Budget transparency has come to be considered a key aspect of governance. Over the past decade, donors have invested increasing resources in strengthening processes through which budget transparency in developing countries can be enhanced. According to the 2008 Open Budget Index (OBI) Report,...

What determines the foreign aid effort of donor countries? We review the existing literature on donors' aid budgets and examine which of the suggested variables robustly determine aid effort, measured as Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a share of gross national income. More...

The present study seeks to build on earlier work by identifying the factors associated with the frequency of natural disasters and the resulting mortality. Drawing together the main findings, some observations are made from a policy perspective to focus on key elements of a disaster reduction...

This paper presents research that sought to document how, when, and why three donor agencies — the U.S. Department of State, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) — have adopted the Open Budget Index in language and practice;...

Debt relief and the scaling up of aid to low-income countries should allow for greater fiscal space for expenditure programs to create long-term growth and lower poverty rates. But designing a suitable medium-term fiscal framework that fosters a sustainable delivery of better public services and...

Using household data from Northern Zambia, this article looks at HIV/AIDS impacts on different aspects of people's access to food. The findings draw particular attention to the variances in vulnerability among households burdened by illness and orphans that are headed by men, women and the...

Improving access to affordable and reliable energy services for cooking is essential for developing countries in reducing adverse human health and environmental impacts hitherto caused by burning of traditional biomass. This paper reviews empirical studies that analyze choices of fuel and...

Recent household surveys from 52 developing economies that include questions about energy use show that the most commonly cited primary energy for cooking is wood, followed by gas, natural gas and, where natural gas is not available, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and then by electricity. Biogas...

India has several price indices including the Consumer Price Indices and the Wholesale Price Index. Changes in WPI is taken as the headline inflation by the Central bank for policy administration. The policy makers and government also look at the CPI at several aggregate levels to aid policy...