Regional dynamics in Africa: High stakes for development
Regional cooperation and integration in Africa are highly complex processes. The interests of state and non-state actors in such processes and the power they hold differ within countries and among countries. Often, the outcomes of regional cooperation are hard to predict, with the costs and the envisaged benefits unevenly spread over time among the interested stakeholders. Despite these complexities, this ECDPM Discussion Paper argues that these times offer good opportunities for domestic policymakers, regional organisations, non-state stakeholders and donors to engage purposefully in such regional enterprises. It points to opportunities and to new research that helps understand shapers and blockers of regional cooperation and helps identify opportunities and prioritise for politically and technically feasible support strategies.  ECDPM and the IDL Group are currently undertaking a study, to be published in September, on the drivers and obstacles to regional cooperation and integration in Africa on behalf of the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi.

African Leadership Transitions Tracker
The African Leadership Transitions Tracker from the Brookings Institution is an interactive feature that factually recounts and visually presents changes at the head of state level in every African country from independence or end of the colonial period to the present. It aims to enrich dialogue about developments occurring on the continent and place current news on elections or other types of changeover events within the broader context of the continent’s leadership story overall and what leadership changeover might mean for development. Over the next few months, Brookings will be running a series of articles based on this data.

Innovative financing for the economic transformation of Africa
This book from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa underscores the centrality of domestic resources mobilisation and stopping illicit financial flows in Africa’s quest to underwrite its economic transformation agenda.  It demonstrates that a number of characteristic features of African economies are at the root of the rather low levels of mobilising domestic resources, including low public and private savings rates, complex administrative and bureaucratic procedures, corruption and tax evasion.  The book outlines the range of opportunities and policy options that are available to African countries. It also discusses the importance and potential of regional integration in fostering investor confidence, lowering costs and improving efficiency of raising capital across jurisdictions.

Power and influence in Africa
This paper from the Institute for Security Studies Africa finds that Africa, with the possible exception of Nigeria, will remain at the margins of power and influence globally in 2040 despite the sustained high levels of growth and an ongoing broad transformation on the continent over the period. However, changes in the global distribution of power will at the very least affect Africa’s capacity for power projection and informal and formal alliance building, both continentally and globally. Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa will have a significant impact on whether the ‘Africa rising’ story materialises regardless of how they project power because of their demographic, economic and military size.

States of fragility: Meeting post-2015 ambitions
This OECD report identifies countries the most vulnerable in five dimensions of risk and vulnerability linked to fragility - violence; access to justice for all; effective, accountable and inclusive institutions; economic foundations; and capacity to adapt to social, economic and environmental shocks and disasters. The post-2015 development debate offers an opportunity to make the international approach to fragility and financing “fit-for-purpose”. Far greater international political will is needed to support nationally owned and led plans, build national institutions at a faster rate, and help countries to generate domestic revenues and attract private finance. And donors must be more flexible and risk tolerant to on-budget aid modalities and build national institutions.

Busting 5 myths on political-economy analysis
Many continue to argue that it is not the business of development banks or aid agencies to analyse politics, let alone act on key findings. This resistance is posited on several arguments - or myths  - according to Stefan Kossoff, Head of Profession for Governance in UK DFID: that there is a set of development interventions called “technical aid” that exist above the realm of politics and a second set called “political aid” that operate within the political realm; that political economy is necessarily the ‘dismal science’ of problems and constraints, rather than solutions and ways forward; that an emphasis on politics diminishes the importance of technical knowledge and specialisation; that standards of rigor and evidence are lower in the field of political economy than other academic disciplines; and that taking political economy seriously is about understanding ‘them out there’ rather than ‘us in here.’

‘Developing Cultural Industries: Learning from the Palimpsest of Practice’
This new book by Christiaan De Beukelaer, published on the European Cultural Foundation website, explores the connection between culture and broader goals of human development offering a thorough exploration of how the concepts of cultural and creative industries are constructed and implemented across African countries. Through quantitative research, it leads towards a broader understanding and insight on the global implications of the European debate surrounding creative industries. Christiaan De Beukelaer published this book through the support of the 2012 Cultural Policy Research Award.

Help ECDPM define its future communications products: Take our survey
ECDPM is surveying how its materials are used, to improve them in the future.  By helping us understand better how you use our products, you can help us to achieve this. Please take our survey.  Your answers will also feed into the external evaluation of  ECDPM that will take place in autumn 2015 and into our new five year ECDPM strategy. The survey will be open until 10 April. Our community is the heart of ECDPM, and your insights are truly appreciated!

ECDPM is hiring: Executive Assistant for the Strengthening European External Action
ECDPM is looking for a dynamic, organised and flexible Executive Assistant to support and be a full member of its Strengthening European External Action Programme.  The candidate will have a very high proficiency in undertaking complex layout using Microsoft Word and excellent English language skills (written and spoken). Typical tasks include organising internal and external meetings, managing schedules, English minute taking, layout of complex documents, assisting in preparing tenders, liaising with programme members and with other back office functions, and documenting the work of the programme to report to external stakeholders.

-This working paper from the Investment Policy Hub looks at the ongoing debate on tax avoidance by multinational enterprises - with new ideas and methodological approaches to examining the fiscal impact of multinational enterprises, including an explicit call to action to the OECD/G20 BEPS Action Plan.

-While Brazil, India and China have been criticised for being obstructive in the negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda, this Institute of Development Studies (IDS) paper argues that what appears to be a confrontational style of diplomacy is in fact an assertive affirmation of long-standing principles. Rapid and real progress is being made both in these countries’ national frameworks and their international commitments to making the SDGs a reality.

-Do foreign aid dollars promote peace and security? There is a growing body of evidence that in some cases introducing aid money into a violent context can increase levels of violence as players scramble to divert or control those dollars. AidData has been selected by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative as part of a consortium seeking to answer these questions by exploring the relationship between foreign assistance and intrastate conflict.

-In this brief for the International Growth Centre, Paul Collier and Caroline Laroche present a framework for natural resource management - diagnosing weaknesses in national natural resource management frameworks. Their key messages are that natural resources need not be a curse, that governments need to get the natural resource management policy right, and that strong political actions are required to ensure natural resource wealth is used to support inclusive growth.

-This paper from the Brookings Institution asks if the world can deliver on financing African infrastructure by collecting data on three major sources of external financing. Though there are challenges to compiling the financing data in a comparable manner, the information is sufficient to establish the pattern of support across countries and sectors.

-The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) outlines its four trade priorities for the global development agenda in 2015 - including designing a trade system that keeps poor countries at the core; shifting from ‘free trade’ to ‘open trade’; opening up global value chains to new opportunities for poorer countries and reducing the cost of trade. ODI argue all should feature in all post-2015 development debates.

-This CDI Practice Paper provides a critical assessment of the literature on tax experiments to date, providing practical reflections on how to move forward in low and middle-income countries where this type of research is still underdeveloped. It offers a guide for practitioners on the main challenges in quantitative research on tax compliance and on the methods used tackle them.

-This report by MPs from the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee argues that the UK’s spending on multilateral organisations and humanitarian assistance is coming at the expense of DFIDs important and effective bilateral work with priority countries.

-This report by GEGafrica is the latest in its BRICS Insights Papers and focuses on BRICS and Development Finance Institutions.

-This latest Insights report from McKinsey entitled ‘From liability to opportunity’ looks at how to build food security and nourish growth.

-This Political Risk and Emerging Markets blog from the World Bank reflects on the investment prospects for countries facing fragility and conflict. Despite the deteriorating security situation, investors will still seek business opportunities as long as the expected return on investment is sufficiently high to cover a required level of return plus risk premium.