This paper examines the economic impact of the African Development Bank on the African continent and compares its resources and those of its counterparts, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The first chapter of the paper discusses the evolution of regional development banks and presents the statements of the problem and the hypothesis of the study. The second chapter analyses the history of the African Development Bank Group, and the .third discusses its lending operations to 1979. The fourth chapter compares the lending activities and resources of the three regional development banks (African, Inter-American, and Asian), and the final chapter presents the paper's conclusions and recommendations.

M.A. (Marketing Communication) / Communication in the 21st century has been defined as a practice through which members of society achieve shared meanings through the exchange of information, so that the making and managing of meaning creates a shared understanding of a social reality. Recent research emphasises the strong influence of communication platforms such as the media which encapsulates social thought, social discourse and reflects social reality, notwithstanding the prolific digital media as one of the most intriguing benefits of 21st century communication, specifically in the arena of brands and brand awareness. As such, a brand is a promise made by its owners to its consumers, creating brand perceptions and expectations as conveyed by the story of the brand through its various forms of communication. More specifically, media content significantly contributes to consumer perceptions and aspirations to interact with a brand because 21st century media in collaboration with the brand and media-savvy 21st century consumer creates awareness of a social reality such as brand consumption, by influencing public interest on specific characteristics such as the iconicity of a brand, thus setting the agenda for public discourse on the brand. As such the brand achieves an optimal competitive advantage, which contributes to its iconicity or collective high regard that the media find difficult to ignore, thus the application of the principles of the agenda-setting theory, which implies that the media is a fundamental contributor to social thought and discourse, creating public conversation and interest in the brand, ideally infusing the market with profitable awareness of the brand. In acknowledgement of the recognition of the African Development Bank as Africa’s premier development finance institution and as such, an iconic brand, this study addresses the research problem which explores how the African Development Bank uses its iconic branding in order to establish profitable brand awareness among its public sector clients.

Thesis (B. Ec.(Hons.))--University of Adelaide, 1973. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 65).

The study investigated the critical success factors of funding infrastructure development in South Africa and how they can be used by the BRICS' New Development Bank (NDB) to develop strategies for funding infrastructure development in the country. The quantitative research methodology was used in the investigation. The study used IDC and DBSA employees as the population and simple random sampling was used to select 20 employees from the two Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). Data was collected through questionnaires sent to 20 employees and descriptive analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and ranking analysis were then utilised to analyse the collected data. The results indicate that (DFIs) are the preferred source of funds for infrastructure development in South Africa and the appropriate strategy is the Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs). Critical success factors to successful infrastructure development funding were found to include project attributes, financing attributes, government attributes, the borrower or implementing agency attributes, and political and economic attributes. Factors that were found to have the highest impact on infrastructure development funding include economic viability of the project, the risk profile of borrower or implementing agency, availability of funding, strong financial instruments, financial risk, political and economic stability, political support and the social and economic benefits of the project. The first recommendation for the study is that it is suitable for the NDB to fund infrastructure development in the country and secondly that the NDB should employ PPPs to fund infrastructure development in the country. Furthermore, the DFI should only fund economically viable projects, projects that are accepted by the community and projects for borrowers or implementing agencies with a low-risk profile. Finally, the NDB ought to lobby the government for support and creation of conducive political and legal environments to guarantee successful funding of the infrastructure projects.

Das politische Phänomen ‚fragiler Staaten’ betrifft die Grundfesten des Völkerrechts, und hat dennoch wenig Beachtung in der Rechtswissenschaft gefunden. Staaten, die formal rechtlich anerkannt sind, aber faktisch kaum in der Lage sind, grundlegende staatliche Funktionen auszuüben, beeinträchtigen Funktion und Effektivität der Völkerrechtsordnung. Die Völkerrechtsordnung hängt entscheidend von der Existenz einer effektiven Regierung ab, die zumindest in der Lage ist, Rechte und Pflichten auszuüben und an den internationalen Beziehungen teilzunehmen. In der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit beispielsweise ist die Existenz eines Staates mit rechtlich anerkannter und faktisch handlungsfähiger Regierung eine Grundvoraussetzung für den Transfer finanzieller Ressourcen. Diese Arbeit zeigt mit Blick auf Recht und Praxis der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit, dass ‚fragile Staaten’ zwar kein rechtliches Phänomen sind, aber der Umgang von Internationalen Organisationen mit den Herausforderungen fragiler Staatlichkeit durchaus von rechtlicher Relevanz ist. Sie untersucht die formellen und informellen Regeln, die Entwicklungsorganisationen wie die Weltbank für den Umgang mit Staaten mit kaum handlungsfähiger Regierung erlassen haben. Das Resultat ist eine kritische Analyse des sozial konstruierten Phänomens und seiner folgenreichen Übersetzung in rechtliche Regularien. / The political phenomenon of ‘fragile states’ concerns international law’s very foundations, and has yet received little attention from legal scholarship. States that have the legal status of states, but are in fact unable to fulfill even the most basic functions, pose a fundamental problem to the functioning and effectiveness of the international legal order. It crucially depends on the existence of governments with the minimum level of capacity necessary to exercise rights and obligations, and to partake in international cooperation. In development cooperation, for instance, the existence of a state with an authorized and competent government is a basic condition for the transfer of financial assistance. This study looks at the law and practice of development cooperation to show that ‘fragile states’ are a phenomenon beyond law, but how international organizations have addressed the challenges of engaging with fragile states may well be of legal significance. It analyzes the formal and informal rules that development organizations – the World Bank, and a range of regional organizations – have adopted to address the lack or severe limitation of government effectiveness in certain countries. The result is a critical analysis of the discourse on fragile states, and how it has shaped the rule-making activities of international organizations.

Modern organizations within IT-developing needs to be prepared to face challengesthat are not necessarily connected to the mere technological aspects of softwares.These challenges might lie within e. g. communication between stakeholders, userinvolvement, organizational regulations, the need for standards and maintainability ofthe products. This study is investigating the software development at one of thevarious IT-departments at Swedish bank Nordea, in order to point out the mostinteresting areas of improvement. Many different tools, standards, organizationalprocesses and methodologies are available to the developers, whereof some of themmight be inhibitory rather than enhancing the effectiveness. Nordea is also having anoffshoring-oriented strategy, having development resources located in India. Thediscussion is concerned with modern methodologies such as Scrum and other agiledevelopment concepts, and their use in a geographically dispersed context and withina non-agile organization.

Thesis (M.A. (Human Rights))--Mahidol University, 2006. / LICL has E-Thesis 0018 ; please contact computer services.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in part fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Management in Public and Development Management, 2018 / The regional economic integration is a positive process at work in the world economy, as it acts as an effective vehicle for trade and economic and financial globalization, thereby fostering growth. Regional economic integration is also a reflection of the diversity of economies and their histories, and it is notable that the process follows markedly different patterns across the world. Africa like all other continents, has developed a rational response to the difficulties faced by a continent with many small national markets, challenges of geopolitics and landlocked countries to address these shortcomings. African governments have over the years developed strategies, and from that concluded a very large number of regional integration arrangements, to drive this idea. The Development Finance Institutions (DFI’s) play, a positive and significant role in fostering economic growth and with the impact being stronger in low to medium income countries than in higher income countries. Financial investment has a huge role in the economic growth and in turn economic development. In their nature, DFI’s have an additional role, that of, bridging the gap that arise, as a result of commercial banks not able to finance infrastructural needs (soft and hard), creativity and innovations, that will lead to meaningful regional economic integration. However, it is not clear whether the regional DFI’s are having any specified, significant role in the regional economic integration agenda, hence this research. The aim of this research is to investigate the effectiveness roles of the DBSA, in the regional economic integration, in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This study approach, focuses on three (3) main questions which are aimed at determining the effectiveness of the DBSA’s roles in the regional economic integration. The secondary questions are a supporting instrument to the initial question and the questions are meant to find out about factors hindering the effectiveness of the supporting roles of DBSA in the SADC’s regional economic integration. In endeavoring to determine the structural challenges faced by the DBSA, in the SADC region, the investigations explored the interventions and or measures that would improve the bank’s supporting roles, especially because of its developmental importance in the region. To carry out this exploratory study, the investigation followed a qualitative research approach, as a framework and structured face to face interviews and document analysis were also used. Almost all respondents sighted that the major roles of the DBSA in the regional economic integration in SADC to often be associated with resource mobilization and financing of regional infrastructures in SADC, identification of areas for cooperation to facilitate the economic development of SADC and influencing policy development through research and information exchange and sharing. Most of the interviewees, emphasized that the DBSA, has done extremely well in providing both technical and financial support to the SADC in their endeavor to facilitate for the regional economic integration. Simultaneously, most interviewees agreed again, that the, hindrances and or limiting factors to the effectiveness of the supporting roles of DBSA in the SADC’s regional economic integration, have been the inhibiting inherent heterogeneity of SADC countries, inability of the SADC to hold member states accountable and responsible, lack of political will to implement the integration, legal factors, and significant reliance on grants and foreign funding. The results shows that DBSA has been found to be very technically able to deal with support in the regional economic integration. This result suggest that the SADC leadership should consider revising the roles, and the funding model of the DFI’s for the benefit of the regional economic integration agenda. / XL2019

This thesis examines the relationship between institutional context and firm performance, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The aim is to engage with the debate seeking to explain the observed diversity in the forms of economic organisation prevailing in socio-economic systems. The focus of the empirical work is on investigating the effects of the structure and behaviour of banking institutions on firm performance, in the Italian context. The analysis is comparative in the sense that confronts cooperative and capitalist business structures. The analytical framework is institutionalist in emphasising the institutionally embedded nature of economic performance, and the historical and cultural dimensions of economic behaviour. The institutional complementarity approach is used to investigate the hypothesis that the relative performance of different firm structures is context dependent. The main conclusions are that the economic performance of cooperative firms is strongly conditioned in a sense of institutional complementarity by the degree of development and competition characterising the financial domain. Rejected are the pessimistic predictions of conventional accounts that democratic firms are unequivocally unviable. Instead, there are relations of context dependency, of institutional complementarity that influence the viability of firm types. The overall conclusion is that the dynamics governing the evolution of socio-economic systems are much more complex than mainstream economics suggests; productive organisations may assume a multiplicity of forms. The theoretical claims of a universalistic history in which all production systems must follow the same line of development must be abandoned. This brings about major policy implications at the regional, national and international levels.

This study aims to investigate the methodological differences of wind power project economic analysis and to indicate the preferred methodology among the considered cases. The study compares the economic appraisals of onshore wind power projects. The economic appraisals of wind power projects are for evaluating wind power projects' impact on an economy. Economic appraisals of wind power projects include economic justifications of projects in comparison with the next best alternative projects, consider negative and positive externalities but exclude transfer payments such as taxes and subsidies. Also, in wind power project economic appraisals, the valuations of costs and benefits are at shadow prices and discounting of future costs and benefits at a social discount rate. There are methodological guidelines from different institutions on how to conduct project economic analysis. This study compares methodologies of three onshore wind power project economic appraisals conducted by the European Investment Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Mott MacDonald and discusses methodological differences for each case study in comparison with each other. The results of this study are for any investors, institutions and government authorities involve in wind power projects and seek not only corporate profits but also social benefits. They may consider the methodological differences identified in this study to improve the assessment of wind power project economic impacts. The results indicate that the identified methodological differences complement each other rather than substitute. The preferred methodology for onshore wind power projects economic analysis would be the methodology that considers the identified differences for the comprehensive evaluations.