This helpdesk research looks at how climate change policies and programmes (particularly for adaptation) can best respond to the needs of the most vulnerable. The general consensus appears to be that this requires a combination of greater investment in community-based adaptation, more decentralised planning and stronger mechanisms to link community-level decision-making with ...» more
Staff Retention in African Public Service
This helpdesk report identifies lessons learned on retaining staff in the public service in Africa, with a focus on external auditing (Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) and Offices of the Auditor General (OAG)). However, because documented experience from these institutions is scarce, it also includes literature on internal auditing in public bodies as well as experience from ...» more
Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment
There is no standard definition of women’s economic empowerment and the term is often used loosely. From the literature reviewed for this report, it would appear that the majority of efforts to measure women’s economic empowerment programmes focus primarily on quantitative outcomes - such as increased access to credit or increased revenue - even where the stated objectives ...» more
Mapping Research on Inclusive Growth
This query response provides a mapping of organisations undertaking work on inclusive growth, highlighting key research themes. Where possible the contact details of relevant researchers are also provided.A large range of issues can be seen to have a bearing on the achievement of inclusive growth. These include: human capital accumulation, enabling institutions, inclusive ...» more
Natural Resource Revenue for Service Delivery
There is very little literature which addresses the impact of natural resource revenues on the quality of service delivery per se. The evidence that does exist suggests large differences among natural resource dependent developing countries in terms of the effects of resource wealth on social expenditures. There is more consensus on those factors which hinder positive outcomes ...» more
Technical Assistance for Post-disaster Recovery
There is a paucity of literature making explicit recommendations for technical assistance to support long-term recovery in post-disaster conflicts. Nevertheless, much of the criticism leveled against TA is the same as that leveled against early recovery interventions, including:the fact that TA remains largely supply-drivena low level of ownership and involvement on the part of ...» more
The World Bank in Fragile States
Some of the recurring findings from the literature on the World Bank’s performance in fragile and conflict-affected states include the following:Despite efforts to become more conflict-sensitive, the Bank’s approach to conflict-affected and post-conflict states focuses more on ‘doing things differently’ than ‘doing different things’. This is partly due to a continued reluctance ...» more
Community-based Approaches and the Extractives Sector in Situations of Fragility and Conflict
The literature offers a number of recommendations on community engagement in the extractives sector. The following are particularly relevant to fragile and conflict-affected contexts:Engage with local communities as partners in preventing and managing conflict, rather than approaching them as a threat or risk.Distribute any benefits from the project (including jobs, development ...» more
Impact of International Volunteering
There appears to be little robust evidence on the impact of international volunteering on development, poverty alleviation or awareness-raising. Nevertheless, from the literature identified in this report, the following direct and indirect impacts were most commonly noted:Direct services related to capacity building and technical transfersPositive effects on host community ...» more
Money Laundering and Poverty Reduction
The general conclusion of this report is that there is no discernable link between money laundering and poverty, or by extension, between anti-money laundering (ALM) initiatives and poverty reduction. There is however some debate on the impacts of money laundering on economic growth and development more generally, split into two broad camps.Firstly, it is argued that money ...» more
Climate Change and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is vulnerable to climate change principally through shifting rainfall patterns and extreme events. Increased incidence of drought is expected to be a particular problem. Other potential changes include increased temperatures, localised floods and decreased/varying river flow. Climate change is expected to pose a particular challenge for food production. Reduced ...» more
Climate Change and Migration
The difficulty of making predictions of future patterns of climate change migration springs principally from the fact that, methodologically, it is very difficult if not impossible to unpack the different environmental drivers and triggers of migration. People move for complex sets of reasons of which a changing environment is only one. As such it is important to try to ...» more
Climate Change Adaptation Training
A great deal of research is beginning to emerge around climate change adaptation in developing countries. As yet, however there appears to be limited capacity to provide adaptation training, especially with a focus on social impacts and planning. Much of the training which does exist takes a technical approach or relates to specific sectors (agriculture, water etc.). This query ...» more
The Impact of Conflict on Women’s Education, Employment and Health Care
The extent to which conflict restricts women’s freedom of movement depends on a number of factors including the stage of conflict, whether the women are displaced, whether they are directly or indirectly affected by the conflict, and the cultural norms of the conflict-affected area. Forced displacement, for example, may in some cases lead to greater mobility, where women assume ...» more
Argentine Financial Crisis (2001-2002)
The 2001-2002 Argentine financial crisis culminated in the collapse of the 1991 Convertibility Plan, the freezing of bank deposits, and the biggest foreign debt default in world economic history. By May 2002, 40% of the total workforce was either unemployed or underemployed.Social unrest during and following the financial crisis principally took the form of social protests. ...» more
Non-State Providers of Health Services in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States
Most mechanisms that use NSPs to deliver services are only being applied at a very small scale in fragile states. There is some evidence that the most widely used mechanism - contracting - can increase service utilisation, increase service quality, improve efficiency, reduce service fragmentation, and support strengthening of national capacity. The basic package of health ...» more
Donor Approaches to Extractive Industries
Donor approaches to extractives management fall broadly under two categories: (1) individual donor strategies; and (2) multi-stakeholder initiatives (in particular the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)). Before EITI was established in 2002, donor strategies on EI were scarce. Donors tended to conduct their work in isolation and principally through funding ...» more
M&E of Parliamentary Strengthening and Electoral Support Programmes
Parliamentary stengthening: Attempts to assess the effectiveness of parliamentary strengthening programmes need to go beyond monitoring changes within parliament, to measuring changes in parliament’s influence on government. Moreover, the political nature of legislatures, the particular types of functions for which they are responsible, and the constant evolution in membership ...» more
M&E of Participation in Governance
There is generally very little information available on evaluating the effectiveness of the inclusive/participatory aspects of governance programmes. A particular difficulty is that there is a limited understanding of what improvements in governance actually look like. Nevertheless, some common principles identified in the literature include the need for both quantitative and ...» more
