The workshop organisers believe that the economic and social transformation that have and are still sweeping across Asia and Africa under globalisation is providing much insight into how institutions are developed in these regions and how they contribute to growth and poverty reduction. Accordingly, the workshop was the first attempt to gain a deeper understanding how institutions, their configurations and dynamics could influence divergence and similarities in the development paths of countries in Asia and Africa within four broad crosscutting areas:

1. Understanding how institutions address efficiency considerations and/or distributional concerns, and influence trajectories of subsequent development in a historical context;
2. Examining the private-public interface by understanding institutional foundation for markets, non-market institutions and governance structures of nation-states;
3. Investigating the conditions under which institutions and their configuration could become conducive or harmful to inclusive development; and,
4. Examining the relations between institutions, institutional configuration and social capacity development as a measure of promoting inclusiveness.

These four crosscutting areas now serve as parameters for which the nexus of inclusive development and institutions can be further explored in greater detail, resulting in proposed policy recommendations to assist policy-makers to promote a conducive environment for institutional development and to enhance the effectiveness of existing institutions for inclusive development.

Accordingly, JICA seeks to commission research to explore certain themes:

1. Endogenising Institutional Change for Inclusive Development.
2. Institutions Affecting the Structure of Growth for Inclusive Development.
3. The Political Economy of Inclusive Rural Economic Growth and Development.
4. Overcoming Low Political Equilibrium in Africa: Institutional Changes for Inclusive Development.
5. Structuring Public-Private Interface for Inclusive Development in Africa.
6. The Role of Intermediate Organisations for Inclusive Development: A Comparative Perspective from Japanese Economic History.
7. Forging East Asian Economic Development Take-Off: Replicability for Inclusive Development.

The outcome of these studies and policy recommendations will be presented at a second international workshop planned for early 2013. This workshop will further refine the study results and proposed policy recommendations that will then be presented for consideration and discussion at the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) in Yokohama in June 2013.

The first draft of each paper would be completed and submitted to JICA for review and comment by the end of November 2012. Feedback will be provided for consideration and incorporation into the revised draft paper, which shall be completed by the end of January 2013 for presentation at the ‘Second International Workshop on Institutional Foundation for Inclusive Development’, tentatively scheduled in London for 15-16 February 2013.

For the detailed Terms of Reference of the above seven topics, please contact the JICA-UK office: jicauk@jica.co.uk

Send up to 3-page proposal (including abstract and fees) and CV to the JICA-UK office by 15 August 2012.