granted.

Other environmental issues have proven to be sensitive to the Chinese public. Escalating cancer rates associated with environmental pollution caused by factories have incited protest in various provinces. Hydropower dam construction plans have also faced strong and sometimes violent resistance. Within the nuclear industry, a construction project in Rushan, Shandong province was halted after local petitioning. To ensure that nuclear power retains a fair degree of public acceptance, the industry’s clean safety record is of utmost importance.

Next week we’ll tackle economic viability and self-reliance.

Latin Americans: A disproportionate share of the uninsured

Veronica Guerra, MPA


Healthcare in America is designed as a multi-payer or privatized system, meaning everyone is responsible for securing his or her own health services. Excluding the young and old who are covered under federal or state social welfare programs, the majority of Americans get healthcare either through private insurance or their employer. Yet, nearly 55.6 million Americans lack access to basic health services, and even those who do find costs prohibitive: nearly half of bankruptcies in America are related to medical care payments. These statistics become paradoxical when one considers ballooning national expenditures in the health services industry.

In 2005 almost 34% of Latinos were uninsured, constituting a disproportionate share of the nation’s uninsured population. (This high rate has also led to further exacerbation of existing health inequities and to more pronounced health disparities.) The likelihood of being uninsured is far higher among non-citizen Latinos who primarily speak Spanish. There are various factors that contribute to the increasingly uninsured status of the Latino population, including employment, employee benefits, household income, language, and citizenship status.

Immigration from Latin America to the United States has steadily risen over time. Latino citizens and non-citizens are less likely to have both public and private insurance coverage. Non-citizens do not qualify for various public programs including Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and legal immigrants often do not apply for public programs because of fear of jeopardizing their residency status or because they are ineligible during the first five years of gaining residency. When employed, they are less likely to receive employee health benefits, and low-wages prevent the purchase of private insurance. In general, minorities and immigrant families have lower average incomes than white citizen families. These income differences pose a challenge in obtaining health benefits because low incomes lead many families to make difficult decisions between health care coverage and other basic necessities due to the increasing costs of health coverage.

Language also has an implicit effect on uninsured status. Those who have limited English proficiency may have limited employment opportunities and may work in low-wage sectors that do not offer employee health benefits. Furthermore, language barriers both pose a challenge in completing insurance applications and may compromise the quality of health care when access is obtained.

One important recommendation that could decrease the number of uninsured is to restore public insurance eligibility for legal immigrants, either through federal legislation or at the state level through programs such as Medicaid and SCHIP. Resources should be concentrated in the Latino community to help reduce the number of uninsured and decrease medical expenses incurred through emergency care visits. Existing resources that provide care for the uninsured such as safety-net clinics should be improved and provided increased funding to meet the high demand for their services. Additionally, policies that improve the quality of jobs held by Latinos or that incentivize businesses to offer insurance to low-income workers could lead to increased offers in employer-based health insurance. Processes to apply for insurance—whether public or private—should be streamlined and accessible to those who require language assistance. It is important that government efforts be focused on decreasing health disparities, improving preventive efforts, and increasing access to health care coverage for adults and children. This is not simply beneficial to the Latino community, but to Americans nationwide.