For many low-income countries, there has been an extended period in which fiscal policy was not a choice, or was a choice made by authorities external to the country. For a number of them, this situation is now changing. Their own success in stabilising the economy, coupled with a shift in the...

Governments frequently compartmentalize issues of reform and reconstruction into separate strategies and separate ministries (the fate of poverty reduction as well). Donors do likewise, for each has its own responsibilities; the IMF focuses on reform, the UN concentrates on conflict resolution...

It is clear from the implications of growth theory that the impact of aid depends on how it affects savings, investment and government behaviour. In respect of low-income countries, which are the principal aid recipients and the economies for which the issue of the impact of aid on growth is...

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...

A key driver of foreign investment in land, food security is a challenge mankind has been confronted with in various times and places. Wherever human societies have developed, growing needs have led to increasing arable land, and when land has been limited by nature or wars, food shortages...

Pre-harvest lean seasons are widespread in the agrarian areas of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Every year, these seasonal famines force millions of people to succumb to poverty and hunger. An incentive of $8.50 is assigned to households in Bangladesh to out-migrate during the lean season, and...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have lofty expectations regarding the impact of official development aid. Are these expectations valid? This paper surveys the literature on aid and growth. It finds that practically all aid studies since the late 1990s conclude that aid increases economic...

Public welfare policies in developing countries have a Rawlsian perspective; they seek to uplift the poor, the poorest of the poor in particular. Policies to enable the poor to catch up with the rich are generally two-fold, viz., inclusive growth, and redistributive (transfer) programmes. This...

Economic growth is widely perceived as a major policy instrument in reducing childhood undernutrition in India. The association between changes in state per capita income and the risk of undernutrition among children in India were assessed. Data for this analysis came from three cross-sectional...

The public sectors of different countries are shaped by many factors, but they share common challenges. Those challenges make public sector performance management more complex than it is in the private sector. The generally simpler environment of the private sector and its efficient evolution of...