This paper discusses implementation of the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) in Zambia. The planning process of the FNDP integrated views from the Provincial and District Development Plans approved by the respective provincial and district level organs. The FNDP’s goals are...

This paper primarily focuses on how global funding has supported interventions that have proven to be successful in reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality around the world. The growth rate of development assistance targeted towards these specific interventions has varied greatly over...

Preventable and treatable childhood diseases, notably acute respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases are the first and second leading causes of death and morbidity among young children in developing countries. The fact that a large proportion of child deaths are caused by these diseases is...

The World Bank's health sector projects in Timor-Leste - the Health Sector Rehabilitation and Development Project and the Second Health Sector Rehabilitation and Development Project - have been among the few successful operations it has funded in that country. This paper examines the factors...

There is a growing interest in the debate on aid effectiveness for assessing the impact of aid not only on economic growth and poverty reduction, but also on intermediate outcomes such as health and education. This paper reviews evidence from recent in-depth country work on the impact of...

How has government healthcare spending prepared countries for tackling the COVID19 pandemic? Arguably, spending is the primary policy tool of governments in providing effective health. We argue that the effectiveness of spending in reducing COVID deaths is conditional on the existence of...

The development of institutions of self-governance in India, and specifically the 2005 reform - the National Rural Health Mission that introduced village health and sanitation committees - provide a unique opportunity to study the effects of the strengthening of the political agency on...

This Selected Issues paper reviews the status and potential impacts of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. It draws on demographic projections and economic studies, and summarizes the official policy response and actions taken by the nongovernmental and business communities. It presents some stylized...

Although recent developments greatly increased interest in African land tenure, few models to address these issues at the required scale have been identified or evaluated. Rwanda's nation-wide land tenure regularization programme is of great interest. A discontinuity design with spatial fixed...

We use data on inter-generational gains in educational attainment by some 500,000 individuals in 200 West Bengal villages to explore gender-differentiated impacts of land reform on human capital accumulation at the individual level. While there are significant gains (of about 0.3 years for...