This paper describes the structure and the distribution of health care financing in 13 territories that account for 55% of the Asian population. Survey data on household payments are combined with Health Accounts data on aggregate expenditures by source to estimate distributions of total health...

Out-of-pocket (OOP) payments are the principal means of financing health care throughout much of Asia. The paper describe the magnitude and distribution of OOP payments for health care in 14 countries and territories accounting for 81% of the Asian population. The focus is on expenditures that...

The budget 2006-07 proposals in health care fell well short of India’s march towards achieving Millennium Development Goals(MDGs), the National Health Policy (NHP) goals and fully operationalising the National Rural Health Mission. Two questions still remain: (a) when will the urban bias...

This paper draws on the experiences of the Far East Economic Crisis in 1998 and argues that: (1) the poor depended heavily on bonding social capital during the Crisis, but the crunch-point beyond which they felt no longer able to rely on this is less certain; (2) bridging social capital could...

The Indian economy has recently grown at historically unprecedented rates and is now one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Real GDP per head grew at 3.95 percent a year from 1980 to 2005, and at 5.4 percent a year from 2000 to 2005. Measured at international prices, real per capita...

Five years age, International Rivers started monitoring the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), concerned that funds marked for climate change mitigation would be used to encourage construction of otherwise uneconomic large hydropower projects, taking limited funds away...

The experience of childhood is increasingly urban. Over half the world’s people – including more than a billion children – now live in cities and towns. This report adds to the growing body of evidence and analysis, from UNICEF and partners, that scarcity and dispossession...

What does citizenship mean to poor and socially excluded people? How do their views help us understand and analyse what 'inclusive' citizenship means?

In 2007, the state of Andhra Pradesh in southern India began rolling out the Aarogyasri health insurance to reduce catastrophic health expenditures in households “below the poverty line.†The program and the districts are evaluated over time to evaluate the impacts of the scheme using...