Guinea-Bissau’s Embalo will seek to centralise power

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
West African ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Guinea Bissau ◽  
Peace Operation

Significance The end to the UN peace operation came almost three months after the departure of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Mission in Guinea Bissau (ECOMIB). The completion of both missions comes amid a tense political standoff between President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and the former ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC). Impacts Embalo’s heavy-handed approach could bring short-term stability but poses a long-term threat to a fragile political and security situation. Drug trafficking will remain a major challenge for the new administration, despite hard-line government commitments. Embalo is looking to regional allies to attract much-needed funds for his administration and provide technical and financial assistance.

Guinea-Bissau elections may not end instability

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
West African ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Guinea Bissau ◽  
Presidential System ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Turmoil

Subject Outlook for presidential elections in Guinea-Bissau. Significance Controversial outgoing President Jose Mario Vaz is among twelve candidates vying for the presidency on November 24. While the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)-backed elections are set to go ahead as planned, fears linger that they will not end recurring political turmoil. Impacts If Pereira wins, he will likely try drafting a new constitution to give greater clarity to the current ambiguous semi-presidential system. Ongoing political instability will exacerbate border insecurity and long-standing narco-trafficking. A more active, internationally backed civil society will ensure added scrutiny of political parties and the government over the long term.

Offering undeclared workers financial help during Covid19 pandemic can bring them out of shadows into the declared economy

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Undeclared Work

Purpose The authors wanted to examine why undeclared workers had not received financial assistance in Europe during the pandemic and find the best way to help them and bring them out of the shadows. Design/methodology/approach To identify those whose paid work is entirely undeclared, a Eurobarometer survey of undeclared work in Europe is reported conducted in September 2019, just prior to the pandemic, and involving 27,565 face-to-face interviews in 28 European countries. Findings The paid work of one in every 132 citizens in Europe comprises wholly of undeclared work and one in 28 work at least some of the time in the undeclared economy. These workers have received no support, but they are more likely to be financially vulnerable. A high percentage of undeclared workers are widowed, divorced and living in households with multiple persons. Originality/value The authors argue that short-term support for these individuals could not only help them to survive the pandemic financially, but also transform undeclared work into declared work with long-term benefits for individuals and the wider economy.

Intervention in The Gambia may prove unique

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Military Intervention ◽  
West African ◽  
The Gambia ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
International Assistance ◽  
Tourism Sector ◽  
Security Guarantees

Significance For over a month, Jammeh rebuffed diplomatic efforts by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to accept Adama Barrow's victory in the December 1 presidential poll. An ECOWAS military intervention into The Gambia -- accompanied by last-minute diplomatic efforts and purported financial and security guarantees -- finally forced Jammeh to accept defeat. Impacts A truth commission offering amnesty for military officials and the outgoing government could prompt discord within the new ruling alliance. Military restructuring will be a priority for Barrow's government. International assistance will likely flow in support of the new president. The Gambia's tourism sector -- which makes up nearly 20% of the country's GDP -- will struggle to recover in the short-term. The ECOWAS intervention could prove unpopular among members' domestic constituencies if a lengthy, costly mission emerges.

The Politics and Diplomacy of Peacekeeping in West Africa: The Ecowas Operation in Liberia

1995 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ademola Adeleke
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
West African ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
The Gambia ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Guinea Bissau

TheEconomic Community of West African States (Ecowas) was established in May 1975 as an organisation to promote the development of the sub-region, and for 15 years did not deviate from this mandate. The 16 member-states – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo – restricted their interactions to purely economic matters and ran shy of political issues confronting West Africa. This tradition changed in 1990 when Ecowas decided to intervene in the civil war which had broken out in Liberia. Its strategy to resolve the conflict followed two parallel but mutually interactive channels — making and enforcing peace. The former involved negotiations and arbitration; the latter the deployment in August 1990 of a 3,000 strong multinational force to supervise a cease-fire.

Costa Rica’s pandemic response faces political hurdles

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Informal Sector ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Tourism Sector ◽  
Pandemic Response ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Imf

Significance In August, it asked the IMF for a USD1.75bn credit under the Extended Fund Facility. This will come on top of the USD504mn approved by the IMF for emergency financial assistance in May. Costa Rica's problems stem from a combination of long-term weaknesses and the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Impacts The tourism sector will be slow to recover, further hurting the economy and the fiscal position. Insufficient support for the informal sector will leave much of the country’s workforce struggling. Poverty will probably increase as the government struggles to expand social programmes to protect low-income households.

New ECOWAS force may sideline G5 Sahel

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
West African ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Intelligence Sharing ◽  
Donor Support

Significance More than 486,000 have been displaced in the country amid escalating violence. The G5 Sahel alliance -- an ad hoc regional cooperation body comprising Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger -- has proven unable to curb jihadist violence in the region. Coastal countries such as Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo now also feel under threat. So the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is developing a 1-billion-dollar, five-year security strategy for the whole region, set to be approved in December, which will include stronger cooperation and intelligence sharing between all states in the region. Impacts Extreme insecurity will further disrupt the public services and development programmes that already exist. More donor support may be needed, and France and Germany are playing a key role in developing plans for this. In the long term, the planned ECOWAS element of the African Standby Force initiative may assume some responsibilities.

The chicken and egg story of a call centre in Malaysia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Alan Fun-Foo Chan ◽  
Keng-Kok Tee ◽  
Thanuja Rathakrishnan ◽  
Jo Ann Ho ◽  
Siew-Imm Ng
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Call Centre ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Security Technologies ◽  
Academic Level ◽  
Key Account ◽  
Substandard Performance ◽  
Alternative Solutions

Learning outcomes After attempting the case, users are able to: analyse issues and problems faced by a call centre in Malaysia. Determine the root causes of the problems faced by call centre employees and generate alternative solutions to solve the problems faced by the company and to ensure the sustainability of the business. Case overview/synopsis This case was about the challenges faced by Daniel, the General Manager of an integrated security protection system company, Secure First (SF). Despite investing in the latest security technologies, conducting a major overhaul of the procedures, introducing an enhanced digital system at the call centre and providing training to the call agents, it was on the verge of losing its important long-term client due to its substandard performance. The client experienced major losses due to break-ins. After a thorough investigation, the problem surfaced in their call centre. Most of the staff were not familiar with the newly adopted system. The circumstances worsened when many of the call centre’s senior employees were tendering their resignations. The case discusses the aspect of employee satisfaction, staff performance that led to the turnover issue amongst employees in a call centre. The case explores what short-term and long-term strategies could Daniel suggest to change the call centre’s course to retain SF’s key account in times of desperation. Complexity academic level This case has a moderate level of difficulty and may be used in undergraduate students. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 6: Human resource management.

Contemporaneous or causal? Evaluating the triumvirate of insolvency risk, capitalization and efficiency in Indian commercial banking

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Navendu Prakash ◽  
Shveta Singh ◽  
Seema Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Cost Efficiency ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Generalized Method Of Moments ◽  
Commercial Banking ◽  
Seemingly Unrelated Regression ◽  
Bank Capital ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Insolvency Risk

PurposeThis paper empirically examines the short-term and long-term associations between risk, capital and efficiency (R-C-E) in the Indian banking sector across 2008–2019 to answer the presence of causation or contemporaneousness in the R-C-E nexus.Design/methodology/approachThe paper focuses on three objectives. First, the authors determine short-term causality in the risk–efficiency relationship by studying the simultaneous influence of a wide array of banking risks on DEA-based technical and cost efficiency in static and dynamic situations. Second, the authors introduce bank capital and contemporaneously determine the interplay between R-C-E using seemingly unrelated regression equation (SURE) and three-staged least squares (3SLS). Last, the authors assess stability in inter-temporal associations using Granger causality in an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) generalized method of moments (GMM) framework.FindingsThe authors contend that high capital buffers reduce insolvency risk and increase bank stability. Technically efficient banks carry lesser equity buffers, suggesting a trade-off between capital and efficiency. However, capitalization makes banks more technically efficient but not cost-efficient, implying that over-capitalization creates cost inefficiencies, which, in line with the cost skimping hypothesis, forces banks to undertake risk. Concerning causal relationships, the authors conclude that inefficiency Granger-causes insolvency and increases bank risk. Further, steady increases in capital precede technical and cost efficiency improvements. The converse also holds as more efficient banks depict temporal increases in capitalization levels.Originality/valueThe paper is perhaps the first that acknowledges the influence of the “time” perspective on the R-C-E nexus in an emerging economy and advocates that prudential regulations must focus on short-term and long-term intricacies among the triumvirate to foster a stable banking environment.

Labor lawsuits and debt maturity

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omer Unsal
Keyword(s):  
Chief Executive ◽  
Debt Maturity ◽  
Employee Relations ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Debt Market ◽  
Legal Fees

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how firms’ relationships with employees define their debt maturity. The authors empirically test the role of employee litigations in influencing firms’ choice of short-term versus long-term debt. The authors study employee relations by analyzing the importance of the workplace environment on capital structure. Design/methodology/approach The author’s test hypotheses using a sample of US publicly traded firms between 2000 and 2017, including 3,056 unique firms with 4,256 unique chief executive officer, adopting the fixed effect panel model. Findings The authors document that employee litigations have a significant negative effect on the use of short-term debt and a significant positive affect on long-term debt. Employee litigations, along with legal fees, outcomes and charging parties, matter the most in explaining debt maturity. In addition, frequently sued firms abandon the short-term debt market and use less shareholders’ equity to finance their operations while relying more on the longer debt market. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the role of employee mistreatment in debt maturity choice. The study extends the lawsuit and finance literature by examining unique, hand-collected data sets of employee lawsuits, allegations, violations, settlements, charging parties, case outcomes and case durations.

The transition of a socio-technical system to a smart grid: illustrated with the Indian electricity network

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lakshminarayana Kompella
Keyword(s):  
Technical System ◽  
Transition Theory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Indian States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
Policy Systems ◽  
Transition Trajectory ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to explain transitions in a socio-technical system characterized by non-economic entities that influence economic activity, i.e. embeddedness and coalitions. The selected socio-technical system is an Indian electric network with an interventionist policy. Its embeddedness and coalitions drive the transition. The insights from such analysis expand socio-technical transition theory and provide valuable insights to practitioners in their policymaking. Design/methodology/approach The authors need to observe the effects of non-economic institutions in their setting. Moreover, in India, the regional policies influence decision-making; therefore, selected two Indian states. The two Indian states, along with their non-economic entities, provided diverse analytic and heuristic views. Findings The findings show that coalitions, with their embeddedness in the absence of any mediating policy systems, act as external pressures and influence innovation and the socio-technical system’s transition trajectory. Their coalitions’ embeddedness follows a shaping, not selection logic. Thereby influence innovations in cumulating as stable designs. Such an approach provides benefits in the short-term but not in the long-term. Research limitations/implications The study selected two states and examined two of the four trajectories. By considering other states, the authors can obtain more renewable energy investments and further insights into the transformational trajectory. Practical implications The study highlights the coalition dynamics specific to the Indian electric power network and its transition trajectories. The non-economic entities influenced transition trajectories, innovation and policymaking of the socio-technical system. Originality/value The study expands the socio-technical transition theory by including embeddedness. The embeddedness brings a shaping logic instead of a selection logic.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document