Emerging food and nutrition security challenges in Central Asia—implications for BRICS and emerging economies

In the last two decades, Central Asia has gone through several transitions in institutions and governance, each with consequences for the agricultural sectors in the region. Since their independence, the five countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, have made considerable progress towards increasing domestic food production. However, food security in the region is still threatened by major geopolitical and socio-economic challenges. Lack of support from institutions to advance farming has resulted in the low level of food security in the region. Lack of research and extension of support to farmers and low capacity for designing evidence-based policies are major challenges to the region’s food security. This chapter identifies critical issues and challenges faced by Central Asian countries for attaining short-term and long-term food and nutrition security, and the implications for BRICS and other emerging economies.

Minimum wages and inequality in Mexico

The literature on minimum wages in Mexico has focused largely on their impact on poverty, and poverty reduction, while their relationship with inequality has not been fully explored. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the status and dynamics of the minimum wage in Mexico and its relation with income inequality from a Latin American comparative perspective. In this context, we are mostly interested in juxtaposing the Mexican experience with the cases of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, as three countries of roughly comparable economic development in the region pursuing labour policies diametrically opposing those of Mexico. In light of this Mexican exceptionality, we analyse the relationship between minimum wages and inequality in the country, and what Mexico could learn from the diverging experience of the other countries, with the aim of providing some recommendations to policymakers.

BRICS, emerging markets, and the world economy

The object of this chapter is to analyse the global implications of the economic rise of BRICS and a larger set of emerging markets (Next-14) among developing countries. It sets the stage by outlining the broad contours of change in the world economy during the past sixty years and highlighting the discernible shift in the balance of economic power. It then examines the growing significance of BRICS and Next-14, since 1980, in terms of their economic size, engagement with the world economy, and industrialization. It analyses the possible economic impact of rapid growth in BRICS on the world economy, on industrialized countries, and on developing countries, to show that this could be either positive or negative, so that the balance would shape outcomes. Going beyond economics into politics, it considers the factors underlying the evolution of BRICS as a formation, to discuss their potential influence on international institutions and global governance.

Humane global governance—an area for the future where progress inches forward

This chapter argues that the twenty-first century requires humane global governance, well beyond current perspectives usually based on neoliberal economics. Humane global governance would give priority to human concerns and human rights; encompass the Sustainable Development Goals as key objectives; be focused on support for national and international priorities for human rights, poverty reduction, and diminishing extremes of inequalities. Global public goods should be defined and pursued in a humane way, emphasizing human needs in tackling such global threats as the transmission of communicable diseases, extremes of rapid migration, civil conflict, peace and human security—all key elements in human development. Examples are given as to how such approaches have been demonstrated by different UN agencies and how they can be built on for the future.

Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera programme and the rise of social assistance in Latin America

This chapter provides an analysis of the political and economic conditions under which Mexico’s Progresa (later renamed as Oportunidades, and more recently as Prospera) was introduced to prelude the rise of social assistance in Latin America. The chapter identifies four distinctive features of the programme that were revolutionary in their own right. First, Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera embraced a multidimensional approach to poverty, linking income transfers with simultaneous interventions in health, education, and nutrition. Second, the programme focused on the poor, in clear contrast to generalized food subsidies that dominated previous antipoverty interventions. Third, the programme followed a complex system of identification and selection of beneficiaries explicitly designed to prevent its political manipulation. Finally, an independent impact evaluation protocol proved to be crucial in strengthening the programme’s legitimacy across different political factions during unprecedented democratic transitions in the country.

Governing a complex global financial system in the age of global instabilities and BRICS

The global economic governance architecture has undergone a deep metamorphosis with respect to the institutional arrangements responsible for the economic needs of a growing, developing world. The international institutions formed during the Bretton Woods era (mid-1940s), i.e. World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization (evolving from General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) have long served as multilateral institutions in charge of addressing critical issues in the international financial system. However, the rise of larger developing economies (India, China, Brazil, etc.) in recent decades allowed these countries to enjoy a greater role in the global economic and political landscape. This chapter provides, through a bird’s-eye view, a comprehensive account of some ‘old’ and ‘new’ institutional arrangements shaping the dynamics of a new global economic order; arguing for a (re-)defined institutional approach in designing financial lending policies for developing economies in accomplishing a more robust, inclusive developmental growth process.

United Nations? BRICS and international peacekeeping

The role of BRICS in international affairs has been steadily expanding, particularly in security and peacekeeping. Active involvement in international affairs illustrates a broader desire and acknowledgement that BRICS see their own future as being deepening integration with the international system itself. However, this integration does not necessarily mean complete assimilation without any change and many of the BRICS advocate alternative ways of dealing with international issues that theoretically differentiate them from the Western international system. This chapter examines peacekeeping as an expression of this dilemma. Concentrating on Brazil, but drawing wider conclusions about assimilation and complementarity between BRICS and the international security architecture, the chapter illustrates some of the dilemmas faced within intervention and discusses the claim that BRICS offer an alternative way of keeping the peace in countries like Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Reason, argument, and agitation

Amartya Sen has argued that democracy has intrinsic and instrumental significance for economic and social development. In joint work with Jean Drèze, he has shown that democratic pressures can produce positive results in democratic and non-democratic nations alike. An Uncertain Glory briefly discusses the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations in this regard, but is inexplicably silent about South Africa (the final member of the BRICS). Can South Africa follow in the footsteps of the BRIC nations? Or might the South African brand of democracy really fall short? Reaffirming Drèze and Sen’s conclusion for India, this chapter argues there are grounds to be ‘contingently optimistic’ about the role of public participation in South Africa—despite the massive democratic deficit the country has inherited. This is illustrated through three case studies of participation focusing on pressure for HIV/AIDS treatment, the role of the public protector, and community action in Bokfontein.

Violence and BRICS

After criticism that the Millennium Development Goals overlooked violence, the fourth of the twelve goals proposed by the High Level Panel on the Post 2015 Development Agenda was to ‘build peace’. Despite the vague understanding of what ‘peace’ would actually mean within this agenda, the argument laid out is clear: the only types of violence prevention that have a significant role in the post-2015 agenda are those that are also instrumental to economic growth. This chapter explores the place of violence in the development stories of the BRICS countries. I highlight the kinds of violence that appear to be essential in order for current patterns of economic growth to continue.

Development and inequality in the African lions

Ghana’s national economic transformation has been widely celebrated; but what about the role of the country’s cities in this transformation? Typically, the contribution of cities in Ghana to the country’s transformation is seen as negative, or non-existent to negligible. This characterization is quite common for cities in Africa for which The State of Africa Cities reports mostly brand as rural poverty-driven settlements. None of these claims, however, is based on a systemic analysis of what contribution cities in Ghana have made to the country’s economic transformation. This chapter, seeks to provide a more careful analysis of the existing statistical and historical evidence. using a heterodox spatial political economy methodology. The chapter argues that most urban residents are either born in cities or are attracted to them from the countryside; but urbanization cannot be explained as ‘poverty driven’, especially when rural poverty in the country has been falling and the urban economies of many cities are booming.