PREM Notes
176 items available
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This note series is intended to summarize good practices and key policy findings on poverty reduction and economic management (PREM) topics.
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Publication
The Economic Participation of Adolescent Girls and Young Women : Why Does It Matter?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-12)This note summarizes available research on the impact of schooling and employment of adolescent girls and young women on earnings and poverty reduction, demographic outcomes, child development outcomes, and female empowerment. It identifies key implications of this research for the formulation of public policy. -
Publication
Estimating Financing Needs for Local Services in Madagascar
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-11)This note presents the methodology and findings of a field study on the financing needs of Madagascar's communes-the country's lowest but most institutionally advanced level of subnational government. Following a first round of municipal elections in 1995, more than 1,500 communes are now formally responsible for maintaining basic administrative services and social and economic infrastructure, including local waste disposal and sanitation. In addition, communes are responsible for identifying and coordinating local investments and for supporting implementation of the national Poverty Reduction Strategy at the local level. To finance these activities, communes receive population-based transfers and small conditional transfers, and can collect revenue from property, market, and consumption taxes as well as user charges. Yet little is known about how much these fiscal assignments satisfy local needs. As part of its policy dialogue with the government of Madagascar, the World Bank is engaged in extensive research that includes geographic mapping of social spending and a review of opportunities and obstacles to fiscal and sectoral decentralization. This research generated the following analysis of local and cross-sectoral service needs and available financing. -
Publication
Conditionality Revisited : A New Approach in Burkina Faso
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2000-01)Donors have typically linked quick-disbursing assistance programs to conditions related to policy reforms. But there is growing frustration with how conditionality has worked in practice. Research has shown that traditional conditionality usually does not "buy" reforms. Moreover, because aid funds are fungible within government budgets, a results-based approach is needed to enhance aid effectiveness. At the initiative of the European Commission, the Strategic Partnership with Africa is piloting a new approach to conditionality in Burkina Faso to explore changes that enhance donor coordination, foster country ownership of reforms, and smooth aid flows--and so increase aid effectiveness. A driving feature of the approach is a focus on the outcomes of government reforms and policies. -
Publication
Understanding Poverty Reduction Impacts with Innovative Monitoring and Evaluation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1999-10)Monitoring and evaluation systems are often the least addressed component of project design, and implementation. Yet, such systems have considerable potential for enhancing the impact of projects, and the understanding of poverty reduction impacts. This note addresses what makes effective monitoring and evaluation, where both quantitative, and participatory methods are needed to assess a project's impact on poverty. It examines the case of the Uganda Nutrition and Early Childhood Development Project, a process-driven, locally prioritized program, being implemented by a network of nongovernmental organizations, that motivates communities, and provide information to project participants. The project relies on systematic monitoring of inputs and outputs, and, community participation in planning, and monitoring facilitates bottom-up feedback. The note further highlights a randomized experimental design, i.e., a baseline and follow-up surveys, that assess the impact of project activities, of communication and information, and of grassroots management training, and income generation activities for community welfare. The benefits of proactive monitoring and evaluation are that it enables timely inputs into management decision making, and that the quantitative methods used, are important determinants for assessing, and verifying a project's impact. -
Publication
Using Surveys for Public Sector Reform
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1999-05)Diagnostic surveys can provide vital information for decisionmakers when institutional weaknesses inhibit a more regular flow of information. If strategically designed, a survey can help induce policy change by pointing directly to the main bottlenecks, making it easier for policymakers to find solutions. This note summarizes two cases in Uganda where diagnostic surveys proved particularly useful. The first case involves public spending on health and education; the second considers tax administration from the perspective of taxpaying firms.