Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

589 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9388

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 11

Gender Inequality, Human Capital Wealth, and Development Outcomes in Uganda

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-08) Wodon, Quentin ; Onagoruwa, Adenike

Reducing gender inequality makes economic sense apart from being the right thing to do. Achievinggender equality and empowering all women and girls is the fifth sustainable development goal and is a top priority for governments. Countries can achieve this goal if they take appropriate steps. This note is part of a series that aims to measure the economic cost of gender inequality globally and regionally by examining the impacts of gender inequality in a wide range of areas and the costs associated with those impacts. Given that gender inequality affects individuals throughouttheir life, economic costs are measured in terms of losses in human capital wealth, as opposed to annual losses in income or economic growth. The notes also aim to provide a synthesis of the available evidence on successful programs and policies that contribute to gender equality in multiple areas and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This note has two main objectives. The first is to estimate potential losses in national wealth due to inequality inearnings between men and women in Uganda. The second is to document the impact of gender inequality in selected other domains, including fertility and population growth, health outcomes for young children, and measures of women’s agency.
Who Wins and Who Loses from Staple Food Price Spikes?: Welfare Implications for Mozambique

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06) Baez, Javier E. ; Caruso, German ; Pullabhotla, Hemant

Changes in food prices – triggered frequently by natural disasters, macroeconomic shocks or regional market disruptions– can lead to large household welfare effects. At over 60 and 40 percent, food budget shares remain high in rural and urban Mozambique, respectively. Furthermore, nearly 70 percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. To determine the net impact of food price changes on consumption and poverty, we performed incidence analysis combining household and farmer survey data with disaggregated, market-level price data on major staples (maize, rice, and cassava). Overall, we find evidence for a large net negative welfare effect of price rises in rural areas, and a small, negative effect in the urban areas. For instance, A 10 percent increase in maize prices is associated with an average reduction of 1.2 percent in consumption per capita in rural areas and 0.2 percent in urban areas. Not all households are affected equally. Overall, the negative impacts are larger for the bottom half of the distribution. As a result, the sharp food price spike observed in 2016–17 may have translated into a poverty increase of 4-6 percentage points, with some of the poorest provinces bearing much of the brunt. These findings underscore the importance of improving the functioning of agricultural input and output markets, developing early food security warning systems, and increasing the availability of rapidly scalable safety nets.
Urban Water and Sanitation in Tanzania: Remaining Challenges to Providing Safe, Reliable, and Affordable Services for All

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-02) World Bank

The purpose of the brief Urban Water and Sanitation in Tanzania: Remaining Challenges to Providing Safe, Reliable and Affordable Services for All is to outline the ways in which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framing of water and sanitation is helping us to understand not previously seen problems with urban services. For water services we see a reduction in the gap in access to improved and piped supply between rich and poor since 2005, with overall coverage currently standing at 85 in 2016. However, the low reliability of supply leads to a dependence on more expensive, informal service providers as a secondary source. This dependence can hit the poor hardest. In contrast, for sanitation we see a persistent and widening gap between rich and poor in improved access with a high proportion of shared facilities. Furthermore, as the SDG standards point out, lack of safe treatment and disposal of fecal matter can lead to a greater risk of contaminated water being ingested by the population, increasing the likelihood of waterborne disease such as cholera. Tanzania's cities, have experienced frequent outbreaks of cholera, with 4,985 cases reported in 2017.
WASH for Human Development: Can Scaling Up Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene Interventions Help Children Grow in Tanzania?

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-09) World Bank Group

In Tanzania, chronic undernutrition is at 35 percent among children under five. This makes the country home to the third highest population of children with chronic undernutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa, just after Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This brief provides an overview of the trends in undernutrition, as indicated by stunted growth, over time and by subgroups of gender, age in months, rurality, geography, and poverty. It also provides a geo-spatial stunting map which shows 1km x 1km pixel-level estimations of stunting rates. Using the UNICEF Synergies Approach (1990) and drawing on existing scientific literature, the brief then outlines the theory behind different pathways to chronic undernutrition through inadequate food, care, environment, and health services. Further econometric analysis has been conducted on the DHS 2016 data using Shapley decomposition, to identify the relative contributions of various determinants including water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) variables in determining stunting rates, and hence chronic undernutrition in the Tanzania. The relative contributions of other factors such as poverty, the child’s characteristics, mother’s characteristics and location are also highlighted. Finally, it provides operational and policy implications along the lines of multisectoral and nutrition-sensitive approaches for intervention design to reduce stunting in Tanzania.
Health Impact and Effectiveness of Distribution Models for Plastic Latrine Slabs in Kenya

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03) World Bank Group

Lack of sanitation is a huge development challenge in Kenya, but also a potentially sizeable market opportunity. The World Bank and IFCs ‘Selling Sanitation’ project worked with large plastics manufacturing firms in Nairobi to design, test, and support market development and distribution of a range of plastic latrine slabs. The products were designed from the consumer’s perspective using the Human-Centered Design approach and priced well below the cost of the prevailing concrete slab. This research brief summarizes baseline findings and monitoring results from an impact evaluation of the plastic latrine slab, evaluating its health impact and the effectiveness of niche distribution and financing mechanisms for reaching base-of-the-pyramid households. Baseline findings show that children in the study area suffer from high rates of diarrhea and many are underweight, but worm infections are rare. The majority of households at baseline had unimproved pit latrines with either no slab (49%), or a mud slab, and overall sanitation and environmental hygiene conditions are poor. Feedback on the plastic slab from monitoring visits is overwhelmingly positive, with respondents citing ease of cleaning, safety for children, and prestige. However several barriers to adoption were noted. Most participants perceive the slab as unaffordable for the target beneficiaries, while a lack of adequate follow-up and marketing from sales agents, and limited availability of the product in remote, rural villages are major obstacles to generating demand for the slab. Additional public sector resources will be needed to further support the development of distribution channels and financing mechanisms to reduce the price for base-of-the-pyramid households and increase adoption of the slab among target beneficiaries.
Ending AIDS in Johannesburg: An Analysis of the Status and Scale-Up Towards HIV Treatment and Prevention Targets

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-10) World Bank Group

Johannesburg, one of South Africa’s metropolitan municipalities and one of the 52 health districts has more people living with HIV (PLHIV) than any other city worldwide at ~600,000. This brief provides the key results of a modeling analysis estimating what it would take in terms of programmatic targets and costs for Johannesburg to meet the Fast-Track targets and demonstrate the impact that this would have. The Optima HIV epidemic and resource allocation model was used, distinguishing 26 sub-populations and populated with the available demographic, epidemiological, behavioral, programmatic and financial data. The analysis demonstrated that Johannesburg has rapidly expanded HIV diagnosis and treatment between 2010 and 2015, reaching 267,236 PLHIV with the ART program in 2015. In 2015, an estimated 70 percent knew about their positive status, about 64 percent of diagnosed PLHIV accessed treatment, and about 54 percent of them were known to be virally suppressed. The analysis suggested that the health impact of successfully scaling-up HIV testing, treatment and ART adherence to the 2020 and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals target levels is very large in Johannesburg. The increase in PLHIV on treatment will result in reductions in new HIV infections (an estimated cumulative difference of ~327 thousand infections from 2016-30). It will also results in reductions in HIV-related deaths (a cumulative difference of ~104 thousand deaths from 2016-30).
Strengthening Regional Collaboration and Integration

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04) World Bank Group

West Africa’s coastal area is critical to the region, home to a third of its people and the source of about half of its gross domestic product (GDP). Because most of it is composed of mangroves and sand formations, the area’s coastline is also highly vulnerable to erosion caused by coastal currents and storm surges. Erosion is evident from Mauritania to Gabon - and the rates of erosion are increasing. Around the port of Lome, for example, Togo’s coastline is estimated to have receded by as much as 12 to 15 meters a year. Regional integration will improve the sustainability of shared coastal waters, the protection of environmental services, and the livelihoods that rely on coastal ecosystems. Cooperation will also contribute to the development of regional principles or guidelines for coastal infrastructure investments.
The Effects of Climate Change on Coastal Erosion in West Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11) World Bank Group

The effects of climate change, from changing precipitation patterns to rising seas, will exacerbate the coastal erosion already affecting West Africa, increasing the exposure and vulnerability of the people and assets located there. Given the importance of the coastal zone to the region as a whole, it is critical that policy makers consider the effects of future climate change in the decisions they make today. Regional cooperation is challenging, but it has been successful in many places, particularly where the issue addressed presented an existential challenge to the coun¬tries affected. Efforts to build trust and coordinate efforts will help policy makers protect the lives and livelihoods of the people in the region and allow their countries to build on the development gains made in recent years rather than see them rolled back as a result of climate change.
A Case Study on How Allocative Efficiency Analysis Supported by Mathematical Modelling Changed HIV Investment in Sudan

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11) World Bank

This brief presents a real-life example of how a group of government decision-makers, programme managers, researchers and development partners worked together to improve the allocation of HIV resources in Sudan and thereby better address the HIV objectives that the country strives to achieve. The initial modelling analysis showed that by reallocating funds towards antiretroviral treatment (ART) and prevention programmes in Sudan, 37 percent of new HIV infections could be averted with the same amount of funding. These allocations combined with additional technical efficiency gains would allow for increasing ART coverage from 6 percent in 2013 to 34 percent in 2017, and more than double programme coverage for key populations. The reallocations in the 2015 to 2017 HIV budget for the national response are projected to avert an additional 3,200 new infections and 1,100 deaths in these three years compared to initially planned allocations.The reallocations were achieved through a rigorous HIV allocative efficiency analysis and evidence-informed policy process, conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of national and international partners working for the common goal to make Sudan’s HIV response more manageable and sustainable. The case study discusses process and outcomes of this effort. It also offers some reflections on the application of mathematical modelling to strengthening decision-making of finite HIV resources, and some lessons learned about how to go ‘beyond modelling’ to application of modelled allocative efficiency improvements to improving actual budget allocations for better health outcomes.
Managing Coastal Risks in West Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-01) World Bank Group

Coastal erosion is a naturally occurring process that is accelerated by human impacts. Artificial stabilization of the shoreline, the deterioration of natural formations, the construction of infrastructure, the extraction of materials, and the proliferation of dams deprive fragile coastal areas of important sediment deposits, which leads to erosion. Degradation of the shoreline reduces the natural protection of coastal areas to storm surges, which, together with heavy precipitation, exposes low-lying areas to flooding. Given the trans boundary nature of the region’s ecosystems, the potential downstream effects of infrastructure, and the importance of the coastline for all sectors, optimal solutions to reduce the risk along West Africa’s coasts can be reached only through multi sectoral action and multinational cooperation. Every national and regional development plan in West Africa should take coastal risks and adaption to climate change into consideration.