FP7 Cooperation

Socioeconomic Studies and the Humanities - SSH

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Funding opportunities in the SSH Theme directed towards the participation of International Cooperation Partner countries.

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Projects covered by the following calls:

Identifier: FP7-SSH-2011-1

Publication Date: 20 July 2010

Budget: € 40 000 000

Deadline: 02 February 2011 at 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)

For further information and full details of the call, please consult the 2010 Work Programme at:

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.CooperationDetailsCallPage&call_id=337

Identifier: FP7-SSH-2011-2

Publication Date: 20 July 2010

Budget: € 29 700 000

Deadline: 02 February 2011 at 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)

For further information and full details of the call, please consult the 2010 Work Programme at:

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.CooperationDetailsCallPage&call_id=336

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Disclaimer: Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that this document is accurate, the MIRA (Mediterranean, Innovation and Research Coordination Action) project cannot be held responsible for errors that may be found in it.

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Topic for a large scale integrating project addressing an important societal challenge:

SSH.2011.4.1-1. Tackling poverty in a development context

The Challenge

In order to tackle poverty, it is now widely accepted to go beyond a preoccupation with

income and quantitative economic growth and see poverty as multi-dimensional, involving also such mutually reinforcing aspects as health and life expectancy, access to education, discrimination, access to water and sanitation, vulnerability and insecurity, unemployment and underemployment, inequality, and the power to actually achieve one’s rights. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) reflect such a wider view of poverty, though it appears that, despite progress, many will be missed. There is also an increasing shift to addressing the “agency” of the people in poverty, and enabling them to acquire the resources of various kinds needed to get out of poverty. This can only be achieved if the institutional environment and the mix between public policies and reliance on market mechanisms allow such a development. The increasing recognition of the significance of gender issues has also been a key development. Possibilities for the use of appropriate, sometimes simple, technologies have also been seen in this context. These developments are obviously taking place in a world where international connections intensify through trade, investment, finance, and migration, where global challenges such as climate change and resource depletion require concerted international efforts, and where a the balance of power is changing, including through the rise of China, India and other major countries outside the G7. All these factors affect the context in which poverty is tackled.

Why it matters for Europe

Europe is clearly affected in a major way by poverty in developing countries and the impact this has on the world, from migration to security issues including inter-state conflict, to trading opportunities, and it clearly has a major interest in a more benign world where poverty is sharply reduced and enhanced mutually beneficial relationships developed (including cultural exchanges among many other possibilities). Also, Europe’s role in the world could be enhanced by an improved contribution to tackling poverty, and finding good means to do so.

The EU action in the field of development is based on the 2005 European Consensus on

Development and it is important to assess how this strategy will actually help alleviate

poverty in the developing countries.

Addressing the challenge

Research dimensions to be taken in consideration:

- A lot of the developing countries do not have sufficient "policy space" to implement

optional policies, facing strong internal and external constraints. It is thus important to assess the issue of "policy space" and the building of institutional effectiveness and state legitimacy (such as, for instance the ability to raise tax revenues in the face of sharply reduced import taxes or ensure education and health, or the capacity to enhance the resilience to external economic shocks). The issue of fragile states should be addressed in this context.

- There is still a lot of debate as to how Official Development Aid (ODA) has impacted the design and implementation of domestic policies of developing countries. A quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis of the impact of ODA on poverty since the 1980s would be important. This could also help build the post-2015 scenarios of the development paradigm and how they can help tackle poverty.

- The international aid architecture has grown more diverse and complex, with new players and new forms of aid. It is important to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the international governance in addressing in a coherent way global challenges, including poverty eradication. This could include an analysis of the mandates of international organizations, their capacity to take and enforce collective or other decisions and their effects, their interaction, their internal functioning, their financing as well as their relation to stakeholders, such as NGOs and economic interest groups.

- Developing countries face heavy environmental problems, in particular because, with

exceptions, their natural wealth is used in international trade without fair benefits to the local populations or exploited at unsustainable rates (land, water, forestry…). Research could investigate how the politics and economics of natural wealth depletion affect poverty in developing countries, and how these countries can actually better control the knowledge, the technologies and the policies concerning this wealth.

- Migration from rural to urban areas in developing countries is forecast to continue at a high pace. What are the consequences of such a trend on poverty and what is the current record and prospects of urban policies? Research could analyse poverty in the urban context, including dimensions such as gender, the informal economy, employment, under- and unemployment, service availability and housing/shelter. The implications for the policies of aid that would be most helpful in various contexts may also be analysed.

- Comparative lessons could be drawn from the experiences of countries which have

succeeded or failed to embed technological progress and their link with the fight against

poverty. The interplay of education, research and other public policies, including the regime of Intellectual Property Rights, as well as of market and network mechanisms and cultural constraints for the generation and diffusion of knowledge could be analyzed.

- Tackling poverty in a development context has also to take into account the political

dimension of poverty, in particular how democracy/non democracy, rights and power affect poverty. Research could thus study the links between political systems and poverty. Besides, the practical effect of the new emphasis on rights-based approaches, the experience of agency-based approaches in practice, the role of civil society and gender in these, as well as social inequalities in a wider political context may be included.

Funding scheme: Collaborative project (large scale integrated research project) for

specific cooperation action dedicated to international cooperation Additional eligibility criteria: targeted ICPC countries - Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Topic for a small or medium-scale focused research project:

SSH.2011.4.1-2. Connections between rural areas and cities in Sub-Saharan Africa

The objective of this topic is to enable research on common challenges that are relevant to all sub-Saharan African countries and that could be met more effectively by them collectively rather than individually. In order to meet this objective, the research should be multidisciplinary oriented, including the humanities, use and integrate quantitative and

qualitative methodologies, develop forward looking approaches when relevant and create

knowledge platforms to ensure exchange and transfer of knowledge within Africa and with Europe.

The research should address the following issues with the aim to investigate more closely the connections between rural areas and cities in Sub-Saharan Africa:

- Thinking and developing land use and agriculture in a sustainable way is nowadays a major challenge for African countries. Major activities like forestry, plantations, energy production (charcoal, bio-fuels) and tourism have large impacts on agricultural actors. Different forms of land use and agricultural heritage are also affected. Research should analyse how the agricultural actors adapt to their changing environment and what the impact of these adaptations, in turn, is on local populations, products and land use as well as social, economic and political arrangements in rural areas but also in cities.

- The quantity and quality of services in Sub-Saharan African cities often remain very poor and are inadequate to respond to the needs of high levels of population and migration from rural areas to cities. Research should analyse how cities attempt to respond in terms of services to such migration and to the inequalities they often generate. It should bring recommendations on a number of inter-related key issues such as education and training, communication, property rights, and other social and economic policies.

The research should cover at least three interlinked rural areas/cities in East, Central, Southern and West Africa.

Funding scheme: Collaborative project (small or medium-scale focused research

projects) for specific cooperation action dedicated to international cooperation

Additional eligibility criteria: targeted ICPC countries from sub-Saharan Africa.