G20 Seoul summit and trade financing

Marc Aubion outlines how the recent G20 meeting in Seoul has provided a mandate to multilateral institutions to address a lack of affordable trade financing being suffered by low income countries. He argues that “over the coming weeks we will see institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank, as well as others work together in order to address such obstacles, along the lines of the G20 mandate.”

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• "addressing regulatory reform pertaining specifically to emerging market and developing economies: we agreed to work on financial stability issues that of particular interest to emerging market and developing economies, and called on the FSB, IMF and World Bank to develop and report fore the next Summit. These issues could include: (....); trade finance."
• "To support LIC capacity to trade (...), we note our commitment to (..) support measure to increase the availability of trade finance in developing countries, particularly LICs. In this respect, we also agree to monitor and to assess trade finance programs in support of developing countries, in particular their coverage and impact on LICs, and to evaluate the impact of regulatory regimes on trade finance."

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Gender preference for children in Nepal

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Gender discrimination and son preference are key demographic features of South Asia and are well documented for India. However, gender bias and sex preference in Nepal have received little attention.

1996 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey data on ever-married women aged 15–49 who did not desire any more children were used to investigate levels of gender bias and sex preference. The level of contraceptive use and the total fertility rate in the absence of sex preference were estimated, and logistic regression was performed to analyze the association between socioeconomic and demographic variables and stopping childbearing after the birth of a son.

Commonly used indicators of gender bias, such as sex ratio at birth and sex-specific immunization rates, do not suggest a high level of gender discrimination in Nepal. However, sex preference decreases contraceptive use by 24% and increases the total fertility rate by more than 6%. Women’s contraceptive use, exposure to the media, parity, last birth interval, educational level and religion are linked to stopping childbearing after the birth of a boy, as is the ethnic makeup of the local area.

The level of sex preference in Nepal is substantial. Sex preference is an important barrier to the increase of contraceptive use and decline of fertility in the country; its impact will be greater as desired family size declines

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Here is the full paper published in 2003. I think the author should have done disaggregated analysis of rural and urban areas. The results are quite reflective of urban areas. There still is a strong son bias in the rural areas. Also, isn’t this “Commonly used indicators of gender bias, such as sex ratio at birth and sex-specific immunization rates, do not suggest a high level of gender discrimination in Nepal.” and “The level of sex preference in Nepal is substantial.”—i.e. result and conclusion—contradictory?