What is empowerment? How can women across the MENA region become empowered? Is it possible for Western-born concepts — such as female empowerment — to travel across complex contexts and patriarchal/male-dominated cultures? While agreeing on a definition for female empowerment has proved to be a challenging task among scholars and policy practitioners, working out a universal framework that is applicable to different settings has proven to be an even more daunting task.
The decade 2003-2013 was an exceptional one for Latin America in social terms, but less clearly so in economic terms. Growth slowed down significantly after the exceptional factors that fed the 2003-2007 boom came to an end. The possible unwinding of the super-cycle in commodity prices and, to a lesser extent, of the expansionary monetary policy of the United States, has added new challenges. But the major issue is the need to overcome the
poor long-term economic performance that has characterized the region in the post-market reforms period, particularly by adopting active production sector development strategies.
Stem cells from umbilical cord blood (CB) can be used to treat over 80 different diseases, including many types of leukemia, lymphoma and inherited immune system disorders. Extensive storage facilities in the United States and around the world collect, test and freeze CB for later use in medical procedures. However, the divide between two different banking models — public versus private — presents policy challenges. This policy report examines the difference between public and private cord blood banks and offers recommendations for US policymakers to improve cord blood banking and ensure high quality standards.
Monica M. Matsumoto, Kirstin R.W. MatthewsOctober 6, 2014
Public finance fellow John Diamond recently testified before the Texas House Ways and Means Committee on dynamic scoring and analysis use in tax policy.
The changing regional geopolitics of the Middle East have created new opportunities for the Gulf states to engage in Arab-Israeli conflict resolution after the Arab Spring. This policy report examines the potential role that the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — might play in Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution. It presents policy recommendations on how the Gulf states can engage with regional and international partners and build upon the greater space for action as the shifting parameters of Middle East politics create new regional pathways for action and cooperation.
Mexico must address two key questions in order to realize the promise of greater employment opportunities: Does the country’s current workforce have the needed skills to adequately respond to increases in production, and is the country allocating the necessary resources to respond to the demand for future skills? This issue brief focuses on education's role in reducing the workforce skills gap that Mexico will face as the energy sector expands.
Academic mobility is critical for robust collaborations in education, research and innovation between the U.S. and Mexico. Governments in both countries, in cooperation with nongovernmental actors, should provide a framework to develop mechanisms that generate and sustain a meaningful exchange of students, faculty, and staff from educational institutions at all levels of post-secondary education.
Governments of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) have called for a discussion on the decriminalization of marijuana after a pilot study found that legalized medical marijuana sales could boost the region’s ailing economies. As a result, the topic was an important agenda item at a CARICOM Inter-Sessional Heads of State Summit held in March 2014. Two aspects of decriminalization were discussed: decriminalization for medical use and decriminalization for recreational use.
Economic growth in recent years has not translated to improvements in the quality of life for most Peruvians. On the contrary, it has shed light on the inaccessibility of basic needs such as education, health care, employment, better remuneration, and implementation of projects that generate resources or jobs, as well as environmental concerns related to the extractive activities in the nation. In addition to these concerns, the high rate of corruption and urban insecurity generates a perception of uncertainty that if not properly addressed could exacerbate crisis situations in different regions of the country.
