This chapter was written in 2007 in order to inform the diagnostic of Liberia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. Little has been written on the education system in Liberia since the start of the conflict in large part because of lack of good data. The chapter provides a diagnostic of Liberia’s...

As for education, little has been written on the health system in Liberia since the start of the conflict in large part because of lack of good data. This chapter was also written in 2007 to inform the diagnostic of Liberia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. It provides a diagnostic of Liberia’s...

Faith-inspired institutions (FIIs) commonly have as their stated mission a desire to provide quality health services to all, and in particular a commitment to serve the poor, for example, by providing services in remote areas where there are none, or by making services more affordable for those...

World cotton prices have been declining in the past decade and farmers in West and Central Africa have been especially hard hit. This has led to heated policy debates and difficult trade-offs for governments, as their desire to help producers is constrained by the need to avoid large subsidies...

To help prepare Liberia’s poverty reduction strategy, a CWIQ (Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire) household survey was conducted by the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Informational Services. This article is based on an analysis of this survey to estimate the level of poverty and...

This article analyses the evolution of poverty and living conditions in Senegal using household surveys conducted over 2005-2009 within the context of the country’s efforts to achieve by 2015 the targets set forth under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The article was prepared as part...

The devaluation of the CFA Franc in 1994 generated a public investment boom in Senegal. The increase in public investment was made possible thanks to an improved budgetary situation related to the reduction in real terms of the public wage bill which had been too large for some time. The rise in...

This report reviews recent trends in household access to infrastructure services and associated budgetary expenditures in Africa. It is based on a pooled database that draws upon the entire body of household surveys conducted in sub-Saharan Africa in the last 15 years.

This paper analyzes the trend in, and determinants of poverty in Mali from 2001 and 2006. Thanks to strong economic growth, poverty has been reduced. Yet due to demographic growth, the number of the poor is still increasing. Households working in agriculture, especially in the cotton producing...

The issue of whether faith-inspired providers are able to reach the poor depends in part on the cost of the health services provided. This paper relies on recent nationally representative household surveys for sub-Saharan African countries to assess to what extent the cost of healthcare is a...