Spatial spillover effects of official development assistance on environmental pressure in sub-Saharan African(SSA)countries

Impoverished sub-Saharan Africa(SSA)is under increasing environmental pressure from global environmental changes.It is now generally accepted in academic circles that economic development in SSA countries can cause environmental pressure in other countries.However,there is research gap on the impact of economic assistance on environmental pressure in SSA countries and whether economic assistance causes spatial spillovers of environ-mental pressure between SSA countries.To better understand the impact of economic assistance on environmental pressures in SSA,a dynamic spatial Dubin panel model was developed.It helped us explore the spatial spillover effects of economic assistance on environmental pressures in recipient countries based on the panel data from 34 SSA countries.The results show that economic assistance had a positive stimulating effect on environmen-tal pressures of recipient countries,which means that the degree of human disturbance to the environment has deepened.Due to the regional correlation effect,neighboring countries were saddled with environmental pres-sures from the target country.Moreover,environmental pressures have time inertia,which can easily produce a snowball effect.The decomposition of effects shows that the impact of economic assistance on environmental pressures is relatively minor.Environmental pressures have spillover effects,so to deal with diffuse risks,joint regional prevention and control policies should be developed.

Effect of Donor Funding on the Performance of Water Utilities in Kenya

The objective of this study was to analyse the effect of donor funding on the performance of water utilities in Kenya.The study employed the use of a census by targeting all 88 regulated Water Services Providers(WSPs)in Kenya for a period of two years,2016 and 2017.Data pertaining to the support received from the donors were obtained from the publications of the WSPs,Development Partners,Civil Society Organisations(CSOs),and Office of Auditor General(OAG).Performance data of the various WSPs were extracted from the Impact reports produced by Water Regulatory Board(WASREB),for the periods 2016/7 to 2017/8.Presentation of the data was done through the use of tables and charts with the application of SPSS.The study found that donor funding issued as Output Based Approach(OBA)leads to improved performance.This finding is expected to assist the Kenyan Government in negotiating for the Official Development Assistance(ODA)funding to be aligned to the government flagship projects under the Medium Term Plans(MTP).The study recommends OBA as the best way of issuing donor funding.

Blind spots in climate finance for innovation Peter WARREN

International climate finance is a sub-set of green finance and refers to investments specifically in climate change mitigation and adaptation activities,which primarily involve public finance and the leveraging of private finance in developing countries.In addition to continued international support for scaling low carbon solutions and facilitating replicability in developing countries,there remains an important need to increase the amount of climate finance provided to innovation,particularly demonstration(for technology innovation)and pilot implementation(for policy innovation),and to channel a greater proportion of Official Development Assistance(ODA)to‘hard-to-abate'areas,such as industrial decarbonisation,international transport and cross-sectoral issues like cooling and behavioural insights,to accelerate the commercialisation and implementation of technological,linancial and policy solutions to contribute to meeting the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming to‘well-below'2℃ in these countries.Linking research,development and demonstration(RD&D)support with technical assistance is important in providing the route to obtain wider donor finance(concessional finance)and private finance to enable deployment through scalability and replicability.