This paper brings together existing literature on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNRGEA) and the Public Distribution System (PDS) in India, offering a narrative review of the evidence on impacts on food security, health and nutrition of beneficiaries. Both programs...

Until the early 1990s, the discussions on fiscal policy primarily centered on the functions of economic stabilization, income redistribution and resource allocation. Long-term growth was not usually viewed as an end itself, and fiscal policy was often not sufficiently tailored to the different...

The 1994 reforms in China were remarkably successful in stabilizing the economy and raising revenues for the benefit of sustainable growth and permitting the central government to redistribute resources to poorer regions through an equalization framework. However, the rise of informal local...

Brings out the nature of public expenditure accountability in India especially at the federal level. The perversities - large role for off budget items, the process that leads to expanding expenditures with little functional but much procedural control, are brought out. The division of...

Sandy struck a strategically important city in a strategically important country within days of a strategically important election. Climate justice has many synergistic and sometimes competing dimensions. Irrespective of the degree to which climate change contributes to any given weather event,...

The paper attempts to study the Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in the field of urban water and sanitation in Delhi region in order to ascertain the hypothesis that the budgeting and planning impacts the lives of women and girls disproportionately compared to men and boys. The study finds that...

Social investment funds are prominent instruments in developing countries that aim at providing financial resources for social infrastructure projects to poor municipalities. In contrast to traditional, more centralised distribution mechanisms of such funds, the Bolivian Fondo de Inversión...

The ongoing trend of decentralising governance responsibilities to the sub-national level in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is likely to continue in the near future. In order to achieve its objectives, it will be crucial that this transfer of responsibilities will be matched by equal...

Hydraulic fracturing has been a game changer for the energy field, bringing to mind the “nothing in excess” carving at Delphi. Whether heeding ancient oracles or cutting-edge principles of calibration, I argue that dynamic governance innovation can facilitate climate-energy-water balancing...

The paper discusses and summarises the principal findings of the various articles in the report. It also develops the theme of ensuring value for government expenditures through inter alia PPPs and PFIs. Government expenditures on vital social services with vast positive external effects need to...