Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs

415 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9389

These briefs report on ongoing operational, economic, and sector work carried out by the World Bank and its member governments in the Africa Region.

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Uganda’s Virtual Poverty Fund : Pro-Poor Spending Reform

( 2008-03) Sudharshan Canagarajah ; Tim Williamson

The provision of debt relief to Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPCs) commencing in the late 1990s, and the growing interest among donors in providing direct budget support, increased donor focus on national budget systems. Given that debt relief and aid resources are fungible, donors were concerned that such debt relief be verifiably used to benefit the poor in the recipient country. In effect, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), acting on behalf of donors, asked that HIPC governments put in place systems to track the use of resources freed up by debt relief and show that these were in fact used to finance pro-poor programs. This required governments to have the capacity to identify policies and programs that would benefit the poor and to effectively channel and track resources to such programs. This note considers the Uganda Virtual Poverty Fund (VPF) to understand how well it served to allocate resources to pro-poor programs and what weaknesses were observed that may need to be corrected as other countries employ mechanisms similar to the VPF.
Multi-Dimensional Results Measurement in CDD Projects : Experiences from the Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda Social Action Funds

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12) Pidatala, Krishna ; Lenneiye, Nginya Mungai

In the last decade, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda have used the Community-Driven Development (CDD) approach to implement projects that exhibit multi-sectoral linkages, complex institutional structures and implementation processes, creative tension between the supply and demand sides, and convergence at the Local Government Authority (LGA) level in environments compounded by the pace of decentralization. The projects have broadened the issue of results focus from the measurement of a few input-output indicators to include intermediate outcomes (which measure beneficiaries potentially reached by outputs produced by the projects). In the process, these projects have been able to scale up from 'isolated boutique-type projects' to a mass production of outputs through participatory decision-making, local capacity development, and community control of resources. At the national level, the projects have contributed to: (a) poverty reduction, (b) improved social welfare, and (c) improved transparency and accountability.
Uganda : Local Government Development Program

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-07) Mohan, P. C.

The Uganda Local Government Development Program, with a credit equivalent to US$80.9 million, was implemented by the government over the period 2000-2004. The project was designed to scale up an earlier UN Capital Development Fund pilot to 30 districts (out of 56) so that policies and principles could be tested (and costed) on a larger scale and lessons learned used to develop national policy formulation within a sound fiscal framework. It had 4 objectives : (1) Test the feasibility of implementing constitutional and legal mandates with respect to decentralized service provision and devolution of the development budget through the provision of investment funds to the Local Governments; (2) Build the capacity of the Ministry of Local Government, the Local Government Finance Commission Secretariat, and a sub-set of the local governments for improved service delivery, accountability and transparency; (3) Test and institute alternative service delivery mechanisms through the private sector, beneficiary communities and other stakeholders in the Kampala City Council; (4) Monitor and evaluate project implementation for actual experience and good practices for formulating an appropriate strategy, implementation modalities, and phasing for eventual scaling-up, nationally, over time.
Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) - Lessons from Uganda’s Integrated Fiduciary Assessment Process

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-10) Canagarajah, Sudharshan

The 2004 Country Integrated Fiduciary Assessment (CIFA) in Uganda was the first exercise by key development partners, and the government to adopt an integrated, and holistic approach to the assessment of Public Financial Management (PFM), along the lines of the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) Program. The overall CIFA process in Uganda took place over a period of nine months, with each individual assessment being conducted over a period of two to three months, and the PER process being carried out during the entire financial year. The CIFA has benefited from strong coordination between the various government-donor diagnostic processes, and the lengthy consultations with key stakeholders throughout the process. The inclusion of a specific local government component has been of considerable value, especially in the decentralized service delivery environment prevailing in Uganda. The CIFA exercise highlighted both the commonalities and the differences between the different levels of government. In retrospect, a more in-depth analysis at the local government level would have provided a clearer understanding of the causes of the problems rather than merely the symptoms.
Pro-Poor Health Services : The Catholic Health Network in Uganda

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01) Daniele Giusti

Most private not-for-profit (PNFP) health providers in Uganda are faith-based. They account for a sizeable proportion of the health services delivered in the country and have as their prime concern the provision of services to the poor. These providers are coordinated through umbrella organizations, such as the Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim Medical Bureaus and the Uganda Community Based Health Care Association. This article documents the experiences of the Catholic health network in Uganda and its umbrella organization, the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB) in making health services work for poor people. It demonstrates how the pro-poor ethos derived from a longstanding tradition and the mission of healing by treating and preventing diseases, with a preferential option for the less privileged supported by soft regulation and technical assistance from the umbrella organization can induce a process of activity.
Monitoring and Evaluation for Results : Lessons from Uganda

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-09) Hauge, Arild O. ; Mackay, Keith

Recent experience with monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in Uganda has shown how M&E can be developed to contribute to national capacity building, rather than become a demanding, but unproductive data collection exercise. Symptoms of M&E overload have been addressed by assigning coordination responsibility to the Office of the Prime Minister. Prospects are now improving for aligning M&E capacity with strengthening cost-effectiveness and achievement of value for money in service delivery.
Uganda : Policy, Participation, People

(Washington, DC, 2002-08) World Bank

When the government of President Museveni assumed power in Uganda in 1986, it took over a shattered postwar economy. Market-oriented reforms led to a remarkable recovery. International Development Association (IDA) operations in Uganda initially tackled economic recovery, rehabilitation, and stabilization, then turned slowly to institutional and private sector development as the country stabilized. Since 1995, IDA has focused on poverty reduction and social progress. An OED (Operations Evaluation Department) assessment of IDA assistance to Uganda during 1987-99 found that IDA has excelled at policy dialogue, economic and sector work (ESW), and fostering participatory processes; had signal success in mobilizing resources and debt relief; and broadened the stakeholder dialogue on aid coordination. There is room for improvement, however, in some aspects of project implementation. The Bank and other donors were involved on a very high plane in Uganda, and important successes were achieved, partly because of the government's strong political leadership, its eagerness to learn from experience, its good use of technical assistance in core government agencies, and its recognition of the need to deepen its commitment and broaden the ownership of reform.
Uganda’s Integrated Information Management System : A New Approach in Statistical Capacity-Building

(Washington, DC, 1999-09) World Bank

Uganda is embarking on a major program to upgrade its statistical systems. As with many African countries, the quality of national statistics and the timeliness with which they are produced have been issues of considerable concern for a number of years. It has suffered from problems common to many national statistical offices, including: high staff turnover, inadequate funding, lack of timeliness in delivering outputs, unevenness in quality of data produced and inability to respond quickly to new data needs. The starting point for reform has been to persuade government and donors to commit more resources to essential statistical activities. This led to the establishment in 1999 of a new semi-autonomous Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and to the development of a draft UBOS Corporate Action Plan. The World Bank will be channeling its support through the Second Economic and Financial Management Project (EFMPII). The main goal of the program is to support the building of national capacity to collect, process, store and disseminate statistical information for the purpose of monitoring and evaluating outcomes and outputs of development policies and programs at both national and district levels.
Uganda - Using Surveys for Public Sector Reform

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1999-07) Reinikka, Ritva

Data that can be used to inform policy decisions are typically scarce in low-income countries, where standard policy prescriptions are less likely to apply. Interventions based on inadequate information and thus misguided assumptions may not achieve expected results, despite the fact that substantial public or donor funds are being spent. For example, an adjustment operation that focuses on spending allocations may achieve its benchmarks but have no effect on actual service delivery. Diagnostic surveys can provide vital information for decision-makers 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 a case in Uganda where a diagnostic survey proved particularly useful in an effort to improve public spending on health and education.