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

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.
Malawi : Some Targeting Methods in Public Works Programs

(Washington, DC, 2006-10) World Bank

Community Based Targeting (CBT) and self-targeting are the two main methods used in the largest programme of Public Works. This note assesses and compares the effectiveness and efficiency of these targeting methods in identifying the poor in Public Works Programmes funded by MASAF and CARE in Malawi's Central Region. It further seeks to identify challenges that hinder the effectiveness of these methods.
Citizen Oversight through Social Accountability : The Malawi Social Action Fund and the Comprehensive Community Scorecard Process

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-08) Kajumi, Murphy

The Third Malawi Social Action Fund Project (MASAF 3) was designed in the context of the Malawi Government's Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) of April 2002. The PRS had the following four pillars: (a) sustainable pro-poor economic growth to empower the poor by ensuring access to credit and markets, skills development and employment generation; (b) human capital development to ensure that the poor have the health and education status to lift themselves out of poverty; (c) improving the quality of life for the most vulnerable by providing sustainable safety nets for those who are unable to benefit from the first two pillars; and (d) promotion of good governance, political will and mindset which will ensure that public and civil society institutions and systems protect and benefit the poor.
Malawi - Public Works Programme : Conditional Cash Transfers as an Emergency Response to a National Food Shortage

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-05) Kalanda, Boniface ; Mandala, Charles ; Magwira, Joseph

This paper reports that in the 2004-2005 growing season, Malawi experienced a drought which affected farm produce and subsequently led to country-wide food shortages. Due to the food shortage, the Malawi Government implemented a Public Works Programme -- Conditional Cash Transfers (PWP-CCT) to transfer cash income to vulnerable households to enable them buy food and agricultural inputs for the 2005-2006 growing season. The paper explains the 2004-2005 drought, implementation of the PWP-CCT, and the issues and lessons learnt.
Population and Family Planning : Lessons from Malawi

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-12) Prakash, Siddhartha

The objective of the Population and Family Planning (FP) Project, a Learning and Innovation Loan (LIL), was to test the feasibility of a comprehensive and district-wide Community Based Distribution (CBD) approach to Population and Family Planning Services in three districts, thereby increasing the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) for modern methods. Rigorous testing of the hypothesis was ensured in the design by selecting control districts and using the same instruments to collect both the baseline and end of project data. The three rural pilot districts - Chitipa, Ntchisi and Chiradzulu, represented the three mains regions of North, South and Central Malawi and were adjacent to the control ones with which they shared comparable socio-demographic characteristics such as household composition (female headship and number of residents), environmental exposure (water sources, latrines) and backgrounds of respondents (age, education, marital status).
Designing an Operational Knowledge and Information Sharing System : The Malawi Social Action Fund

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-09) Khan, Aisha Rahaman

The Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) has been in operation since July 1995 and was established specifically to directly finance communities to implement demand-driven sub-projects. Recently, (2004) under MASAF 3 it has begun the process of establishing a Knowledge and Information Sharing System (KISS) that will facilitate knowledge documentation and dissemination in order to improve the quality of project and program delivery. This system seeks to build on and integrate the experiences and lessons accumulated in the last nine years and move towards making MASAF a knowledge sharing and learning organization.
Malawi - Lessons Learned From Public Works Programs

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-06) Mohan, P.C.

In designing Public Work programs (PWPs), it is important to clarify whether the objectives are developmental or to deal with short-term shocks. PWPs make a significant contribution to sustained poverty reduction only when carefully designed to include a graduation strategy (e.g., economic activities training, savings and life skills training) or where continuity of employment is viable (e.g., financed through routine maintenance budgets). Programs lasting twelve months or more can allow for asset acquisition, training and higher risk economic activity. In this way, beneficiaries can begin to graduate out of PWP employment. Valuable assets have been created under PWPs, contributing to economic growth (environmental protection, access routes etc.). In Malawi, full cost recovery will not be possible for some time. It is therefore essential that PWPs budget for maintenance of such assets. PWPs are a valuable vehicle for developing capacity and empowering local government bodies in Malawi. Adequate provision must be made however, for local government administrative and supervision costs. PWPs are a means of skills transfer in participating communities. As a result, follow-on programs find residual knowledge and organizational capacity in place.
Capacity Strengthening in Environmental and Natural Resource Policy : Lessons from Malawi

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-05) Babu, Suresh ; Rhoe, Valerie

This article is based on a case study of environmental and natural resource (ENR) capacity strengthening efforts in Malawi between 1994-1999. The Bunda College of Agriculture, Malawi and the International Food Policy Research Institute jointly implemented an Agricultural Policy Analysis Training sub-project as a part of the agriculture service project of the Malawi Ministry of Agriculture, funded by the World Bank. The overall objective of the sub-project was to strengthen the capacity of the Malawian policy analysts in the food, agricultural, and natural resource sectors. It reports on the process and the lessons learned from the experiences and insights gained in developing institutional and human capacity through graduate programs and short-term training courses in ENR policy analysis. The lessons from the Malawi exercise show that the elements of a successful capacity strengthening effort include assessing the needs for capacity strengthening, designing, and implementing courses that match the capacity needs, and institutionalizing these courses within local institution for sustainability.
The Role of Information, Education and Communication in the Malawi Social Action Fund

(Washington, DC, 1998-07) World Bank

The Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), which began implementation in 1996, was proposed by the Government of Malawi as a quick-disbursing poverty alleviation facility that would be based on and respond to the needs and demands of the country's poor rural communities. The country's experience with self-help projects and programs to date had not been notably successful this project was intended to herald a paradigm shift in this respect. It was designed to promote a change in the way all development actors, including, and perhaps, especially, the government, would work with other stakeholders. Communities were required to contribute up to 20 percent of total sub-project costs, in the form of cash, or labor or materials. Participation was therefore a key factor in the designing of the project. The Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) component was primarily intended as a tool to generate support for and disseminate information about the project. However, it evolved and was shaped, as were the rest of the project and its actors, by the dynamics of project implementation.