Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

664 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

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

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Health Information Systems Assessment for Health Systems Strengthening in Bangladesh: Policy Brief
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-23) Asangansi, Ime; Mohammed-Roberts, Rianna; Hannan, Maksudul; Hulse, Matt; Nasim, Asib
Over the last two decades, Bangladesh has made significant progress in improving its routine health information systems (HIS). The goal of the Bangladesh HIS is to provide accurate and timely health data required for effective decision making. The HIS thus plays a crucial role in strategic planning and is an essential component of sound program development, implementation, and monitoring, upon which improved health outcomes depend. Indeed, Bangladesh has recorded notable progress across a range of health outcomes, especially the maternal and child health outcomes over the last two decades. However, the COVID-19 pandemic can derail progress. Decades of progress in developing the health system as well as the HIS can potentially be affected. Generating adequate evidence from a properly functioning HIS is important in guiding the country’s continuous efforts to mitigate against adverse effects and sustaining progress. In this context, understanding the impact of COVID-19 on essential health and nutrition services (EHNS) including the data on key indicators at the national and sub-national levels (regional and district-wise) is a prerequisite for evidence-based policy making. Against this backdrop, an HIS assessment was commissioned with the primary objective of supporting the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) in strengthening the quality of its routinely reported administrative data. Specifically, the assessment is focused on: (a) a review of the existing HIS at the two service delivery channels of the MOHFW, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and the Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP); and (b) development of a roadmap for HIS strengthening considering long term sustainability and a culture of information use as major goals.
Gender and Property Taxes in São Paulo
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-15) World Bank
This knowledge note provides new evidence on property ownership and taxation patterns across genders in São Paulo (Brazil), the largest city in the Americas, with 12 million inhabitants. We exploit microdata on all commercial and residential properties to document the share of total property and property wealth owned by women, the geographic distribution of female-owned properties, and the implications of this data for property taxes in the city.
Financing Our Future: How to Improve the Efficiency of Education Spending in North Macedonia
(Washington, DC, 2023-04-17) World Bank
This policy brief aims to discuss North Macedonia’s key constraints and needed policy responses in the field of education financing, contributing to the debate on how to improve the efficiency of education system as a key investment for our future. It draws on the findings presented in the “North Macedonia Education Public Finance Review” prepared by the World Bank.
Targeting in Ultra-Poor Settings: Evidence from Six Countries in Rural Sahel
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-10-21) Schnitzer, Pascale; Guardia, Anne Della; Lake, Milli
The main insights of this note are as follows: first, to significantly reduce poverty higher budgets for safety net interventions are needed, and expanding coverage is far more important than fine-tuning targeting methods. After geographical targeting, most PMT and CBT methods perform close to a random allocation of benefits when trying to identify food insecure households. While PMT consistently outperforms CBT in identifying households with the lowest consumption, differences are small when distances to the poverty line are considered. While non-beneficiaries experience significant indirect economic benefits from the program, there is mixed and limited evidence on social cohesion and fairness perceptions of targeting methods. Finally, costs are relatively minor as a share of total resources transferred. The policy note concludes with policy and research implications for contexts with high poverty rates, low inequality levels, and insufficient budgets.
The Learning Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Sobering Results of a Deepening Trend
(Washington, DC, 2022-04) World Bank
The Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region was suffering from a deep learning crisis, before the COVID-19 outbreak, with most students being below minimum proficiency levels for critical foundational competencies in numeracy and literacy, according to the Fourth Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (ERCE). The pandemic that hit the region in March 2020 led to a massive shutdown of educational systems, placing LAC as the region with the longest duration of school closures in the world. The impact of school closures on education service delivery was significant. The forced move to distance learning negatively impacted attendance in the education process, both when compared to enrollment rates (-10 percent) and with pre-pandemic attendance rates (-12 percent). Most worryingly, one in four students attending the education process during the pandemic confirmed being disengaged from learning activities while at home. The COVID-19 led to a crisis within a crisis, deepening pre-existing inequalities that characterize the LAC region, as the most vulnerable populations were disproportionately affected. A significant increase in drop-out rates and decrease in learning outcomes is expected, especially for these groups and countries which were already not doing well pre-pandemic. There is a sizeable schooling and learning recovery agenda ahead of LAC, where re-enrollment campaigns, standardized and in-classroom assessments, and programs to teach to the right level will be fundamental to determine the exact depth of educational losses and start recovering.
Adapting Social Safety Net Operations to Insecurity in the Sahel
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11) Grun, Rebekka; Saidi, Mira; Bisca, Paul M.
Adaptive Social Protection programs are increasingly implemented in fragile and insecure contexts in the Sahel. This paper provides a framework, key principles, and a repertoire of options for adapting social safety net projects to unprecedented levels of insecurity. It fills an operational knowledge gap regarding project design, implementation, and supervision under insecurity as called for by the World Bank Group’s strategy for fragility, conflict and violence 2020-2025. Based on a mix of desk research and field insights, the authors map operational security risks and identify ingredients for an appropriate response in risk assessment, design, beneficiary targeting, and payment systems.