Publication: Evaluation Systems, Ethics, and Development Evaluation
Abstract
After some 65 years of international development assistance, it is still difficult to show the effectiveness of aid in ways that are fully convincing. In part, this reflects inadequacies in the evaluation systems of the bilateral, multilateral, and global organizations that provide official development aid. Underlying these weaknesses often are a lack of adequate resources to carry out evaluation, insufficient harmonization of evaluation systems to allow aggregation and comparisons, and data limitations. Capacity constraints in both developing countries and aid organizations hinder the quality of evaluations. In addition, evaluation too frequently is not used by donor agencies or recipient countries to improve development effectiveness. All of these issues raise ethical concerns about the efficient use of donor resources, the opportunity costs for developing countries, and most important the effects on the intended beneficiaries of aid.
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Publication Biochar Systems for Smallholders in Developing Countries : Leveraging Current Knowledge and Exploring Future Potential for Climate-Smart Agriculture(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-06-23)Biochar is the carbon-rich organic matter that remains after heating biomass under the minimization of oxygen during a process called pyrolysis. There are a number of reasons why biochar systems may be particularly relevant in developing-country contexts. This report offers a review of what is known about opportunities and risks of biochar systems. Its aim is to provide a state-of-the-art overview of current knowledge regarding biochar science. In that sense the report also offers a reconciling view on different scientific opinions about biochar providing an overall account that shows the various perspectives of its science and application. This includes soil and agricultural impacts of biochar, climate change impacts, social impacts, and competing uses of biomass. 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