Other ESW Reports

242 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2209

This includes miscellaneous ESW types and pre-2003 ESW type reports that are subsequently completed and released.

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Driving Revolutionary Ideas into Practice: Infrastructure for Climate Change, Poverty Reduction 2.0, Human Development on Mobile Government, Disrupted

(Washington, DC, 2022) World Bank

In the business of making policies, decisions are based on experience and guided by political concerns. However, in the business of delivering policies, the machinery of government is often taxed by delays and inefficiencies, and constrained by insufficient resources, management tools, and just-in-time information. The result is that governments operate well below the efficiency frontier. For most of our history, research has been disconnected from policy and has moved slowly to build knowledge relevant to designing policies. The authors introduce some of the principles that govern this young institution in the chapters that follow, each designed to exemplify the value of doing better research for doing better development. In these chapters, they present four overarching ideas that they have worked into development practice. Overall, Development Impact Evaluation (DIME’s) approach is to inform the path of development through a capacities-based and iterative process of evidence-informed adaptive policy change. To do so, DIME has developed and implemented a model of co-production with agencies on the ground that transfers capacity and know-how to partners, enables them to make mid-course corrections and motivates the scale-up of more successful policy instruments to achieve policy outcomes and optimize development impact. Finally, DIME invests in public goods to improve the quality and reproducibility of development research around the world.
How Do We Improve Public Expenditure in Agriculture?

(World Bank, 2011-03) World Bank

This paper synthesizes lessons learned from the Department for International Development-World Bank (DFID-WB) partnership, to provide guidance on ways to improve the allocation and efficiency of public spending for agricultural growth and poverty reduction. It includes lessons on how to improve data quality, the composition and impact of spending, budget execution, and the integration of off-budget expenditures. The paper synthesizes recurring lessons that have emerged from the commissioned work, to highlight key challenges that still remain to improve the efficiency of public expenditure planning and implementation in the agriculture sector, as well as offering options for improvement. The paper is accompanied by a separate document, the Agricultural Public Expenditure Reviews (AgPER) toolkit, which is a practical guide for practitioners tasked with carrying out AgPERs in the future. The paper is structured around the Budget Cycle Framework (BCF), to facilitate the identification of entry points to improve expenditure outcomes.
Practitioners' Toolkit for Agriculture Public Expenditure Analysis

(World Bank, 2011-03) World Bank

This toolkit for analyzing public expenditures in agriculture contributes to a broader effort to enhance the focus, quality, and appropriate scaling of public spending in the sector. More specifically, the toolkit has two goals: to provide checklists for practitioners conducting various kinds of agriculture public expenditure analyses, and to provide selected examples on aspects of the checklist to help guide analysis. The toolkit presents a diversity of approaches and describes experiences both positive and negative in conducting agricultural public spending analyses in different settings and with different objectives. It offers checklists of issues and options, rather than a minimum list of issues to be covered. Needs, existing work time, and budget constraints will likely drive the selection of the checklist topics to be covered in any given analysis of public expenditures. The toolkit is organized to facilitate this selectivity of topic, while maintaining a strategic perspective. The supporting examples draw on numerous analyses of public expenditures in agricultures.
Nigeria - State Level Public Expenditure Management and Financial Accountability Review : A synthesis Report

(Washington, DC, 2011-01) World Bank

This report synthesizes the findings of public expenditure management and financial accountability reviews (PEMFARs) that were conducted in seven states between 2008 and 2009. The states covered were Anambra, Bayelsa, Ekiti, Kogi, Niger, Ondo, and Plateau. The report seeks to analyze and summarize the key findings of the reviews from these states in order to ensure that the key messages from the otherwise voluminous reports are presented in a single, smaller report. The states have different socio-economic characteristics but all operate in a federal system that offers some reasonable operational autonomy in the context of a federal constitution. Under the federal system of government, states have been allocated significant responsibilities for service delivery. The constitution defines the expenditure and revenue collection responsibilities that are under their purview. To carry out their responsibilities, the Public Financial Management (PFM) institutional framework is modeled after that of the federal government. All three branches of government are in place with the executive governor as head of state administration. Given the relative autonomy that states enjoy, each state prepares and implements its own budget. Like the federal government, the framework for state PFM system is therefore defined by the budget process.
Romania - Poverty Monitoring Analytical and Advisory Assistance Program : Are the Most Vulnerable Protected?

(Washington, DC, 2008-06) World Bank

The rapid economic growth since 2000 has been the main driver of poverty reduction in Romania. However, even under the current positive growth scenario, there are still people who live in poverty, and some who are unlikely to benefit from future growth and thus may continue to be left behind. For these people an effective redistributive social policy and targeted interventions are needed. The purpose of this note is to assist the Ministry of Labor, Family and Equal Opportunities (MLFEO) to analyze and monitor the effectiveness of the main social safety net benefits to fight social exclusion and reduce poverty. To determine the extent to which social transfers offer protection to the poorest groups of the population, the paper uses the last available (2004-2006) rounds of the household budget survey data. The analysis presented here uses the consumption aggregate and the absolute poverty definition presented in the 2003 and 2007 poverty assessments. Three main indicators are used to assess the effectiveness of social protection (SP) programs: coverage (share of population covered by the programs), targeting (share of funds directed to each welfare group of population), and adequacy of benefit (share of the benefit in the consumption of beneficiaries). The paper begins with a review of the main findings, followed by an overview of the social protection system and its overall effectiveness. Then it assesses the main social assistance programs, and concludes with a review of key issues.
Yemen Poverty Assessment : Volume 2. Annexes

(Washington, DC, 2007-11) World Bank

From what was historically known as 'Arabia Felix', a land of prosperity and happiness, Yemen has become the most impoverished among the Arab countries. The government of the united Yemen, formed in 1990, has launched so far three five-year economic reform plans with the goal of restoring Yemen's prosperity. Have these efforts succeeded? What policies are needed to further reduce poverty? The poverty assessment report aims to answer these questions. This report measures poverty in Yemen in 2005-06, and evaluates the change in poverty compared to 1998, the two years for which comparable household budget surveys are available. The period between the two survey years (1998 and 2005-06), more or less overlaps the first two five-year economic plans and captures the effect of the economic reform programs launched since 1995. In addition to measuring poverty, this report has three objectives: evaluating the role of growth and past reforms on poverty, identifying better ways to target the vulnerable poor through public action, and an assessment of the poverty monitoring system. By examining the effect of the key policies on poverty, such as the petroleum price reform and the government's social protection mechanisms between 1998 and 2005-06, the study aims to equip policy makers and development partners with the knowledge needed to improve the effectiveness of their efforts to reduce poverty in Yemen.
From Social Funds to Local Governance and Social Inclusion Programs : A Prospective Review From the ECA Region - Technical Annexes

( 2007-05-01) World Bank

The role and relevance of Social Fund Community-Driven Development (SF/CDD) has been highly debated in the international development community. Some conceive these programs only as parallel and temporary arrangements that can ensure short-term delivery of development benefits. Others emphasize the flexibility of the SF/CDD instrument in adopting different institutional forms depending on the country context, and their contributions to long-term development challenges. The aim of this study is to provide guidance on the question of social fund relevance. The report is organized into six chapters and a set of annexes. Chapter 1 defines social funds and their main rationales. Chapter 2 provides an overview of their origins in ECA, basic facts about the Bank operations and SF performance, and develops a typology based on policy objectives. Chapter 3 summarizes the institutional arrangements of social funds in the Region and then reviews them within the wider vision of optimal public sector arrangements. Chapter 4 looks at local infrastructure and governance funds, evaluating their design against a set of good practice benchmarks for promoting local governance, and drawing implications for the future. Chapter 5 conducts a similar exercise but for social inclusion funds. The final chapter summarizes the main answers to the study questions and elaborates a set of options for future engagement with social funds, taking into account different country contexts. In the Second Volume, Annexes provide more detailed background material.
India - Jharkhand : Addressing the Challenges of Inclusive Development

(Washington, DC, 2007-03) World Bank

This study on Jharkhand in India addresses the challenges faced by that new state of India (founded in November 2000) to surmount adverse initial conditions of low average income, very high incidence of poverty, and little social development. In addition, initial health and education indicators in Jharkhand were also markedly unfavorable in comparison to both the all-India average and the major Indian states. The paper points out that in order to put its fiscal house in order, the state needs to introduce reforms for improving resource mobilization, increasing cost effectiveness of expenditure and rationalizing the budgetary processes. Improvement of infrastructure is critically important, and once this has occurred, this will lead to favorable pro-poor changes in the labor market as well. Two opposite views of the development debate are represented by the different degrees of importance given to mining and agriculture. One view contends that the development of the mining sector can usher in a new decade of development in Jharkhand. The second view is that the potential risks associated with the mining sector are high and that agriculture has shown great potential through impressive growth in recent years contributing significantly to poverty reduction and human resource development. Given the strengths and weaknesses of the two options, the present study suggests a middle path, aiming at an inter-temporal balance between the two strategies. The paper stresses that social inclusion and effective citizenship for all are desirable outcomes everywhere, especially in Jharkhand with its sharp social and regional divide. It concludes that political commitment is needed to "make development happen" in the shortest possible time.
Mauritius - Country Economic Memorandum : Managing Change in a Changing World

(Washington, DC, 2007-01) World Bank

This Country Economic Memorandum subscribes to the overall direction of the reform program mapped out by this body of work and it goes deeper in three important areas: (1) public sector management, (2) labor markets and education and (3) science and technology policy. Chapters 2-4 of this report, each one largely self-contained, cover these topics in order. First, however, Chapter 1 gives the context for the transition now underway with an overview of past and present development focusing on the transformation of the economy from factor-intensive to skill- and knowledge-intensive development. Then a forward-looking section offers a medium-term forecast for the economy's emergence from the recent slowdown and discusses prospects for longer-term (potential) growth.
Croatia - Living Standards Assessment : Volume 1, Promoting Social Inclusion and Regional Equity

(Washington, DC, 2006-11) World Bank

The Croatian economy has performed moderately well in the past decade, enabling a gradual narrowing of the income gap with the European Union (EU). Using a cost-of-basic-needs poverty line, poverty in Croatia is found to be low, with only a small proportion of the poor facing hard-core deprivation. Looking ahead, the task of faster external income convergence with the EU will be challenging, and will require both faster job creation as well as flexibility in the allocation of jobs and workers in the economy. These will also help with more rapid improvement in living conditions in lagging regions. To these ends, the report highlights three sets of interrelated policy challenges and priorities: (1) sustaining high rates of growth to permit continued income convergence with Europe; (2) promoting greater labor mobility, including measures aimed at building human capital to improve workers' opportunities; and (3) improving the adequacy and effectiveness of social safety nets within a responsible fiscal framework. In examining regional disparities, several development indicators show that regional disparities in living conditions are significant (though on average no higher than in EU countries), and only partially explained by human capital and other such individual attributes. Building on local comparative advantages offers the best way forward to improve living conditions in lagging regions.