People in rural areas of Benin have a greatly increased access to safe drinking water, thanks to government vision, donor support, and the investment and advisory assistance of the World Bank. In 2000, the government of Benin began preparing the ministries of key sectors for a shift from a...

This paper contributes to a long-standing debate in development practice: Under what conditions can externally established participatory groups engage in the collective management of services beyond the life of a project Using 10 years of panel data on water point functionality from Indonesia's...

This paper contributes to a long-standing debate in development practice: Under what conditions can externally established participatory groups engage in the collective management of services beyond the life of a project Using 10 years of panel data on water point functionality from Indonesia's...

To many, reducing water losses is seen as key to more sustainable water management. The arguments to reduce water losses are compelling, but reducing water losses has turned out to be challenging. This paper applies a panel data analysis with fixed effects to determine the major drivers of...

Aid is good for the poor. This paper uses detailed aid data spanning 60 developing countries over the past two decades to show that social aid significantly and directly benefits the poorest in society, while economic aid increases the income of the poor through growth. This new and unequivocal...

This paper uses the gravity model to analyze whether the varying export performance of Croatian counties can be explained by their proximity to border gates, ports, and other county-specific characteristics. The analysis finds that longer distances to border gates increase trade frictions...

Extension services are a keystone of information diffusion in agriculture. This paper exploits a large randomized controlled trial to track diffusion of a new technique in the classic Training and Visit (T&V) extension model, relative to a more direct training model. In both control and...