Over the last decade, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs have become one of the most widely adopted anti-poverty initiatives in the developing world. Inspired particularly by Mexico's successful program, CCTs are viewed as an effective way to provide basic income support while building...

The study seeks to answer four questions that summarize the fundamental issues in the international debate about the capacity of social funds to improve beneficiaries' living conditions: o Do social funds reach poor areas and poor households? Do social funds deliver high-quality, sustainable...

Despite the importance of knowing whether development programs achieve their objectives, impact evaluations remain rare in developing economies. This is unfortunate. With the growing use of results-based management by governments, determining whether goals have been attained and convincingly...

Social reforms typically require long-term, incremental policy changes. Traditional World Bank (WB) funding for discrete investments or technical assistance often had little broad policy impact. Even sector adjustment loans tended to be too inflexible and short-term to support ongoing social...