Targets, affirmative action and development goals

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Targets, affirmative action and development goals

• By
• Frances Stewart

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Affirmative action

• Is action to improve the relative position of
  some groups, relative to others.
• Groups defined by cultural or locational
  characteristics (e.g. religion, N.Ireland race
  (US, Malaysia, S.Africa) ethnicity (Nigeria,
  Rwanda..) region (Iran, UK)

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Background

• Deep inequalities in outcomes (e.g. political
  participation, education, incomes, health,
  housing..) which can lead to
• Unhappiness. Being black and feeling blue.
• Unfair society worse than normal inequality
  because is durable (Tilly), arising from
  categorical differences. Limited mobility across
  groups at one time or over time.
• Criminality.
• Social unrest, or even conflict.

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Therefore important to correct inequalities. How?

• Variety of approaches
• Focus on process (fair practices, Fair
  Employment Laws..).
• Use of public expenditure (subsidise some
  groups..).
• Quotas (e.g. for employment shares, investment
  shares..).. NB this is not a target but a policy.
  Could be interpreted as mandatory target.

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• Targets are time-bound objectives for achieving
  fairness in various dimensions.
• In principle could carry out all without targets
• None of above ARE targets (even quotas) all are
  means of achieving targets.

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Role of targets

• For government (others) to assess progress
  monitoring. (Could be kept secret or announced
  publicly). Without targets and monitoring
  complacency possible (e.g. ethnic composition of
  students at Oxford).
• To overcome collective action problem and prevent
  free-riding where many semi-autonomous agents
  involved. But this requires (a) that targets are
  broken down to micro-units (and same targets may
  not be appropriate for all e.g. MDGs Sierra
  Leone and China).(b)penalties (can be moral or
  reputational) for non-compliance.
• To overcome principal/agent problem within
  institutions (e.g. government) same
  qualifications apply.
• To identify problems where progress is
  off-target, to generate investigation into
  causes and new policies where needed (or even
  target revision).

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Problems 1

• 1. Choice of variable to target
• Outcome and which one (health, or incomes)
• Inputs and which one (access to health services,
  credit, land, employment). Many of these are
  partly outcomes/objectives as well as inputs
• N.B. Outcome is objective, but one cannot plan
  for this has to plan for inputs. Yet selected
  inputs may be wrong. E.g. aim for reducing
  infant mortality put health services in place.
  But real need is for female education.

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Problems 2

• Choice of target/ time and level.
• Underambitious will achieve nothing (though
  political impact?)
• Overambitious problems if not achieved. May
  discredit targets.
• How to deal with different agents same or
  different targets. Different targets appropriate
  but increases complexity and can decrease
  political attractiveness. Could aim for same
  improvement (e.g. some of MDGs) but still might
  be easier for some than others.

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Problems 3

• Behavioural impact. Targets distort
• i. Activities chosen move towards targeted.
• Maxwell They targets encourage reductionist
  approaches to complex problems, privilege
  quantitative indicators at the expense of
  qualitative indicators, distort resource
  allocation .. (Maxwell, 2003, p 12).
• E.g. education targets for particular group may
  be achieved by expanding access to poor schools
  for targets at a particular level (primary)
  expansion of primary at expense of other
  levelsOr education at expense of health.
• ii. Reclassification. Change declared group
  membership e.g. encourage people to self-declare
  as favoured identity (Blacks, Roma..indigenous
  peoples). Previously non-aid expenditures
  redefined as aid.
• iii. Disfavoured groups take evasive action
• Expand private education and use foreign schools
  (Chinese in Malaysia)
• Move to favoured areas
• Make alliances with favoured group (joint cos) to
  achieve privileges (Malaysia, S.Africa).

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Problems 4

• Argued to entrench ethnicity/race and
  consequently increase racial/ethnic/religious
  divisions. Little evidence on this. Some aspects
  could have opposite impact, as
• Alliances formed to receive privileges.
• Fact that communities are more equal may make
  them mix more.
• Can use implicit methods with non-declared
  targets (e.g. Fair Employment) so ethnic impact
  not obvious.
• Can counter with other policies simultaneously
  e.g. education media etc.
• Argued to increase intra-group inequality.
• Depends on measures. Not true in Malaysia. True,
  probably in S.Africa.

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Problems real. But benefits of targets also real.

• Benefits include
• Mobilising among disparate agents for desirable
  goals.
• Identifying problems as a result of
  non-performance.
• Some examples
• Malaysia.
• N. Ireland
• Development goals

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Examples 1. Malaysia a successful case of
reducing econ/social HIs.

• 1971, following anti-Chinese riots, 1969. NEP.
  Aim to secure national unity. 
• Characteristics.
• Two prong to reduce and eventually eradicate
  poverty and to accelerate the process of
  restructuring Malaysian society to correct
  economic imbalance so as to reduce and eventually
  eliminate the identification of race with
  economic function (Second Malaysian Plan
  1971-1975)
• a variety of anti-poverty policies (rural
  development social services).
• restructuring
• expand Bumiputera share of capital ownership to
  30.
• 95 of new lands to be settled on Malays
• educational quotas in public institutions laid
  down, in line with population shares
• credit policies favoured Malays, with credit
  allocations and more favourable interest rates.
• Conflict avoided, including post-1997 high
  growth reduced poverty.

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1990
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Example 2. N.Ireland a success?

• His large, persistent and consistent over all
  dimensions over a long time period
• gtBy the end of the nineteenth century Protestants
  controlled the vast bulk of the economic
  resources of east Ulster - the best of its land,
  its industrial and financial capital, commercial
  and business networks, industrial skills.(Ruane
  and Todd 1996)
• no narrowing of the gap between the communities
  from 1901 to 1970s, with Catholics disadvantaged
  at every level.
• u/e gap widened
• New policies to reduce gaps from late 1970s Fair
  Employment Acts, 1976 1989 housing policy.
  Police Acts 1998,2000, 2003 50 recruitment aim.

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Paramilitary violence
Good Friday Agreement
1998
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But Protestant discontent

• Case shows that action on HIs may need to precede
  peace.
• It is unusual to find such a rate of social
  change within a generation. It is quite dramatic.
  In many areas Catholics have caught up with or
  surpassed Protestants (Osborne)
• Exodus of young Protestants to GB.
• Ps. perceive themselves disadvantaged. 39
  believe they are worse off than six years ago.
• 1996, 44 of Ps and 47 Cs thought
  inter-community relationships were better than
  five years previously.
• 2003, 25 Ps and 33 Cs.

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Example 3 Development goals

• Some successes in past.
• Monitoring on MDGs allows diagnosis of failures,
  and policy focus.See Sachs report
• More money
• Specific reforms
• Puts reputational/moral pressure on rich
  countries and poor.
• Backed up by PRSPs/aid conditionality
• But leads to neglect of non-targeted issues (e.g.
  agricultural productivity environment).
• And what happens in 2016?