Providing universal access to basic utilities is justified on human rights grounds and also because of the positive externalities involved. Adequate provision of water, sanitation and electricity contributes to the achievement of the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Access to these...

Women?s income poverty in developing countries is usually associated with time poverty. The time that women spend on domestic chores represents significant forgone income. Infrastructure provision potentially reduces women?s time burden. The saving includes time spent on collecting, loading and...

In many countries, efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education have led to a rise in the number of schools built. The fact that more children may have the opportunity to attend school is a necessary but not sufficient condition to guarantee proper...

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remains a daunting challenge for many countries in the face of small state budgets and limited donor support. This Policy Research Brief highlights the contribution of a low-cost water supply strategy to a number of MDGs. It also discusses...

This One Pager discusses how age and gender affect workloads during the lifecycle of women and men in rural Ghana. We argue that the division of labour seems to sustain gender-income differences and intergenerational poverty. The workload is disproportionately carried by women, while children...

This paper introduces a methodology that measures the effort made by countries in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The methodology compares the rate of progress on MDG indicators in the period before and after the adoption of the MDGs. We correct for two biases ignored in...

This paper investigates the time allocation of women in Ghana as a trade-off between domestic chores and market-oriented activities when households are provided with water and electricity infrastructure. Using the Ghana Living Standards Survey, Round Four, we find that the time spent on...