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Publications (35)
Research Brief
pdf
Microfinance evaluations reveal a positive impact on per capita income, non-land asset value and poverty incidence. Across countries and methodologies, microfinance is most likely to have a short-term positive effect; regionally, the most positive impacts are seen in Africa. Women tend to benefit...
Research Brief
– What Does the Evidence Say?
Donors are concerned about how their aid is used, especially how it affects public spending. For low-income countries that receive significant amounts of aid relative to GDP, most of the aid spent in the country is given to the government either directly, or by financing services that would...
Research Brief
– Exploring the Fatal Flaw
Aid to Haiti has not been effective due to failure of the country’s political and economic elites to participate and assist in the development process. US foreign policy has in some cases reinforced the tendency for elites to personally profit from aid initiatives. Haiti has received more than US$20...
– How to support effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions for sustainable development?
Aiding government effectiveness in developing countries has been a priority issue for the international donor community since the 1990s. With the Paris Declaration in 1994, donors further committed to aiding government effectiveness in a manner consistent with local ownership and harmonization with...
Research Brief
Donor political interests have heavily influenced aid flows to North Africa in the past. This has reduced the effectiveness of aid which, with the exception of Tunisia, has not been associated with sustained economic growth. The Arab Spring provides an opportunity to reappraise aid flows to the...
Research Brief
The civil service is the backbone of the state, and can either support or undermine a country’s entire system of governance. Donor’s recognize this important fact and have often tried to promote civil service reform in the countries they are providing aid to. However these attempts have all too...
Research Brief
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The most successful projects and programmes are those that give local partners real ownership over the development process. Aid to health is not always allocated to the areas where it is most needed. Aid fragmentation creates extra costs for recipient countries and reduces the effectiveness of...
Research Brief
Australia has a plan to double its Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) by 2015. To attain this goal identifying new channels through which aid can be delivered, and used, as effectively as possible is crucial. One example of this is an aid-delivery mechanism, based on a partnership with churches...
Development assistance to fragile states and conflict-affected areas is a core component of peacebuilding. It includes support for the restoration of core government functions, delivery of basic services, the rule of law, and economic revitalization. Yet, while aid has been among the largest...
Research Brief
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Aid has had positive effect on growth and poverty reduction on average in the long term. There is no evidence of aid systematically increasing infl ation or reducing the amount of credit available to private industry. In general aid that is channeled to human capital appears to be effective at...
Research Brief
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Most studies show that education aid has a modest but positive effect on enrolment levels. Less is known about the effect of aid on the quality of education. The effectiveness of education aid is to a large degree dependent on the stability of the institutions in the recipient country. Institutional...
Research Brief
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– Crucial for the Spread of Social Protection Programmes
Evaluations of social protection programmes have been much more comprehensive in Latin America than in sub-Saharan Africa. Monitoring and evaluation protocols are crucial to facilitate improvements in government effectiveness. Anti-poverty transfer schemes seem to be subjected to more evaluation...
Research Brief
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Each dollar of aid per year provides 0.17 people with access to water or sanitation. This amounts to a cost of US$5.88 per person. Due to economies of scale, countries with large populations benefit more from aid to the water and sanitation sectors. Institutional reforms that facilitate the...
Research Brief
– What We Know and What We Need to Know
In the 1960s food aid made up nearly 20 per cent of overall overseas development aid, today that figure is five per cent. Increasingly food aid is provided as emergency relief rather than as a form of long term support and many donors have expressed strong interest in switching from food to cash...
Research Brief
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Transitional justice processes often fail to adequately deal with gender issues. Attempting to deal with gender-based violence during periods of transitional justice is often seen as destabilizing and a threat to future stability. Women’s rights are still often seen as yielding rights that have to...
Research Brief
If food aid is to be more effective donors need to consider both the goals of the aid, and its economic implications. In May 2012, shortly before the annual G8 summit, the Obama administration announced the ‘New Alliance for Food Security’. The project enlists 45 private companies who are to invest...
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