The changing volume and content of municipal waste has overwhelmed the containment capacities of city authorities to remediate the problem. This elusive enterprise has sparked as much dissatisfaction with the mad rush for foreign-based models as with the new conceptual interventions. Many have questioned why a monumental challenge still lingers on in spite of the “much-acclaimed” potentials of the new interventions. Our article extends the debate by focusing on the politics of solid waste management, and how it shapes environmental safety. Based on content analysis of earlier studies, complemented with key informant interviews, the article raises issues with emerging models, which overemphasize the role of foreign-based approaches against indigenously derived practices. Using our study outcomes, we argue that the development trajectories of most Ghanaian cities create specific contestations, which configure the informal sector and the built environment in unique ways. We demonstrate that the new models have hardly had visible success stories after two decades of experimentation because they are incompatible with the local development trajectories. Concluding, we caution that the problem will persist and potentiate a cyclical state of dissolution, unless those who eke out livelihood from the sector informally are recognized, valued, and taken into account in local economic development.

Chile has a long record of public probity, representing an exception in Latin America. It goes back to the late colonial period when the country was ruled by relatively efficient and honest governors. During the nineteenth century, Chile built up a solid state and a stable political system, based on the rule of law. Chileans have been ever since aware of the exceptionality of their country in terms of the strength of their political institutions and the scrupulousness of their rulers. This article shows the historical evolution of public probity in Chile, emphasizing the ways several governments have dealt with the corruption issue since democratic restoration in 1990.

As discussed in the preface to this edition, there are three cases in the developing world which stand out in regard to corruption: Singapore, Hong Kong, and Chile. While all have had differing rates of economic growth and their own particular struggles with governance, they are the only consistently high performers over long periods of time. To better understand the roots of their success, this article compares the three cases with two other cases with perennial issues of corruption, Nigeria and Paraguay. Our analysis is organized around three basic categories. The first is to examine the personnel systems of each civil service and to see how reforms in recruitment and promotion—the main focus of aid agencies—have reduced corruption. The second is to examine sanctions for corruption in order to understand how they become real rather than just rhetorical. Civil service reform efforts so far have focused on the first two. Using the most similar/different comparative approach, we conducted field research in the three success cases and secondary research in all five. This in itself is revealing as comparing Chile to the East Asian cases has not been done before. We find similarities among the success and failures of the first two categories. Therefore, we must dismiss them as having limited effectiveness. Given such conditions are necessary but insufficient, we turn to a third category, namely the culture around civil services, finding there are clear contrasts in the culture of success and failure cases. Moreover, all three of the former countries were at one time rife with corruption, thus raising the key question of how they changed. If there are cultural inflection points that can be identified that line up with the transformation of dishonesty to honesty in our three success cases, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Chile, and cultural sticking points in the other cases, we can explain the failure of formal reform efforts. This suggests we need a new research agenda on cultural change as a part of future reform efforts.

Health care can be expensive for the un-insured, often constituting a potential poverty trap. Urban India is particularly vulnerable to this possibility given the greater demand for health, absence of a structured health care system, overburdened public institutions, ubiquitous, and unregulated private health care market and the generic paucity of public funds. Using nationally representative household level data for two points of time and a suitable alteration of an existing methodology, this article computes the degree and depth of impoverishment from out of pocket medical expenses, and its variation across states and select socioeconomic characteristics. Roughly 6 percent of the urban population or about 18 million people face impoverishment entirely due to out of pocket medical expenses in India. There are substantial inter-state and inter-group variations in the incidence of this burden. The findings are potentially crucial as India prepares to embark on its journey toward universal health coverage.

This article is based on an in-depth study of the socio-economic changes experienced by agricultural laborers as a result of tobacco cultivation. Two villages in the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, India—one where tobacco is extensively grown (Karavadi) and the other where it is not (Veerabhadrapuram) are studied. What emerges from the study is that tobacco cultivation has not only acted as a money multiplier, but has brought about a very high degree of social awareness among the hitherto so-called untouchables (now termed Dalits) in this district. They have become highly conscious of their political and social rights for improving themselves. In this process, some of the practices like untouchability, social exclusion and engagement in traditional occupations have been shaken at their roots.

Recently, some emerging economies are beginning to challenge the existing international development architecture by doling out huge amounts of aid, both in cash and kind to countries in Africa, thereby playing a prominent role in the development of Africa. Amongst these new donors, China tops the list. There is great optimism about the potential benefits of China–Africa aid co-operation despite the doubts expressed by “Sino-skeptics or sinophobes.” This trust stems from two points: first, it is because China, which shares history of oppression and underdevelopment with Africa, deemed itself in a better position to be of veritable assistance to Africa, and second, Africa has plenty of lessons to draw from China’s development experiences. It is important that Africa must use the events of the past to shape the future, that is, draw lessons from its past history and experiences with the West and at the same time emulate the Chinese experiences in growth, development, poverty reduction strategy, etc. However, for China’s aid to guarantee Africa’s development, it is not only advisable for Africa to maximize and build on the complementarities across the different sectors (trade, investment, aid, etc.), which this relations offer, but that African government must develop good policies, adequate institutional framework and regulations when strategizing for development and engaging with China, as this will enable Africa to benefit in an all round way. The paper concludes, it is only when these factors are taken into consideration that Africa will be on the path to development.

Increasing inequality in Nigeria has been of growing interest to scholars, international political observers, and the Nigerian public since the creation of the country in 1914 by the British colonial masters. The focus of this article is on the extent to which the practice of democracy in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic has contributed to the reduction of inequality. The article begins with the dimensions of inequality in Nigeria. The study shows that democratic governance has not adequately bridged the inequality gap in country. The article further identifies reasons for the failure of democratic governance to address the problem of inequality successfully. It also discusses reactions of Nigerians to widespread inequality.

In this article the significance of spirituality in human development is discussed using the “Svadhyaya movement” as a case study in urban India. As the principles of the movement are grounded in a modern revision of classical Hindu philosophy emphasizing personal development and self-realization, it challenges the Western paradigm of materialism as an inevitable first stage of development. The findings of this case are contextualized by drawing attention to emerging neo-integrative approaches in “the West” that attempt to bridge the schism of spirituality/religion and the sciences. Finally, I explore the implications this may have in the related praxis fields of urban planning and international development.

This article argues that investment in social inclusion policies is an economically efficient option for developing countries. It analyzes different social inclusion policies, particularly those practiced in Brazil and Colombia, as they demonstrate, among other things, the racial dimension of exclusion and the corresponding economic contribution of race-based social inclusion policies to sustained economic growth and development. These cases also demonstrate that educational policies are central to social inclusion programs, because they render the highest economic medium and long-term return. Evidence supporting this argument comes from Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs), a Brazilian social policy that has become a landmark in social policy, as well as from Brazil’s Affirmative Action (AA) policies.