Water and sanitation sectors have been the 'natural' subjects of aid for several decades. However, these sectors also were among those most affected by changes in aid approaches and tools. The aim of this paper is to capture some of the complexity in assessing impact and effectiveness of aid in...

Leadership' is not a common topic for research in international development. In recent years, however, prominent studies like the 2008 Growth Commission Report noted the importance of leadership in development. This and other studies focused on individual leaders - or heroes - when examining...

Public sector reforms are commonplace in developing countries. Much of the literature about these reforms reflects on their failures. This paper asks about the successes and investigates which of two competing theories best explain why some reforms exhibit such positive deviance. These theories...

Governments can play great roles in their countries, regions, and cities; facilitating or leading the resolution of festering problems and opening new pathways for progress. Examples are more numerous than one might imagine and raise an important question: 'how do governments become great?'....

Horizontal inequality by ethnic group has remained remarkably persistent for wealth, education, and access to certain services in Nigeria. While significant gains in the reduction of inequality and improvement in access have been made for more locally administered services, outcomes are stickier...

The governance of natural resource wealth is widely considered to constitute a key determinant in whether the extraction of natural resources proves to be a blessing or a curse. What is meant by governance can span a wide range of components, while the steps to achieving good governance remain...

Economic research on labour migration in the developing world has traditionally focused on the role played by the remittances of overseas migrant labour in the sending country's economy. Recently, due in no small part to the availability of rich microdata, more attention has been paid to the...

This paper explores the current evidence underlying the debate on aid effectiveness, with a specific focus on the health sector. It summarizes the history of aid and outlines the methodological challenges encountered when assessing its effectiveness. The current evidence on 'what works' in the...

Many concerns can be raised about the effectiveness of current aid programmes to developing countries. The appropriateness of aid is particularly questionable when one considers the likely character of the challenges that the global economy will confront in 2025, as suggested by alternative...