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This study investigates the tax evasion practices in a lower-middle income economy in South Asia, with specific reference to Bangladesh (which is the only economy within South Asia that had consistent 6% and above gross domestic product (GDP) growth from 2011 to 2013). This study adopted mixed methodology (documentary analyses and a focus group interviews with 20 participants) to reach the overall objective of the research. Using Hofstede et al.’s (2010) cultural theory, the contribution of the study is that the cultural dimension itself cannot correspond to the causes of tax evasion, the other institutional factors (e.g., political connectedness in both private and public sectors, multinational companies (MNC)’s role and corruption, and a lack of public sector accountability and enforcement) are needed to complement the causes of tax evasion. The second major contribution is that Hofstede’s last two dimensions (i.e., short-term and restraint society) can correspond to the preliminary four dimensions (i.e., uncertainty avoidance (UA), masculinity, power distance (PD), and individualism). A restraint society such as Bangladesh is short-term oriented and has established corruption norms and secretive culture. There is also a perception by corporate business that the tax system as unfair and this has major consequences for the poor and the level of trust between the tax authorities and the taxpayers. This study also questions Hofstede’s model application in other developing economies with military and democracy political regimes. The major policy implications include Income Tax Ordinance, the reform of tax administration and enforcement. The novelty of this study rests in the fact that the findings may well inform local and international policymakers (e.g., World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)) regarding how to tackle tax evasion practices in lower-middle income economies like Bangladesh. Further, it fills a gap in the literature exploring tax evasion in a lower-middle income economy – in this case, Bangladesh.

The chapter assesses the state of research and gender-specific data in maritime shipping and ports. This is crucial for implementing and promoting Sustainable Development Goal 5 ‘Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ in the sector under study. Moreover, the present chapter examines whether progress has been made regarding the availability of gender-related data and research in the port sector.

An extensive review of the literature covering gender-related research in the shipping and port sectors going back to the pre-1990 period has been carried out. Next, data from the Port Performance Scorecard established under the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) TrainForTrade (TfT) Port Management Programme (PMP) is analysed, covering the 2015–2020 period. Last, this research is complemented by the results of a survey conducted in 2021 across UNCTAD’s TfT port network.

The literature review identified the main gender dimensions affecting maritime shipping and ports, namely health, empowerment, economic, and education. These results were completed by insights generated by the analysis of gender-related data obtained through selected member ports of the UNCTAD TfT PMP. Overall, the data provided information about the state of play and the existing data gaps and limitations relating to mainstreaming the gender dimension in maritime shipping and ports. It confirmed that traditional stereotypes about the type of job functions that can be fulfilled by women remain prevalent in these two sectors. In this context, the chapter concludes that improving data availability and accessibility in maritime shipping and ports is imperative to advance research and evidence-based policymaking that promote gender equality in maritime transport. Closing the data gap and refining data on gender across the maritime supply chain sector is therefore key. As available data are insufficiently accessible and highly aggregated and which in turn limits the analytical scope, the present chapter recommends that a framework for a Maritime Shipping and Port Gender Equality and Diversity Index be established while leveraging existing data and efforts, including by UNCTAD.

This chapter provides a survey of the dialectal interplay between global forces and local responses within Oceania. Through an examination of four key global trends, we demonstrate how globalization has introduced a new wave of educational policies, pedagogies and initiatives into Oceania’s shores. We consider four global trends that have profoundly shaped local educational responses within the region: the global ecological crisis and its effects within Oceania; the influence of historic and continuing aid relationships; the digital revolution and its mandate to connect the remote and isolated region; and the impact of accelerated mobility away from the region. Through this exploration, we then examine the dialectical interplay between these global and local policies, curriculum, teaching and learning responses through the introduction of curricular initiatives such as outcomes-based education and new platforms for curricular delivery such as Open Distance Learning. In doing so, we demonstrate how Oceania’s deep and interwoven relationality between land, ocean, geography and people powerfully shapes local educational responses to these global forces.

Globalization has indeed created opportunities as well as socio-economic and ecological challenges for tourism economies. Digital transformation and liberalization in the financial sectors have evolved to address these needs. This chapter therefore seeks to examine the effects of digital financial transformation and legal environment for sustainable tourism development in East Africa.

The chapter adopts an interdisciplinary and pragmatic worldview on digital financial transformation and legal environment for sustainable tourism development in East Africa. This will engage qualitative research by examining recent extant literature, practitioner interviews, and secondary data.

In East Africa, the digital infrastructure for the Industry 5.0 is relatively underdeveloped hindering faster growth of digital financial economies and sustainable tourism. There is a weak legal framework in the East African countries in matters like e-business, cybercrime, and data privacy laws. The countries have gaps in their intellectual property laws which stifle innovation and these inadequate laws have led to increased digital online crime and frauds.

There is a need to strengthen and integrate a multi-sectoral approach toward a regional digital and legal policy framework in order to encourage innovation and e-business. Collaborative solutions, built on shared datasets, automate the financial services, creating efficiencies and accuracy in the financial systems.

The chapter draws on the use of interdisciplinary approaches toward developing a framework for digital financial transformation and legal environment for sustainable tourism development in East Africa.

Recent decades have witnessed a rising interest in the measurement of inequality from a multidimensional perspective. This literature has however remained largely theoretical. This chapter presents an empirical application of a recent methodology and in doing so offers practical insights on how multidimensional inequality can be measured over two attributes (wealth and health) in the developing country context. Following Abul Naga and Geoffard (2006), a methodological framework allowing the decomposition of multidimensional inequality into two univariate Atkinson–Kolm–Sen equality indices and a third term measuring the association between the attributes is implemented. The methodology is then illustrated using data from the World Health Surveys 2002–2003. Specifically, this study presents the first comparative analysis on multidimensional inequality for a set of Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. Results reveal that the multidimensional (in-)equality indices tend to mimic the (in-)equality ordering of the wealth distributions as the latter are always less equally distributed than health. An empirical conclusion that emerges is that reducing the correlation between the attributes may help to reduce overall welfare inequality, specifically when socioeconomic inequality in health is pro-poor. The finding that the correlation between attributes has a significant contribution in the quantification of inequality has important policy implications since it reveals that it is not only wealth and health inequalities per se that matter in the measurement of welfare inequality but also the associations between them.

This chapter looks at the way the forces of globalization and, contextual factors together have shaped the trajectory and outcomes of education in the South Asian region which comprises India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. External influence on the education of this region is not at all a recent phenomenon. The arrival of rulers from Central Asia, the spread of Christianity and Islam through trade connections during the first millennium and finally, the British Colonialism influenced the nature of education in the region historically. The social context, for example, the caste system or discriminatory gender norms also determined the access to education and the ways through which it developed over time.

Can transparency mitigate the trade-distortive effects of nontariff measures (NTMs)? This chapter explores the trade impact associated with promoting greater transparency in NTMs, using a new database of transparency provisions in over 100 Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). The investigation surveys the incidence and scope of transparency provisions in RTAs, and econometrically assesses the trade effects of these instruments on bilateral agricultural and food trade. The findings demonstrate that transparency provisions in RTAs are associated with greater agricultural trade flows, suggesting that transparency should remain an important element of ongoing policy efforts to make NTMs less onerous for trade in agriculture.

This chapter provides information on the development of Vietnamese education under the influence of global forces based on the analysis of relevant education research and policies using Wolhuter’s frameworks. In the process of coming up with ways to develop education in the face of different influences of globalization, besides having reactions with patterns commonly found in countries around the world, Vietnam also has responses that reflect its own political, sociocultural and economic characteristics. The state still plays a controlling role in education at all levels and many culture-related features that have existed throughout the country’s history have hardly changed, namely aspects related to teachers, learners and teaching and learning methods. To sustain its education in the globalized era, Vietnam must make more efforts in various aspects such as the link between education and employment, the logic of education objectives, the feasibility and appropriateness of curricula, quality of education, especially of higher education and equality in education for underprivileged groups.

In this chapter we argue that South Africa's premier city, Johannesburg, has undergone a massive reconfiguration of its social geography since the demise of formal apartheid. Using census data and geographic information systems (GIS), we present evidence that this spatial transformation has been driven by a process of residential deracialization but one that has taken place within narrow class bands. Indeed, we show that change has been marked by a new process of middle-class formation that has specifically taken the form of what we call middle-class enclavization. We show moreover that this process of enclavization is marked by internal fragmentation with the increasing spatial compartmentalization of different fractions of the middle class. These findings in turn support broader arguments in the literature that emphasize the strategic practices, including the centrality of residential location, through which upper middle-class privilege is preserved.