“Policies to promote entrepreneurship among poor and marginalised groups are politically appealing but generally not the most effective… increased efforts should be made to help promising and established enterprises expand, produce higher quality goods and connect to global markets,” argue Drs. Micheline Goedhuys and Eleonora Nillesen. Entrepreneurship is said to be a key strategy in fostering economic growth and development. Yet there is a large heterogeneity in entrepreneurs ...
“We need to be more transparent and clear about what development money is used for and that it actually goes into development work.” Dr. Melissa Siegel Gender, inequalities, security and migration are the guiding themes of the EU ‘Brainstorming on Challenges for International Cooperation and Development’, a conference held in Brussels on 13 March 2015. Part of the European Year for Development, the conference was opened by Neven Mimica, EU Commissioner for International C...
The head of our Migration and Development group, Dr. Melissa Siegel, today joined a briefing for government officials at UN Headquarters in New York. She spoke about “migration as a development enabler”, giving particular attention to destination countries. In her presentation Dr. Siegel highlighted: 1) How fragile and developing States can harness migration for development; 2) The importance of policy coherence in linking migration with development; and 3) The need for better and mo...
Why should emerging economies enter the nanotech race? What trade-offs should they make in the catch-up process? Nanotechnology and Development: What’s in it for Emerging Countries? attempts to answer these and many more questions. The book highlights the nature and magnitude of the nanotech divide between high-income countries and the rest of the world. It studies the evolution and functioning of state policy and technology clusters in developed regions like the US and EU in order to identify t...
What has India’s national system of innovation achieved in the last 60 years? How has it performed in terms of building industrial capabilities and promoting development? Innovation in India, a new book edited by Prof. Shyama V. Ramani, gathers historical evidence on the accumulation of scientific, technical, innovation and industrial capabilities across different industrial sectors. It analyses how technology and innovation have shaped different sectors in India and how this evolution ha...
In our third blog post for World Refugee Day, we learn why higher education is important to refugees and why this kind of provision deserves greater political and academic attention. World Refugee Day marks a global recognition of those who have been forced to leave their homes to find sanctuary abroad; a day when individual citizens and the international community reaffirm their support for resolving protracted conflicts and advancing the situation of refugees. Yet, it is only in the last decad...
Amid a new and violent insurgency in Iraq, our working paper spells out the options for the country and the international community. Based on research in 104 districts in Iraq from 2004-2009, the paper focuses on three counter-insurgency strategies: 1. Increasing troop numbers; 2. Investing in local development programmes; and 3. Cooperating with ethnic / tribal councils. Author Pui-hang Wong, a PhD Fellow at UNU-MERIT, finds that insurgents are highly responsive to counter-insurgency interventi...
A new book co-edited by UNU Rector David M. Malone features a chapter on “Entrepreneurship and Economic Development” by Prof. Wim Naudé. The chapter is drawn from a paper which ranks among the Top 10 monthly downloads of the IZA Discussion Paper Series. According to Naudé, “Entrepreneurship is… a valid and important subject of study for development scholars, and development is a worthwhile subject of study for entrepreneurship and management scholars. “The growing availability of more and better...
“Human Migration: Myths, Hysteria and Facts” was the title of the inaugural lecture of Prof. Hein de Haas on 27 June at the Aula of Maastricht University. Hein de Haas is the Co-Director of the International Migration Institute (IMI) and University Lecturer in Migration Studies within the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. De Haas holds a professorship in Migration and Development at UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance and has taught migration the...
The final conference of the IS Academy Migration and Development project was held in Maastricht from 22-24 January 2014, with sessions focusing on Afghanistan, Burundi, Ethiopia, Morocco and the Netherlands, and themes such as remittances, entrepreneurship and diasporas. Under the banner “A World in Motion”, the aim was to share analysis of project data and examine results from other research conducted around the world. The conference kicked off on Wednesday 22 January with welcome s...