In this largely Muslim population, only about a third of women have any schooling, most marry young (nearly 80 percent by the age of 19) and by the age of 18, more than half have had their first child. Nearly 1 in every 5 women joins in a polygamous marriage. As both women and men state they...

After years of neglect of its health system, Sierra Leone has had, starting in 1993, remarkable successes in health reform. As there have been few cases of health reform in Africa, a study was undertaken to examine the experience. Through interviews, surveys, focus groups, mass meetings, task...

A common approach to reform has been to identify problems in the system which cause inefficiencies, ineffectiveness, and insufficient coverage, and then define solutions. The approach applied in Zambia has rather been to define standards for a cost-effective system which would be financially...

There are often large regional differences in poverty and other social indicators within a country. But geographic poverty profiles based on household surveys tend to be limited to broad areas because survey sample sizes are too small to permit analysts to construct valid estimates of poverty at...

A recent study for sub-Saharan Africa by Banerjee et al. (2007) uses Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from 22 countries that have conducted at least two such surveys between 1990 and 2005 in order to collect comparable information across countries on access to modern and alternative...

Several sub-Saharan African countries have succeeded at increasing their economic growth rate in recent years, and this has translated into substantial poverty reduction according to objective measures based on household survey data. At the same time, many people do not feel that the poverty...

In many sub-Saharan African countries household surveys are well designed to measure consumption and poverty as well as human development outcomes (especially in education and health) and access to basic infrastructure. But detailed information on the sources of income and the livelihoods of...

The obstacles to implementation of the entire package of reforms required by the Road Management Institute (RMI) are not only due to governments unwillingness to share management of resources and works with the private sector stakeholders. Of importance also is government uncertainty about: how...

The note describes the major findings of the study "Engaging with adults", which reviews the international experience with adult basic education (ABE), with a focus on Africa. As a foundation for improved conditions of life, basic education serves not only the young, but adolescents and adults...

Attempts in Africa to use Export Processing Zones (EPZ) as an instrument for economic development, with the exception of Mauritius, have been less successful then in countries in East Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean basin. This paper examines the literature on Export Processing and Free...