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governments and superpowers. Its negative consequences are diverse from crime wave and spread of dangerous diseases till rise of racist moods and xenophobia both in developed and in the developing states.

4.Even in the most successful countries the difference between a standard of living and welfares of rich and poor sections of the population is increased.

5.The environment condition which is sacrificed to interests of business becomes worse.

6.Stupefying influence of Masscult impending to cultural variety grows.

There was an evolution in activity of UNO peacekeeping over years so that it corresponded to necessity of wants’ satisfaction of various conflicts and a varied political structure. Today's peacemakers realize the wide range of complicated problems, including ministration in creation of stable management institutes and the control of observance of human rights, realization sector safeties reforms, demobilization and disarmament.

Modern peacekeeping in all kinds and forms (from preventive diplomacy to reasonable violence) is an effective way of prevention, the control and settlement of armed conflict despite of all omissions and defects. It is necessary to give more attention to the warning of rise or fomentation a conflict and also to prevention warfare where they have not been broken out yet for effectivization of the international community’s peacekeeping efforts all-in-all. It is well-known fact that to warn illness much more easy and more inexpensive, than to treat it.

So as to solve new problems and respond to new political realities the activity of UNO peacekeeping is under of constant evolution both with conceptual and tactical point of views. The organization positively aspires to increasing the potential on realization and guarantee of operations and by that to promote performance of the most important function of the United Nations Organization, namely peacekeeping and safety.

References

1.Зайцева О.Г. Международные организации: принятие решений. М.,1989

2.Зевин Л.З. Экономические структуры разного уровня в глобальных процессах: особенности взаимодействия. М., 2003

3.Инфра-М. Практика глобализации: игры и правила новой эпохи. М., 2000

4.Миньяр-Белоручева А.П., Миньяр-Белоручев К.В. "Английский язык" - учебник для вузов - 3-е изд.,стериотип. - М.: Издательство "Экзамен", 2005.-352с

5.Морозов Г.И. Международные организации. Некоторые вопросы теории. 2-е изд.

М., 1974

6.Шибаева Е.А. Право международных организаций. М., 1986

7.http://www.intertrends.ru

8.http://www.politobraz.ru

9.www.un.org/ru

10.http://www.yachtmagazine.ru/piraty

Yulia Leonova, postgraduate student, Pacific State University

THE ROLE OF INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS IN POVERTY REDUCTION: TOWARDS A METHODOLOGY FOR POVERTY AND SOCIAL IMPACT

ASSESSMENT OF THE CLUSTER DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES

Our concern with poverty reduction is in part motivated by the policy focus on this area arising from the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, and commitment by leading industrial and developing countries to half the proportion of households with income per person of less than US$1 per day by 2015. Poverty is also increasingly acknowledged as a

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multi-dimensional problem that involves more than deprivation of income, but also lack of freedom, increased vulnerability, risk, and powerlessness. One third of deaths - some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day - are due to poverty-related causes: in total 270 million people, most of them women and children, have died as a result of poverty since 1990. Poverty increases the risk of homelessness. There are over 100 million street children worldwide. Increased risk of drug abuse may also be associated with poverty. /4/ According to the World Bank «meagre assets, inaccessible markets and scarce job opportunities lock people in material poverty» /5/.

Industrial clusters, which Michael Porter defines as «a geographically proximate group of inter-connected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities», have long attracted the attention of researchers and policy makers for the growth prospects and poverty reduction. /6/ This assumption is grounded in the notion that SMEs account for a significant proportion of manufacturing employment in developing countries, and that they are predominant in labor intensive sectors with a propensity of employment of the working poor. Clusters allow SMEs to overcome constraints on their size, and offer possibilities of collective action in the face of common problems. Such benefits are brought into sharper perspective by the process of globalization which, while offering new opportunities for developing country enterprises and workers, inter alia, raises the vulnerability of small firms, and those who work in them, to external shocks.

Clustering may not only raise employment and incomes for the poor, it can also have implications for wider notions of poverty addressing issues of risk, vulnerability, empowerment and participation for poor and marginalized groups. This section of the article examines ways in which clusters could potentially affect a poverty reduction agenda. The very presence of a cluster changes the context in which the poor live, by enhancing the ability of individual cluster actors, be they workers or producers, to potentially improve their wellbeing. Clusters allow local small producers to make more effective use of underutilized resources, such as small scale savings or family labor, generating incomes that they could not avail by operating in isolation. This is because the process of clustering engenders various benefits. This includes agglomeration gains to clustered firms, such as externalities in the markets for labor, inputs, know-how and information, economies of scale and scope as individual firms take on specialized tasks through a division of labor. In resource poor regions, or at early stages of industrial development, this can be especially significant, promoting specialization by way of «small steps». Finally, clustering is a dynamic process, leading to «winners» and «losers» amongst firms and workers. Thus, in assessing the links between clusters and poverty we concentrate on three aspects of clusters. First, cluster features - the cluster’s location, the types of firms within it, and the types of employment generated and their relationship to poverty. Second, cluster processes - agglomeration gains, joint action, cluster institutions and social capital and poverty. Third, cluster dynamics - cluster growth, upgrading, and differentiation and poverty. All three affect the well-being of cluster-based workers and producers, and are directly relevant to poverty. /7/ Clustering sets into motion a range of potential benefits that can directly affect the poor, both as waged workers, home workers, own-account workers as well as small entrepreneurs. This can be through externality gains, joint action, and local social capital. Clusters are dynamic. They evolve as a consequence of local and external linkages. A key process of change within clusters comes about through local upgrading. This results in enhanced human capital and improved technological capacities for firms and enhanced capabilities for workers and small producers. Raising human capital improves productivity and leads to rising incomes and wages as well as sustained employment growth.

Next part of the article revisits evidence from a variety of cluster studies using a poverty perspective. There are numerous examples of clusters at early stages of industrialization,

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engaged in labor intensive sectors and operating within, or on the boundaries of the urban informal economy. These are found in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Such clusters generate employment and incomes for the working poor, and in many cases for the very poor. Dawson’s study of the Kumasi, Ghana auto-parts and vehicle repair clusters, for example, reported over 5,000 workshops employing some 40,000 persons engaged in metalworking, the manufacture of auto-parts and in vehicle repair. The cluster had grown, but remained on the borderline of the informal economy with extensive «use of cheap family and apprentice labour» /9/. Knorringa found that the shoe cluster of Agra, India, employed 60,000 workers in some «5,000, mostly informal small scale units». /10/

Now we turn to the processes associated with clustering, namely external economy gains arising from agglomeration, local joint action especially through local institutions, and the role of social capital in fostering local cooperation and contributing to social protection. A key element of the benefits of clustering is externality gains. This attracts traders and lowers costs. Similarly, McCormick found reduction in «search and reach costs» to be a critical advantage that clustering generated for small, often informal, firms in African clusters.

In other cases, such as the Kumasi auto-parts cluster, in addition to better market access, labor market pooling and extensive subcontracting, clustered producers benefited from local technological spillovers and knowledge flows. Similarly, Visser found that passive externality gains were important in the Gamarra garment cluster. They lowered transaction costs to clustered small firms by their ability to easily access inputs, through the subcontracting so specific and specialized finishing tasks which generated scale and scope economies and again through knowledge spill-overs within the cluster. In each cluster external economy gains are critical for small firms to compete in local and global markets, to grow and to generate further employment. /13/

The evidence on joint action in mature clusters is much stronger. More importantly, in many cases of relatively mature clusters, many of which were until not so long ago incipient clusters, such forms of joint action are often pronounced in the face of external threats. Clusters that compete in global markets are particularly vulnerable to the exigencies of global competition. Liberalization, new competition, demands from global buyers to meet global standards and new technologies can force cooperation as clusters seek collective paths to enhancing collective capabilities. Stronger evidence on cluster-wide institutional joint action was observed by Nadvi, in the context of the Sialkot surgical instrument cluster in Pakistan, and by for the tanning cluster of the Palar Valley in Tamil Nadu, India. /15/ Compliance with global quality assurance standards, a necessary requirement for exports to leading global markets by the Sialkot cluster, came about through the catalytic role of the local trade association in channelling new know-how on quality management practices to the cluster. Faced with the loss of key export markets, local firms through collective institutions entered into an agreement with international bodies, including the International Labour Organization

(ILO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), as well as leading global buyers. This resulted in an ILO monitoring programme of the cluster and a social development strategy, based on education and income generation, for child workers and their households. Thus, local joint action resulted in direct gains for the cluster, employment and cluster exports rose, while immediate poverty concerns for many of the more vulnerable members of the cluster’s labour force began to be addressed.

A policy agenda on clusters and poverty needs to have, as a starting point, a method of exante identifying clusters where poverty concerns are especially valid. Our discussion on the relationship between poverty reduction and specific cluster features, cluster processes and cluster dynamics provides us with a basis for mapping clusters and poverty. Table 1 shows how UNIDO’s interventions to support cluster development, through promoting enterprise development, inter-firm linkages and local governance, can impact on poverty concerns. /7/

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Table 1 – Cluster-poverty relationship: the expected effects of UNIDO cluster development interventions

There is no single blueprint for impact assessment. Instead, there is a continuum from more quantitative economic approaches, to sociological and anthropological approaches. An economic approach is usually equated with an income and expenditure approach to poverty. It employs questionnaire surveys based on representative samples or existing large data sets based on national surveys to undertake quantifiable statistical analysis of impacts. The economic approach aims to provide an «impartial» appraisal that can isolate and assess the specific effects of a particular policy independently of other variables that might also co-exist. It takes a comparative static approach, normally constructing a scientifically selected control group to measure a quantifiable impact in different time periods, and is often costly in time and resources to undertake. Sociological and anthropological approaches offer a broader picture, and have their roots in more qualitative analysis. /17/

Now we turn to some of the key issues that need to be addressed in designing the impact assessment methodology. These range from mapping the cluster and the institutional environment in which the CDP operates to the key actors to be assessed, the scope of the assessment and the indicators to be used. An understanding of the economic and social environment in which a cluster is located is essential for understanding the poverty impact of the CDP. This includes an examination of: background information on the development of the industry or sector, aggregate production, employment and trade statistics, the regulatory context at a national, regional and local level, the level of state services and infrastructure

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available, local statistics on population, health, education, morbidity, social and demographic profiles relating to gender, ethnicity, religion and any other relevant socio-economic factors, e.g. migratory trends, recent economic shocks. These broader factors influence the operation of the cluster, how the impact of a CDP is mediated, and need to be taken into account by a PSIA. Next a more detailed mapping of the cluster actors identifies the specific types of firm, actors and institutions operating within the cluster, and their relationship to each other. A simplified cluster value chain is depicted in Picture 1.

Subcontractors

NGOs

Homeworkers

Picture 1 – Simplified value chain mapping of industrial cluster and institutions

Mapping the commercial linkages between firms within an industrial cluster helps identify «poverty nodes» within it. These are the points in the value chain where specific groups of producers and/or workers are located who are vulnerable to poverty, or likely to be in poverty. Such nodes are highlighted by the shaded boxes on the left side of Picture 1. These could arise because of the type of activity people are engaged in and/or because of their social, religious or ethnic status. Poverty nodes within clusters can be further disaggregated into different sub-groups, for example micro-entrepreneurs and waged workers, or male and female, with different levels of vulnerability to poverty. Subgroups are not homogenous, their composition will vary and some sub-groups may be better off than others.

Cluster development programs tend to concentrate on the growth and competitiveness of firms. A poverty focused strategy requires stronger attention to people within clusters, namely entrepreneurs and workers, their households and the wider community. Thus, a pro-poor cluster development strategy may require the tweaking of existing cluster development initiatives. A pro-poor cluster development strategy needs to consider the following points.

Poverty targeting namely identifying clusters that have a high incidence of poor households. Clustering advantages promoting activities where local joint action is lacking or where attempts to foster such local cooperation could have more direct impacts on poverty. Poverty strategic support - this may involve distinguishing between the kinds of support needed for poorer workers and entrepreneurs and for those in the cluster that are better off. Training - Training of poor, especially unskilled, workers can be a critical aspect of raising productivity and skills as well as enhancing the competitive abilities of the cluster. Recognizing cluster differences between firms, as well as between firms and workers and amongst workers. Cluster impact assessment as a means of assessing and improving the pro-poor effect of cluster development policies.