Academic literature on the topic 'Lao (Tai people)'

There are some researches indicating the presence of Tai Yor or Lao Nyo or Nyo speakers in the Aranyaprathet district, Sa Keaw province of Thailand and in Banteay Meanchey province of Cambodia. This is surprising because as it is generally understood the Nyo people are predominantly located in Tha Uthen district, Nakhon Phanom province and in the Kantharawichai district, Maha Sarakham province. In order to investigate this discrepancy in 2012 the Lao Nyo was studied by the author in Banteay Meanchey province and data were gathered on the phonological system and basic words of the so called Lao Nyo dialect. The objectives of this paper are first to prove that the Lao Nyo dialect in Banteay Meanchey is neither Nyo nor Yo, and secondly to investigate some of the reasons underlying the identification of this Tai dialect as Lao Nyo. There are four sets of evidence presented here 1) a comparison of the tone boxes between Nyo, Yo, Lao Nyo and Lao; 2) a comparison of the development of proto Tai *əï,*eï,*oï in these dialects; 3) a comparison of the development of proto Tai *kw,*khw,*xw,*ɣw in these dialects; and 4) a comparison of the lexical items found only in Nyo. The results are 1) the tone box of Lao Nyo is different from both Nyo and Yo but similar to Lao; 2) proto Tai *əï,*eï,*oï become -aj in Lao Nyo, Lao and Yo but become -ə: in Nyo; 3) proto Tai *kw,*khw,*xw,*ɣw become kw, khw, khw, khw in Yo but become k, kh, kh, kh in Nyo, Lao Nyo and Lao; and 4) the lexical items which are found only in Nyo cannot be found in Lao Nyo and Lao. Based on these four sets of evidence it can be concluded that Lao Nyo in Banteay Meanchey is neither Nyo nor Yo but is instead a dialect of Lao. The explanation proposed to account for the identification of this Lao dialect as Nyo or Lao Nyo is that some tone shapes in Nyo and Lao Nyo are very similar and some are even identical to the tone shapes in Nyo. This is likely to explain why these Lao speakers tend to identify themselves as Nyo or Lao Nyo.

Nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, "Breaking Through the Sky" was produced by the team of Wuhan Tai Lao Animation Co., Ltd., China, fully demonstrating the charm of Chinese animation on the international stage, and highlighting the exchange and integration of artistic nationality and the world, at the same time, this animation has also been questioned by many people, considered to be not like the animation produced in China, lacking the taste of national elements, and the relationship between the national nature of art and the world has retriggered our thinking.

Vietnam represents a country with 54 ethnic groups; however, the majority (88%) of the population are of Vietnamese heritage. Some of the other ethnic groups such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung have a population of around 1 million each, while the Brau, Roman, and Odu consist only of a hundred people each. Living in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border (see Figure 1), the Tay people speak a language of the Central Tai language group called Though, T'o, Tai Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, or Pa Di. Tay remains one of 10 ethnic languages used by 1 million speakers (Buoi, 2003). The Tày ethnic group has a rich culture of wedding songs, poems, dance, and music and celebrate various festivals. Wet rice cultivation, canal digging and grain threshing on wooden racks are part of the Tày traditions. Their villages situated near the foothills often bear the names of nearby mountains, rivers, or fields. This study discusses the status and role of the Tày language in Northeast Vietnam. It discusses factors, which have affected the habitual use of the Tay language, the connection between language shift and development and provides a model for the sustainability and promotion of minority languages. It remains fundamentally imperative to strengthen and to foster positive attitudes of the community towards the Tày language. Tày’s young people must be enlightened to the reality their Tày non-usage could render their mother tongue defunct, which means their history stands to be lost.

In northeastern Thailand or "Isan"; Lao, otherwise known as the northeastern Thai dialect, is used as a lingua franca by people living in the area, in which minority ethnic groups are scattered. Some of the ethnic groups speak Tai dialects/languages, such as the Nyo, Phuthai, Saek, Kaloeng, Yoi, as well as others. When tonal languages belonging to the same language family are spoken in an area with the respective speakers in constant contact, it is worthwhile to investigate to what extent their tonal systems and tonal characteristics have influenced each other. To achieve this, the earliest available literature has been examined to obtain what appear to be prototypical tonal systems for the three languages. The specific goal, then, was to determine how well these prototypes have been preserved in a region of high language contact.

The writing of Lao history presents peculiar problems, not because of the quantity and quality of sources available (though these leave much to be desired for certain periods), but because of the difficulty in deciding what is meant by “Lao history”. There is a problem in identifying the object of study. Is Lao history the history of those territories inhabited by ethnic Lao, or of the state of Laos as it has existed at various times under various names? The Lao have spread far beyond the geographical boundaries of present-day Laos: many more ethnic Lao live in Thailand than in Laos. Moreover the Lao state ceased to exist as a unitary entity in the early eighteenth century. What was reconstructed by the French nearly two centuries later and exists today is but a fragment composed of territories belonging to former principalities inhabited by diverse peoples, many of whom are not ethnic Lao. They are divided into three broad groups: the Lao Loum, or Lao of the valleys, comprise not only ethnic Lao but also upland Tai and account for about 65 per cent of the population; the Lao Theung, or Lao of the mountain slopes, speaking Mon-Khmer languages, account for around 25 per cent; while the Lao Soung, or Lao of the mountain tops, speaking Tibeto-Burman languages, number perhaps 10 per cent. The terms Lao Loum, Lao Theung and Lao Soung will be used to refer to these groups in this paper.

This research took 20 years, from 2000 to 2020 by modeling the time series “auto regressive distributed lag” (ARDL) to estimate long-term and short-term relationships. This study measures the level of work participation, health investment, education investment, and economic growth in Indonesia with a multivariate regression model.Finding of this research is human capital development can be established and encouraged through improving education and health and increasing employment opportunities so as to increase community work participation. Participation in work, education, and health can significantly encourage economic growth

Atsižvelgiant į tai, kad Lietuvoje dažnu atveju ikiteisminiai tyrimai dėl neapykantos kurstymo nutraukiami nepasiekus teismo, o teismuose didelė dalis asmenų, kurie kaltinami kurstę neapykantą, išteisinami nenustačius jų veiksmuose neapykantos kurstymo sudėties požymių, šiame tyrime aptariama neapykantos kurstymo kvalifikavimo Lietuvos teismų praktikoje problematika. Šio tyrimo tikslas yra atlikus sisteminę šios veikos analizę, įvertinti baudžiamosios atsakomybės už šiuos nusikaltimus taikymą EŽTT jurisprudencijos ir ultima ratio principo kontekste. Atliktas tyrimas parodė, kad nei Lietuvoje, nei tarptautiniu mastu nėra įtvirtinto bendro neapykantos kurstymo apibrėžimo, tačiau neapykantos kurstymas gali būti apibūdinamas kaip bet kokios formos neapykantos, nukreiptos prieš asmenį ar asmenų grupę, išsiskiriančią tam tikru požymiu, skleidimas, skatinimas ar pateisinimas. Neapykantos kurstymas tiek Lietuvos teisės aktuose, tiek tarptautiniuose dokumentuose, įtvirtintas kaip nusikalstama veika, už kurią privaloma bausti baudžiamosios teisės priemonėmis. Vokietijoje, Jungtinėje Karalystėje bei Danijoje neapykantos kurstymas gali pasireikšti asmens įžeidimu ar žeminimu, tačiau Vokietijoje kurstant neapykantą turi būti sutrikdoma visuomenės rimtis. Tuo tarpu, Latvijoje neapykantos kurstymas gali pasireikšti per asmenų teisių ribojimą ar privilegijų suteikimą. Panašiai neapykantos kurstymas vertinamas ir Prancūzijoje, kur jis gali pasireikšti asmenis diskriminuojant, tačiau reikalinga įrodyti, kad neapykantos kurstymas sukėlė realius pavojingus padarinius – diskriminaciją, neapykantą ar net smurtą. Neapykantos kurstymo kvalifikavimas Lietuvoje nevisiškai atitinka EŽTT praktiką, kadangi Lietuvoje neapykantos kurstymu laikytini konkretūs ir tiesiogiai kurstantys neapykantą teiginiai, kai EŽTT neapykantos kalba pripažįsta ir netiesioginį neapykantos kurstymą, be to, priešingai EŽTT praktikai, Lietuvoje dažnu atveju vieno neapykantą kurstančio komentaro negana baudžiamosios atsakomybės taikymui, nes baudžiamosios atsakomybės taikymas už neapykantos kurstymo nusikaltimus Lietuvoje suvokiamas kaip ultima ratio priemonė, kai neapykantos kurstymo veiksmų pavojingumą pagrindžia jų sistemingumas ir reali grėsmė baudžiamojo įstatymo saugomoms vertybėms.

The residents of Furukawa-cho, Hida City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan use cooperative learning during festival organization to preserve the various traditional arts of Hida Furukawa Festival, such as Hayashi. The goals of this study were to (1) analyze the aspects of cooperative learning of Seiryu-tai Hayashi learners involved in the Furukawa Festival, and (2) determine the effects of factors influencing cooperative learning on the aspects of cooperative learning among these learners. We applied grounded theory and conducted a field study on the six years of the Furukawa Festival and residents’ daily lives since 2014. We numbered, coded, and categorized text data, and classified the data using the KJ method. We applied the five elements of cooperative learning by Johnson and Johnson, and analyzed the cooperative learning processing of Seiryu-tai, considering five aspects: (1) cultivation and skills: to follow the norms of Hayashi learning and then cultivate the skills; (2) demonstration and imitation: the process of Hayashi learning without notation; (3) instruction and accompanying: elders addressed norms and demonstrated skills, providing comfort and encouragement; (4) experience and feeling: interacting with unqualified learners to experience the Hayashi atmosphere, and (5) others and interaction: experience of a different culture. From the analyses, we found that the five elements of cooperative learning in Hayashi cooperative learning provide new functions. We applied the five elements of cooperative learning to analyze the five aspects of Azure Dragon Stall’s Hayashi cooperative learning: (1) positive interdependence: deep interdependence exists in the core of the learning circle, and guarding and immersion are included; (2) individual accountability: achievement of following the norms, enhancing skills, and having a tacit agreement on the instrumental ensemble; (3) promotive interaction: five interactive types are influenced, including people who follow etiquette, people who need to be advised, people who imitate, people with tolerance, and people who interact; (4) the division of social skills into four types including playing, performing, senior, and foreign, and (5) group processing, which includes learners, instructors, senior learners, elders, youths, and foreign visitors, who jointly form the Hayashi learning circle.

The idea of a media lab is not strictly defined. Media labs, in general, are experimental projects combining creative, research and education activities. As some researchers have concluded, “Media lab is not a name, only a tag that you can describe a specific type of place and - as with tags - use freely, according to and contributing to its conceptual meaning.” The study will present the most contemporary, important theoretical issues regarding media labs which, by creating a platform for exchanging experience and knowledge between people representing different professional groups, such as programmers, culture animators and academic researchers, enable work on projects seeking convergence of knowledge, multimedia and technology. The authors will also focus on case studies to indicate the wide range of possibilities for applying this model of creative cooperation.

This study explores the conceptualisation of Manggarai people on lonto leok culture (LLC) as a responsive-sociologic customary law device in solving land conflict and maintaining social harmony in view of cultural linguistics. In terms of its focus, the study is a decriptive study. The procedures of research were field and library research. The data wera analyzed qualitatively by using inductive method as the analysis was started from the data to the theory or concept dealing with the conceptualisation of Manggarai people on the conceptualisation of Manggarai people on the LLC as a responsive-sociologic customary law device in solving land conflict and maintaining social harmony in view of cultural linguistics. The results of research show that there are several verbal expressions in Manggarai language in which their forms and meanings reflect the function of LLC as a responsive-sociologic customary law device in an attempt to solve land conflicts and maintain social harmony for Manggarai people. The verbal expressions are as follows: (1) Muku ca pu’u neka woléng curup, téu ca ambo néka woléng lako, (2) Ipung ca tiwu neka woleng wintuk, nakeng ca wae neka woleng tae, (3) Ase-kae ca sosor wae neka woleng tae, ase -ka’e ca natas labar neka woleng bantang, and (4) Padir wa’i, rentu sa’i, bantang cama, reje leles nai ca anggit, tuka ca léléng.The result of this study might be beneficial as a source of reference in designing the model of revitalizing the LLC.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1987.
Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-213).

This chapter reflects several different studies conducted over 3 decades. The work in Laos was conducted over a single decade, 1965–1975. These studies began with data collection on opium production in Laos, proceeded to opium usage and its functions, then to an epidemiological study of opium addiction, and finally to clinical studies of opium addiction, its treatment, and course (Westermeyer 1982). During the period 1965–1975 (Westermeyer 1971) I spent a total of 3 years in Laos. The first 2 years involved work as a general physician (with the Public Health Division of USAID) and as a graduate student in anthropology. The final 12 months were spent over the period 1971–1975, with several visits of approximately 2 months each. These last visits were funded by grants from the University of Minnesota and consultations to the Ministries of Health and Social Welfare in Laos. Subsequently, I served as a consultant to the World Health Organization from 1977 to 1997. This role involved about 20 visits to Asia as a research consultant, curriculum developer, and speaker during a time when several countries of Asia were developing their own epidemiological studies and later treatment and prevention programs. During this time, I also had the opportunity to care for and study refugees from Southeast Asia who became addicted (or readdicted) to opium in the United States (Westermeyer, Lyfoung et al. 1989, 1991; Westermeyer and Chitasombat 1995). In Laos, minorities made up about half the population. To an extent greater than the ethnic Lao themselves, many minority groups were involved in opium production and commerce. Mountaineer minorities grew poppy: Akha, Hmong, Iu Mien, Khamu, Lisu, and the Tai tribes. Expatriate Asians and Europeans, living in towns along the Mekong River, conducted opium commerce; they included ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodians, and French (usually referred to as Corsicans by other French people). Those groups straddling the borders of two or three different countries were in a unique position to smuggle opium, along with legitimate trade in raw products and manufactured goods. For example, the Iu Mien moved opium from Burma and Laos down into Thailand.

Abstract This chapter examines language and national identity issues in Thailand and also Laos. These two neighbouring states are grouped together here for the reason that both contain heavily dominant ‘Tai’ populations and have a long history of interaction with each other. The term ‘Tai’ itself refers to a particular group of languages which form a language family distinct from other major language families of east and southeast Asia such as the surrounding Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian groups. Speakers of the Tai group of languages originated in southeast China but migrated far and wide during the seventh to thirteenth centuries, reaching Assam in the west, northern Vietnam in the south, and modern-day Thailand and Laos in the southwest, where the greatest concentration of Tai speakers is still to be found, with 57 million in Thailand (90 per cent of the population), and 4 million in Laos (66 per cent of the population). The term ‘Thai’ (pronounced with an aspiration on the initial consonant which is absent from the pronunciation of ‘Tai’) is normally used to refer just to the inhabitants of Thailand, both as formal citizens of the country and as members of a single ethnic group identified by a largely shared language and culture. It is also frequently used to refer to the standardized variety of speech which has been strongly promoted within Thailand – Standard Thai. The term ‘Lao’ performs a similar function within the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, being used to refer to citizens of the country and also to the particular sub-variety of Tai language and culture which is found throughout significant parts of the country. As will later be seen, both the terms ‘Thai’ and ‘Lao’ have been of considerable importance in attempts to mould national identities within the two countries.

This chapter illustrates how to tap the power of interpreters in the creation of new meaning. Interpreters are experts from far-flung fields, who look at our same customer from different perspectives. The chapter shows how these outsiders can challenge our own perspective, therefore reframing it in a robust way. So that we create things that people would love. Innovation of meaning is an inside-out process. This chapter is about the “out”. We will show how to identify interpreters and interact with them through a meeting that we call “Interpreters Lab”.

This chapter returns to the idea of harmonic justice, suggesting its association with tyranny, an association formally legible in intolerance for deviations from form. The happiness it promises is undone by Blackstone's ambivalent and shifting position on slavery and the uses his text served in America. Blackstone's reach is demonstrated through a reading of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, where the children of enslaved people learn to read from the Commentaries as Lee celebrates Blackstone's claims for liberty as a fundamental value of the English common law. But the irony inherent in this argument is as cruel as the cruel optimism Blackstone inspired. The novel inspires not racial justice, but complacent acceptance of glacially slow change, in which gradualism cloaks the most brutal racism. Difference here is represented as deformity and deformity is erased by the end of the novel, replaced with a false sense of ease and comfort.

Abstract In this chapter we enter the world of Daoism (Taoism), the great rival of Confucianism in ancient China. Of the two, Daoism is the more col01ful. It has captured Western imaginations: witness books ranging from the Tao of Pooh to the Tao of Physics. Its original advocates clearly were eccentric people, and there is a mysticism that makes readers think that they are being given access to deep truths. But it is not so easy to say what these deep truths are supposed to be. According to legend the eighty one poems that compose the Daodejing (also known in the older romanization as Tao Te Ching) are the work of Lao Tzu, a contemporary of Confucius in the sixth century BCE. He has been thought of as the great founder of Daoism. Was there a real Lao Tzu? It may be that the original inspiration of the Daodejing was at the time of Confucius, or even before. But scholars now agree that the work we actually have dates from about two hundred years or n1ore after then.

This concluding chapter considers the tar baby story as the most celebrated, the most thickly documented, and the most historiographically significant case in the global trickster tradition. The established ethnographic approach to the tar baby has led people to misconstrue the ways in which the story seeks to resolve the problems it sets before them. Restored to its full range, the tar baby presents nothing less than a comprehensive philosophy of world history. The tar baby story shares both substantive concerns and narrative conventions with formative passages in natural law where labor is mixed with nature or an incorrigible rascal commits an unforgivable crime. When the tar baby is read this way, one of the things that becomes apparent is the story's capacious flexibility.

This paper presents the results of the development of a new sock garment with integrated electrodes for monitoring physiological signals for stress detection in people with intellectual disabilities or dementia. Misunderstood stress-induced behaviours reduce the quality of life of these individuals and complicate caregiver support and treatment, as the correct interpretation of these behaviours. One of the physiological parameters most related to stress is electrodermal activity (EDA). It shows a direct response to the sympathetic nervous system activation ('fight or flight' response) in the form of a change in skin electrical properties such as skin conductance (SC) or skin impedance (SI). The phasic component of EDA is associated with short-term events and occurs in the presence of stimuli that control sweat gland activity. Therefore, analysis of this signal can be used as an indicator of emotional arousal or stress.To continuously measure EDA on an individual, a comfortable, durable, and easy-to-use carrier is essential. Current medical electrode patches (carriers) have limited user-friendliness because of their large shape and risk of skin irritation during extended use. Besides, the daily disposal of electrode patches would pose a major supply chain challenge and generate large amounts of medical waste. Furthermore, depending on the target group, classic wrist sensors may not be accepted by patients due to their discomfort and removed during recording. Considering the above limitations, a garment sock with integrated electrodes was proven to be the most efficient location in terms of signal quality, comfort, and an optimal alternative to standard medical electrodes. This allows the electrodes to be applied in one handling while maintaining permanent spacing and positioning of the electrodes on the skin. This garment can also be reused several times after regular washing cycles. Screen printing was chosen as a method for incorporating conductive electrodes onto garments. Conductive inks can be printed onto the garment directly or onto a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) film, which has been proven to be a suitable material for this type of integration. Screen printing onto these films offers both high flexibility and stretchability. The printing process allows the use of complex designs, such as stacking layers and printing dielectric insulating layers on top of the conductive layers. Different types of connectors were studied and designed to convert this stretchable film into a fixed connector tail with strain relief. Finally, test prints were made in a lab to validate each material and ink combination of silver, carbon, and dielectric inks. This aim was to achieve the desired robustness, and flexibility and to optimise the position of the sensors to achieve a good balance between patient comfort and good EDA signal output.The work showed that the use of advanced screen-printing technologies in the smart sock was the best solution to ensure high wear comfort while maintaining good signal quality even after repeated use and washing while maintaining low costs and high flexibility during production. In addition, the sheet-to-sheet production method proved to be cost-effective and enabled rapid changes in the material stack and sock design.

Una visión más lírica que histórica permitirá sostener diferentes miradas sobre ciudades emblemáticas del mundo en un entorno evolutivo: desde su esplendor hasta su destrucción, descubrimiento de sus restos y recuperación. El tema gira en torno a ¿cómo ven los poetas el entorno urbano de las ciudades? ¿Cómo veían los creadores de hace varios siglos una ciudad emblemática y cómo la ven en la actualidad? ¿Cómo afectan las nuevas tecnologías a esas ciudades especiales y de qué manera puede proteger un género tan débil y tan fuerte como es la poesía a las ciudades, algunas de ellas Patrimonio de la Humanidad? Ciudades como Medina Azahara, ciudad palatina del siglo X, durante el califato de Abderramán III, en pleno esplendor de los Omeyas. La ponencia aborda cómo contemplaban la ciudad los poetas de la época y cómo la han visto o las ven ahora en el siglo XXI. También se abordarán las visiones líricas de ciudades como Córdoba, París, Roma, Florencia, Venecia, Praga, Nueva York, Madrid, Granada, Lisboa, La Habana o Sevilla. Contemplación de la ciudad y de su memoria, de su gente. Miradas míticas, sacralizadas y miradas sencillas sobre la urbe anclada en el pasado o viva en el futuro. En definitiva, cómo a través de esas miradas privilegiadas, que resplandecen el pasado se pueden conservar en el presente y dinamizarlas para el futuro. A more lyrical history will hold different views of the world's iconic cities in an evolving environment: from its splendor to its destruction, discovery and recovery of their remains. The issue revolves around how poets see the urban environment of cities? How creators saw centuries ago an iconic city and how are today? How new technologies affect these special cities and how you can protect a genre as weak and as strong as poetry to the cities, some of them World Heritage? Cities like Medina Azahara, palace city of the tenth century, during the reign of Abd al-Rahman III, in the splendor of the Umayyads. The paper discusses how the city looked poets of the time and how they have been or are now in the XXI century. It will also address the lyrical visions of cities like Cordoba, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Prague, New York, Madrid, Granada, Lisbon, Havana and Seville. Vision of the city and its memory, its people. Looks mythical, Hallowed and looks simple on the city stuck in the past or living in the future. Exactly how those looks through privileged, that shine can preserve the past in the present and animate them for the future.

Everyday cities are growing, and it is necessary to regenerate urban areas that are facing obsolescence. Usually, when considering a process of this scope, it is common to leave behind the essential aspects that lead the design decisions to create real places, which contribute to the development of people and to outline the social function involved in the definition of the city. This document defines guidelines to address urban areas in the conditions previously mentioned, and to aim this purpose, it is selected the public market area in Barranquilla as a case of analysis. Also, with a concept review, a site analysis, and the recognition of design actions, it is possible to establish the contribution of urban intervention to the social function of the city, as well as formulating strategies to qualify the area by highlighting this purpose. Keywords: city’s social function, urban regeneration, social & spatial integration, integrative variety. Las ciudades a diario van creciendo y en muchos sitios se hace necesaria la regeneración de áreas urbanas que han caído en la obsolescencia. Usualmente, al plantearse un proceso de este alcance se suelen perder de vista los elementos esenciales que orientan las decisiones de diseño para propiciar verdaderos lugares, que aporten conjuntamente al desarrollo de la persona y destaque la función social que conlleva la definición de la urbe. El presente documento define unas pautas para abordar áreas con dichas condiciones y, para tal fin, el caso de estudio seleccionado fue el sector del mercado público de Barranquilla. De allí que, con la revisión de conceptos, un análisis del sector, y la identificación de acciones proyectuales, fuera posible concretar el aporte de la intervención urbana para la función social de la ciudad, así como formular estrategias que permitan cualificar el área, resaltando este propósito. Palabras clave: función social de la ciudad, regeneración urbana, integración socioespacial, variedad integradora.

The Covid-19 is not only a health phenomenon, but also has socioeconomic, political, and mainly urban causes. At the same time it has shown to the poverty and pre-existing inequalities, that make vulnerable to the population during the pandemic. Therefore, the objective of this work is to identify the urban variables, such as the equipment, infrastructure, services and housing conditions that the low-income people have, which make them vulnerable to the COVID-19. The hypothesis that is proposed is that the poor or non-existence of equipment, infrastructure and services, as well as the overcrowding present in the homes of the low-income population, make them more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. These one is verified from the study of the cases of Ecatepec and Nezahualcóyotl, both municipalities from the Metropolitan Zone of Mexico City, where the low-income population lives. From official statistics and empirical evidence, it is verified that the population that lives in municipalities lacking infrastructure, services and overcrowding conditions inside the dwelling, corresponds to those with lower incomes, and the combination of these elements, they are vulnerable to COVID-19. Keywords: Ecatepec and Nezahualcoyotl, poverty and inequalities, urban causes, COVID-19. La pandemia por Covid-19, no tan sólo es un fenómeno sanitario, sino también tiene determinantes socioeconómicas, políticas, y principalmente urbanas. A su vez, ha conllevado a la reproducción de la pobreza y las desigualdades preexistentes, mismas que vuelven más vulnerable a la población que las padece para enfrentar la pandemia. Por lo anterior, el objetivo de este trabajo consiste en identificar aquellos elementos de tipo urbano, tales como el equipamiento, infraestructura, servicios y condiciones de la vivienda con los que cuenta la población de bajos ingresos, mismos que los vulneran ante la COVID-19. La hipótesis que se plantea es que la mala o nula existencia de equipamiento, infraestructura y servicios, así como el hacinamiento presente en las viviendas de la población de bajos ingresos, vuelven más vulnerable a ésta ante la pandemia por COVID-19. Lo anterior se comprueba a partir del estudio de los casos de Ecatepec y Nezahualcóyotl, ambos municipios pertenecientes a la Zona Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México, los cuales se integraron dando alojamiento a la población de bajos ingresos.Con base en la estadística oficial y trabajo de campo se comprueba que la población de estos municipios carentes de infraestructura, servicios y condiciones de hacinamiento al interior de la vivienda, corresponde a quienes cuentan con menores ingresos, y la conjugación de estos elementos, los vulneran ante la COVID-19. Palabras clave: Ecatepec y Nezahualcóyotl, pobreza y desigualdad, determinantes urbanas, COVID-19.

"This work includes talking about the crime of Camp Speicher, in which 1,700 students of the Iraqi army of the Sheea creed were killed by the gangs of the terrorist organization ISIS, with the aim of eliminating the members of this sect because of the misleading ideology carried by those gangs. On 6-12-2014, Iraqi soldiers at Camp Speicher (Speicher Air Base) in Tikrit were subjected to murder and enforced disappearance by terrorist organizations because of their affiliation to the Sheea creed. This crime was among a series of brutal crimes for the genocide of Sheeas in Iraq. This is similar to what happened in the Badoush prison crime in the province of Mosul, which the Iraqi Parliament considered it as a crime of genocide, in which these gangs executed about (400) members of the prison inmates of the Sheea component. After ISIS took control of the city of Tikrit in Iraq, and one day after they took control of the city of Mosul, they captured (2000-2200) soldiers and led them to the presidential palaces in Tikrit, and they shot them there and in other areas and buried some of them alive. This disaster had a negative impact on the families of the victims of the Speicher where they went out in demonstrations demanded that the leaders who handed over the victims of Speicher to ISIS must be prosecuted, and in one of the demonstrations they managed to enter Parliament and demanded that the leaders who handed over Speicher to ISIS be held accountable. After that, many demonstrations took place by the families of the victims, some of which led to the closure of a bridge in Baghdad a few times Protesting the government's delay in clarifying the fate of their children or taking quick measures. The Iraqi parliament and government recently considered the Speicher incident “genocide” in reference to the premeditated murder of Badoush Prison inmates in Nineveh Governorate and the unarmed Speicher military base, the premeditated murder of members of the Albu Nimr, Jabour, al-Lahib, and al-Ubaid tribes, and the killing and displacement of civilians from Kurds, Christians, Yazidis and Shabaks in Sahel Nineveh, Sinjar, deliberate killing and displacement of Turkmens in Tal Afar and Bashir. This decision paves the way for obtaining international recognition from it as a ""genocide"" as stipulated in the Contract of the United Nations in 1948, and Iraq signed it in the fifties of the last century. This study attempts to explain the Al-Ikhnasas Court in looking into the crimes of genocide committed by ISIS against the bereaved students of the Air Force Base (Speicher) due to what this issue raised from the national and international public opinion, especially after the involvement of the Iraqi army leaders in this massacre, according to what witnesses reported in that area and what was reported by soldiers who survived the incident, in addition to the involvement of some members of the Sunni tribes in these crimes with the terrorist organization ISIS. The importance of this study lies in the following aspects: - That ISIS elements were tried according to Anti-Terrorism Law No. 13 of 2005, and from our point of view that the aforementioned law is vague and broader than it should be, and it applies to serious and simple crimes from murder to crimes of sabotage, and the list of crimes punishable by the death penalty according to the aforementioned law is a long list and spacious. - The Iraqi government has embarked on an attempt to develop a legal framework to prosecute ISIS elements, and its mission focused on understanding the procedures and results drawn from those judicial efforts, and its mission also focused on showing the efforts taken by the Iraqi government to address violations in the field of the right to life, including those committed by affiliated forces government as well as other international and domestic actors. The International Criminal Court is specialized in considering specific crimes under Article (5) of its Statute, which are war crimes, aggression and crimes against humanity, which necessitates the adaptation of Speicher's crime within any of the mentioned types of crimes. The assumption of the International Criminal Court in relation to the Speicher crime, includes several positive matters and results at the same time a set of negatives, which must be presented to those positives and negatives in order to give preference between them and the choice of authorizing the court to consider the crime or not. The terrorist organization ISIS has committed serious systematic violations, including war crimes and others, and perhaps those that are not under its control, and that none of these crimes can be addressed within the anti-terrorism law, which cannot address human rights violations. The international community has recognized the heinous violations committed by ISIS against the citizens of Iraq by adopting Resolution (2370) in September of 2017, issued by the Security Council, which authorizes the Security Council to appoint an investigation team to support local efforts to hold ISIS elements accountable by collecting and preserving evidence in Iraq, which can rise to a high level, and it was committed by the elements of the organization. It considers that the decision constitutes a burden and an obligation on Iraq to investigate all allegations of violations committed by government forces for the purpose of holding them accountable, as well as requiring the establishment of special courts and trained judges in relation to ISIS crimes to deal with them. Terrorism is a global curse that has recently spread horizontally to all countries of the world and its effects have been concentrated vertically in some countries, and no one denies that the parties to this phenomenon are increasing (perpetrators and victims) and the United Nations in particular and the international community in general has not succeeded in reducing it despite the fact that the resolutions of the UN Security Council It is increasing, but the proportionality is absent between these decisions and the practical reality. The phenomenon of terrorism is spreading rapidly, and the perpetrators of terrorist acts are on the rise, corresponding to an increase in the victims of terrorism. Also, the circumstances and events that Iraq is going through, especially after 2003, put it at the forefront of countries which suffers from terrorism that has killed the people, using methods and forms that were not previously known and brutal and bloody cruel. ) for the year 2005, and since terrorism was not limited to Iraq, but included many countries, and was not specific to a place or time, nor was it recent in terms of composition. In addition, the aforementioned law cannot be aware of all violations of international and humanitarian law, as we mentioned previously, which requires the necessity of referring the criminals to a competent court. The Court conducts its rule under Article (13) of its Statute when referred to it by a state party to the same system or by the Security Council or when the Public Prosecutor conducts the investigation on his own, and then how does the Court take its measures regarding the aforementioned crime if we take a look Considering that the State of Iraq is not a member of the Statute of the Court. The rule of the court is free from the death penalty, which makes the idea of authorizing the court to consider the crime rejected by most Iraqis, especially the families of the victims. What are the negative aspects of the Iraqi national judiciary’s view of the Speicher crime, and how can it be avoided if the International Criminal Court plays this role? What are the guarantees provided by the court in the event that it proceeds with its procedures regarding this crime? The research on this subject is according to the appropriate method, which is the analytical and comparative method, which works on studying and comparing topics by analyzing ideas and jurisprudential rulings, and the positions of the governments of countries and the United Nations, as well as the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, and comparing arbitration between Iraqi courts. And the international courts regarding the trial of the perpetrators of the Speicher base crime, and then come up with a set of conclusions and recommendations."

Las previsiones de retroceso económico y social en América Latina y el Caribe son alarmantes. La COVID-19 golpea con fuerza la región marcada que tendrá que afrontar una contracción del 9,4%, una de las más severas en todo el planeta. La desigualdad, la informalidad y la insuficiente dotación sanitaria lastran las posibilidades de hacer frente a la pandemia. Pero son los más vulnerables quienes asumen el costo, hasta 52 millones de personas que podrían caer en la pobreza y 40 millones podrían perder sus empleos, un retroceso de 15 años para la región. Pero la COVID-19 no afecta a todos por igual, una élite se mantiene inmune al contagio de la crisis económica. Desde el principio de los confinamientos, hay 8 nuevos milmillonarios en América Latina y el Caribe, personas con un patrimonio superior a los mil millones de dólares. Las personas más ricas han aumentado su fortuna en US$ 48 200 millones desde marzo 2020, lo que equivale a un tercio del total de los paquetes de estímulo de todos los países de la región. Para hacer frente a esta crisis tan profunda, Oxfam propone una serie de reformas que recaigan sobre quienes más tienen y menos han sufrido la pandemia. Entre otros un impuesto sobre el patrimonio neto de las personas más ricas con el que se podría recaudar al menos US$ 14 260 millones, 50 veces más de lo que ahora se estaría recaudando sobre esta élite de grandes fortunas. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, forecasts for economic and social decline in Latin America and the Caribbean are alarming. The region will face a 9.4% contraction in its economy, among the most severe in the world. Coping with the pandemic is hindered by inequality, weak and insufficient social protection and limited public health capabilities. Up to 52 million people could fall into poverty and 40 million could lose their jobs – a 15-year setback for the region. Yet, an elite remains ‘immune’ to the contagion of the economic crisis. Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 8 new billionaires in LAC: 1 every 2 weeks since the lockdowns began. The richest people have increased their fortune by $48.2bn since March 2020, equivalent to a third of the total stimulus packages of all countries in the region. In this paper, Oxfam proposes a series of reforms targeting those who have being less affected by the pandemic. They include a net wealth tax that could potentially generate $14.3bn, 50 times more than billionaires in the region pay now in theory, under current tax systems.

Los pueblos indígenas han experimentado una gran vulnerabilidad ante la pandemia del COVID-19, sufriendo una mortalidad desproporcionadamente alta a causa de esta enfermedad. Para abordar esta problemática, es fundamental adaptar los programas de respuesta y recuperación del COVID-19 a las necesidades específicas de los pueblos indígenas, así como establecer vínculos con las respuestas que ya están siendo lideradas e implementadas por ellos. Este documento breve de la SSHAP analiza las consideraciones clave para la respuesta y la recuperación del COVID-19 con relación a los pueblos indígenas, con un enfoque específico en la región de la Amazonía en América del Sur. Las consideraciones de este documento emanan de la evidencia y de las perspectivas ofrecidas por los propios liderazgos indígenas, así como de las investigaciones implementadas en distintos continentes. También, se basan en principios clave para la participación comunitaria, tal y como es articulada por las mismas organizaciones y pueblos indígenas. Este documento puede ser de interés para aquellas personas que trabajan y toman decisiones de política pública en materia de salud y desarrollo de las comunidades indígenas y sus territorios. Además, puede ser leído junto al informe de referencia de la SSHAP sobre "Pueblos indígenas y COVID-19" (Indigenous Peoples and COVID-19).

Tax evasion is a pervasive problem in many countries. In particular, some developing countries do not collect even half of what they would if taxpayers complied with the written letter of the law. The academic literature has not been oblivious to the need to explain why people pay (or do not pay) taxes. However, the empirical literature has not yet reached consensus. This paper reports the results of a large field experiment that tried to affect compliance by influencing property tax taxpayers' beliefs regarding the levels of enforcement, equity, and fairness of the tax system in a municipality in Argentina. Results indicate that the most effective message was one that stated the actual fines and potential legal consequences taxpayers may face in the case of noncompliance (tax compliance increased by more than 4 percentage points). No average effects are found for the treatments designed to affect beliefs about the equity and fairness of the system. However, the evidence also points out that not every taxpayer updates his or her beliefs in the same direction, as relevant heterogeneous effects are found across the population. The evidence in this paper advances the state of knowledge and may help to reconcile some of the different results in the literature.

Changes in nature visitation and the potential of mobile big data for visitor monitoring -työpaja järjestettiin Helsingissä 28.9.2023. Työpaja toteutettiin osana Koneen Säätiön rahoittamaa viisivuotista MOBICON-tutkimushanketta (Mobile Big Data for Understanding People in Nature - Detecting short and long term changes and their implications for biodiversity conservation). Työpajan tavoitteena oli kartoittaa asiantuntijoiden kanssa luonnon virkistyskäytön muutoksia, seurannan tietotarpeita, sekä pohtia erilaisten uusien tietolähteiden mahdollisuuksia näihin tietotarpeisiin vastaamiseen. Paikalla oli kahdeksan luonnon virkistyskäytön asiantuntijaa eri organisaatioista (Metsähallitus, Helsingin kaupunki, Uudenmaan virkistysalueyhdistys Uuvi ja Suomen Latu r.y.). Heille oli ennakkoon lähetetty kysely päivän teemoista. Keskustelu eteni kyselyn tuloksista syvällisempään keskusteluun aihealueittain. Alla käymme aihealueitten keskeiset tulokset läpi teemoittain. Luonnon virkistyskäytön nähtiin olevan muutoksessa. Virkistyskäyttö yhtäältä lisääntyy ja sen ajalliset rytmit muuttuvat. Toisaalta kävijäkunta monimuotoistuu yleisen yhteiskunnan monimuotoistumisen seurauksena ja uudenlaisten ihmisten löytäessä luonnon äärelle. Myös aktiviteetit ja tavat olla luonnossa moninaistuvat. Keskustelussa muutoksia lähestyttiin neljän megatrendin kautta (yhteiskunnalliset, ympäristölliset, poliittiset ja teknologiset muutokset). Näistä yhteiskunnalliset ja ympäristölliset muutosajurit nähtiin tärkeimmiksi. Yhteiskunnallisissa muutoksissa tunnistettiin erityisesti ikääntymisen ja luontokävijöiden moninaistumisen tuoma muutos. Ympäristöllisistä tekijöistä ilmastonmuutos oli ilman muuta merkityksellisin, sekä luontoa, että ihmisten toimintaa muuttavana tekijänä. Poliittisista muutosajureista keskustelussa nousi esiin yhteiskunnan polarisaation lisääntyminen. Toisaalta jokaisenoikeuksiin, biodiversiteetin suojeluun ja virkistyskäyttöön ohjattaviin resursseihin liittyvät poliittiset päätökset nähtiin tärkeinä. Teknologiset muutokset nähtiin osana laajempaa teknologistumista. Yhtäältä yleinen teknologisoituminen lisää mahdollisuuksia tiedonsaantiin ja -jakoon. Toisaalta terveyteen ja liikkumiseen liittyvä mittauskulttuuri vaikuttaa myös virkistyskäytön määriin, kun ihmiset tavoittelevat askel-tai kilometritavoitteitaan yhä enemmän luonnossa. Organisaatioiden tietotarpeista todettiin, että tietoa tarvitaan yhtäältä virkistyskäytön kehittämiseen ja toisaalta oman toiminnan perustelemiseen ja kolmanneksi käyttäjien informointiin. Lisää tietoa kaivattiin kävijävirroista ja niiden alueellisesta ja ajallisesta jakautumisesta. Toisaalta tieto kävijöistä itsestään nähtiin tarpeelliseksi erityisesti kävijäkunnan monipuolistuessa. Huolta kannettiin myös niistä, jotka eivät käy virkistysalueilla: miten saada paremmin tietoa heistä sekä mahdollista käyntiä rajoittavista tekijöistä. Kävijätiedon keruu nähtiin kalliina ja aikaa vievänä, ja siksi ja uudenlaisten datalähteiden löytäminen nähtiin hyödylliseksi. Mobiilidata arvioitiin kiinnostavaksi tietolähteeksi ja sen eri puolia pohdiskeltiin SWOT-analyysin kautta. Selvää kuitenkin oli, että operatiivisessa käytössä tiedon tulee olla luotettavaa ja helposti saatavilla. Mobiilidatan osalta juuri pitkäkestoinen saatavuus pohditutti osallistujia. Tilaisuuden järjestivät Aina Brias Guinart, Matti Hästbacka, Tatu Leppämäki, Jussi Torkko ja Tuuli Toivonen. Johanna Eklund osallistui työpajaan äitiysvapaalta. Lisää tietoa tilaisuudesta tai tutkimuksesta hankkeen verkkosivuilta tai sähköpostilla hankkeen tutkijoille: mobicon-project@helsinki.fi. MOBICON-hanke toimii vuosina 2022-2026 ja sitä rahoittaa Koneen Säätiö. Verkkosivu: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/digital-geography-lab/projects/mobicon.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3