Transforming Education into Better Jobs and Better Lives

Reblogged from NORRAG NEWSBite:

Andreas Schleicher, OECD.

Everywhere skills transform lives and drive economies; and without the right skills, people are kept on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into economic growth, and countries can’t compete in today’s economies. But the toxic co-existence of unemployed graduates on the street, while employers tell us that they cannot find the people with the skills they need, shows that more education does not automatically translate into better economic and social outcomes.

Read more… 760 more words

This blog post also appears in NORRAG NEWS 48, 2012: The Year of Global Reports on TVET, Skills & Jobs Consensus or diversity? (April 2013), available free online at www.norrag.org

Filed under: Development, Economy, Employment, OECD, Poverty, Research

Inter-American Development Bank calls for solutions for financial inclusion of people with disabilities

Most voted projects may receive up to $50,000 in grants

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced a call for innovative ideas to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities as financial sector clients and workers in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The competition organized by the IDB’s Innovation Lab is open to public and private financial institutions, either regulated or non-regulated, from the Bank’s 48 member countries for projects to be carried out in Latin America and the Caribbean. Participants must register and submit their proposals at the lab’s website, bidinnovacion.org.

Proposals, which must be submitted by December 31, 2012, will be put to a vote by the general public. The most voted ideas will be evaluated by a panel of experts, who will select the best ones to receive grants of up to $50,000 for their implementation.

The call for solutions is financed with resources from the Italian Cooperation, in coordination with the Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN) and the beyondBanking program of the IDB’s Structured and Corporate Finance Department.

About the Innovation Lab

The Innovation Lab, a virtual platform managed by the IDB’s Competitiveness and Innovation Division, uses crowdsourcing to foster the exchange of original ideas and find high-impact solutions to diverse development problems in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The lab currently has two other competitions underway:

Inclusion in Firms: open to public and private companies and organizations with innovative solutions for labor inclusion of people with disabilities. Priority will be given to proposals with a focus on gender. The most voted ideas will qualify for a second phase, in which a panel of experts will select the best proposals. Projects may receive grants of up to $50,000 for their implementation. Applicants must register and submit their proposals at www.bidinnovacion.org/inclusion-in-firms.

Disruptive Ideas: open to organizations and individuals with ideas to break barriers to labor inclusion of people with disabilities. Participants with the most voted proposals will be invited by the IDB to present their ideas and discuss their implementation with the Innovation Lab’s staff. Participants must register and submit their ideas at www.bidinnovacion.org/disruptive-ideas.

Filed under: Banking, Caribbean, Development, Economy, Microfinance, Poverty, finance, inclusion, Latin America

The geography of poverty | The Economist

Working out how to help the world’s poorest depends on where they live

WHERE do the world’s poor live? The obvious answer: in poor countries. But in a recent series of articles Andy Sumner of Britain’s Institute of Development Studies showed that the obvious answer is wrong*. Four-fifths of those surviving on less than $2 a day, he found, live in middle-income countries with a gross national income per head of between $1,000 and $12,500, not poor ones. His finding reflects the fact that a long but inequitable period of economic growth has lifted many developing countries into middle-income status but left a minority of their populations mired in poverty. Since the countries involved include giants like China and India, even a minority amounts to a very large number of people. That matters because middle-income countries can afford to help their own poor. If most of the poverty problem lies within their borders, then foreign aid is less relevant to poverty reduction. A better way to help would be to make middle-income countries’ domestic policies more “pro-poor”.

Now Mr Sumner’s argument faces a challenge. According to Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution and Andrew Rogerson of Britain’s Overseas Development Institute, “by 2025 most absolute poverty will once again be concentrated in low-income countries.” They argue that as middle-income countries continue to make progress against poverty, its incidence there will fall. However, the number of poor people is growing in “fragile” states, which the authors define as countries which cannot meet their populations’ expectations or manage these through the political process (sounds like some European nations, too). The pattern that Mr Sumner describes, they say, is a passing phase.

Messrs Kharas and Rogerson calculate that the number of poor in “non-fragile” states has fallen from almost 2 billion in 1990 to around 500m now; they think it will go on declining to around 200m by 2025. But the number of poor in fragile states is not falling—a testament both to the growing number of poor, unstable places and to their fast population growth. This total has stayed flat at about 500m since 1990 and, the authors think, will barely shift until 2025. As early as next year, the number of poor in what are sometimes called FRACAS (fragile and conflict-affected states) could be greater than the number in stable ones. That would imply something different to Mr Sumner’s view: instead of being irrelevant to poverty reduction, foreign aid will continue to be vital, since fragile states (unlike middle-income ones) cannot afford to help the poor but instead need help themselves.

via Free exchange: The geography of poverty | The Economist.

Filed under: Development, Economy, MDGs, Poverty, Research, fragile states

German Aid Allocation and Partner Country Selection. Development-orientation, Self-interests and Path Dependency

The GDI paper examines official country selection and resource allocation of German aid after the end of the Cold War and embeds the analysis into the broader debate about German foreign policy. Overall, the authors find that neediness and democracy levels of recipients have been guiding principles in both country selection and resource allocation.

Nevertheless, geostrategic considerations and the avoidance of conflict-affected countries have also impacted on country selection but less on resource allocation. Moreover, non-linear estimation techniques identify a relatively high threshold of income levels, below which the poverty orientation disappears – a finding that refines previous studies identifying a middle income-country bias of German aid allocation. Finally, official selection decisions to concentrate aid on a reduced number of countries did not have the intended concentration effect.

2012/07 – German Development Institute/ Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE); Authors: Jörg Faust and Sebastian Ziaja

Filed under: Development, Germany, Poverty, Publications, Research, aid allocation, bmz, country selection, gdi

SID Council Member Betty Maina appointed to UN Advisory Panel on MDGs

SID Council Member Ms. Betty Maina was appointed on July 31 by the UN Secretary General to the High-Level Advisory Panel to advise on the global development agenda beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Advisory Panel include 26 members from civil society, private sector and governments.

The Panel is part of the Secretary-General’s post-2015 initiative mandated by the 2010 MDG Summit. Member States have called for open, inclusive consultations involving civil society, the private sector, academia and research institutions from all regions, in addition to the UN system, to advance the development agenda beyond 2015.

The work of the Panel will reflect new development challenges while also drawing on experience gained in implementing the MDGs, both in terms of results achieved and areas for improvement. For more information on the post-2015 process visit http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/beyond2015.shtml

Filed under: Africa, Development, MDGs, Poverty, post-2015, sid, un

Innovations for Poverty Action

Innovations for Poverty Action.

Innovations for Poverty Action is a nonprofit dedicated to discovering what works to help the world’s poor. We design and evaluate programs in real contexts with real people, and provide hands-on assistance to bring successful programs to scale. IPA uses randomized evaluations because they provide the highest quality and most reliable answers to what works and what does not. They also repeat studies in different countries to test if findings are really transferable.

Filed under: Poverty, innovation, Poverty, usa

Global Hunger Index: World is ”nowhere near” achieving MDG 1

The latest Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that the number of hungry people in the world grew to one billion last year, as the global economic recession compounded the effects of the 2007-8 food crisis. The first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) — to halve the proportion of hungry people between 1990 and 2015 — is therefore worryingly off-track. The latest GHI report notes that most policies tackling child hunger have targeted children under five years old; however, research shows that the effects of malnutrition after the age of two are largely irreversible. It therefore recommends concentrating resources on eliminating malnutrition during the crucial first two years of a child’s life. Source: The GHI is a multidimensional measure of global hunger published jointly by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Concern Worldwide, and Welthungerhilfe. Eurostep Weekly. http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2010-global-hunger-index

Filed under: Poverty, Rural Economies

Global economic prospects 2010: crisis, finance, and growth

Fallout from the financial crisis will change the landscape for finance and growth over the next 10 years, a new World Bank report concludes. Developing countries facing higher borrowing costs, lower credit levels, and reduced international capital flows. 2010′s Global Economic Prospects report examines the consequences of the financial crisis on both the short- and medium-term growth prospects of developing countries. Although global growth has resumed, the recovery is fragile, and unless business and consumer demand strengthen, the world economy could slow down again. It concludes that the financial crisis has taken its toll on achieving the 2015 poverty Millennium De­velopment Goal (MDG). Newly updated World Bank estimates suggest that the crisis will leave an additional 64 million people in extreme poverty in 2009 and some 50 million in 2010 relative to a no crisis scenario. Source: ELDIS, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGEP2010/Resources/GEP2010-Full-Report.pdf

Filed under: MDGs, Poverty

Key development challenges facing the Least Developed Countries

A new approach is necessary if the world’s most poverty-stricken countries are to escape their predicament, speakers said this afternoon in opening a two-day UNCTAD meeting of experts, which aims to spur ideas for 2011 conference on Least Developed Countries. UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi said experience has shown that outside efforts to help LDCs must focus more on enabling them to diversify their economies — to be less dependent on raw materials or agricultural commodities, ”on copper, on cocoa, on coffee.” Enhancing such economies’ ”productive capacities” offers hope that these nations can make steady progress and be less vulnerable to external shocks, such as the global recession and the natural disasters that recently struck Haiti and Samoa, Mr. Supachai said. ”Some countries had been successful in diversifying their economies, in creating jobs, in improving governance,” Mr. Supachai said. ”We should be able to learn from lessons past so that things will be better in the future.” He added: ”We should be looking at ways of making LDC status a temporary status.” http://tinyurl.com/ydkunn7

Filed under: Development, Poverty, Trade

EU confirmed its position as the world’s leading donor in 2008

The newly published 2009 annual report on the European Community’s development and external assistance policies and their implementation in 2008 shows that the European Union continues to be the world’s leading development aid donor, accounting for 60% of world aid in 2008. The Commission alone committed EUR 12 billion, more than a fifth of the EU total. At the same time the quality and effectiveness of aid are improving, as are transparency and the monitoring of results. The Commission has continued its efforts to make its aid more effective by working more closely with other international donors and by simplifying its procedures. Considerable efforts have also been made to channel aid through national systems in order to strengthen ownership at local level and reduce transaction costs for the partner countries. In 2008 the Commission also stepped up its efforts to mainstream such issues as gender, the environment, and the rights of children and indigenous people in the development process. Source: RAPID http://tinyurl.com/yd4aodv

Filed under: Development, European Union, OECD, Poverty

World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development

The United Nations Conference on the world financial crisis adopted a wide-ranging Outcome Document (http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/CONF.214/3&Lang=E). The Outcome Document recognizes that the incoherence of the global economic system needs to be urgently addressed. It stresses the importance of the United Nations’ role in international economic issues,emphasizing that its universal membership and legitimacy makes it well positioned to participate in various reform processes aimed at improving and strengthening the effective functioning of the international financial system and architecture. It makes references to issues and recommendations of the Stiglitz Commission which presented an advanced report to the Conference, including on resources and policy space for developing countries to mitigate the crisis, debt restructuring and standstills, reform of the global reserve system and an independent panel of experts on the world economic and financial crisis that would inform international action, political decision-makin and foster constructive dialogues and exchanges among policy makers, academics, institutions and civil society. The precise role of the UN in global economic governance reform will likely be hotly debated in the coming months. Source: UN-NGLS

The European Commission stressed that the crisis shows how deeply the prosperity and the future of advanced economies, the emerging economies and the developing countries are linked. The cooperation and contribution of all developed, emerging and developing countries is needed. Source: European Commission, http://www.eu-un.europa.eu

As developing countries face the full impact of the economic crisis, European governments are falling short by nearly €40bn on their aid promises, a new report from CONCORD, the European confederation of Relief and Development NGOs, reveals. Source: Concord, http://tinyurl.com/numbm8

A groundbreaking study coordinated by ODI finds that developing countries are being hit harder than expected by the global financial and economic crisis, and that, sooner or later, they will need to respond. Research in ten developing countries, carried out by 40 researchers, provides a vivid picture of how these countries are faring in the crisis. The research examines the transmission belts — such as remittances, private capital flows and trade — that have been affected and are now carrying the crisis from the rich industrialised countries of the north to the poor developing countries of the south. Source: ODI, http://tinyurl.com/nc5yoy

The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group called for urgent solutions to financial crisis. ACP states are amongst those hard hit by the crisis and want solutions to focus on countering the effects of the crisis. Since the crisis started, ACP states have experienced major falls in their export earnings; foreign direct investment has slowed down, official development aid declined and remittance flows have shrunken. The ACP Group believes that the crisis poses a severe threat to its members, compromising not only the efforts and economic gains achieved over the past years, but also the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The ACP Group underscores that the impact of the crisis would undoubtedly exert strong pressure on the macro-economic balance of the ACP countries. ACP cited sub-Saharan Africa as an example, where growth outlook has dropped to 1.5% for 2009, against 5.4% in 2008 and 6.8 percent in 2007. Source: ACP Secretariat, http://www.acp.int/en/press_releases/financialcriisis/pressrelease_financialcrisis09.html

A Joint Statement by the African Development Bank, European Commission, and World Bank calls to align support to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis. The crisis calls for more coordination of infrastructure development in Africa. This statement outlines the concerns shared by the three institutions and highlights the priority interventions required at this time. Responding to urgent needs, the three organisations have announced their willingness to increase their aid volumes to provide much needed counter-cyclical spending in support of rapid recovery, job creation and to promote long-term growth. In this context, the three institutions call on development partners to support harmonized spending and interventions around the following strategic areas of alignment with proven high impact: development of regional infrastructure: transport corridors, power networks and ICT; maintenance of existing assets; and enhancement of policy, regulatory and administrative frameworks. Source: European Commission, http://tinyurl.com/mjz86l

The recent second Global Review of Aid for Trade demonstrates that despite the crisis, there is good news for developing countries: in 2007, total aid for trade reached USD 25.4 billion, USD 4.3 billion (21%) more than the 2005 baseline. Even so, World Bank estimates show that 53 million more people are expected to be living on less than USD 1.25 a day. And while a few countries have slightly reduced the targets they set in 2005 for 2010, the bulk of the commitments remain in force. DACnews describes the action being taken on many fronts. A survey recently concluded by OECD and the WTO – the second of its kind – demonstrates that the Aid-for-Trade Initiative is a success. Since its inception in 2005, developing countries have given higher priority to trade in their development strategies. Donors have responded by offering more funds to help them overcome their supply-side constraints. Source: OECD, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/52/43150493.htm

Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation released the publication Re-Defining the Global Economy (http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/global/06293.pdf) after forum in April 2009. The current global economic crisis presents an opportunity to to engage the political governance of the global economy. Leading economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz introduces this publication for which FES invited expert authors to discuss three approaches to Re-Defining the Global Economy namely, necessary institutional arrangements for a just well-governed and well-functioning financial system, the question of national or regional versus global regulation of such a system and the necessary political and economic arrangements for securing social protections.

Canadian IDRC suggested solutions for Global Economic Governance based on their project findings: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-139286-201-1-DO_TOPIC

Filed under: Crisis, Development, Economy, Employment, European Union, Germany, OECD, Poverty, Crisis

USAID and Western Union Launch African Diaspora Marketplace Business Plan Competition

The African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM) is a business plan competition designed to support the entrepreneurial spirit and resources of the U.S.-based African diaspora community to promote economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa by facilitating diaspora direct investment in viable small and medium enterprises. Sponsored by USAID and the Western Union Company, the ADM is currently seeking proposals for start-up and established businesses operating (or to be operated) through partnerships between U.S.-based members of the African diaspora and local Sub-Saharan African entrepreneurs. Through this program, USAID anticipates awarding matching grants between $50,000 and $100,000 each to 10 to 20 businesses. Proposals are due by July 21, 2009. See http://www.diasporamarketplace.org.

Filed under: Africa, Economy, Migration, Poverty

Helping developing countries during the financial crisis

Developing countries are severely hit by the global economic crisis. The leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies, recognising that the global financial crisis has ‘a disproportionate impact’ on vulnerable people in poor countries, have promised to make hundreds of billions of United States dollars available to these countries as part of a $1.1 trillion plan to rescue the world economy. In a communiqué released by the Group of 20’s London Summit, the leaders announced what they called ‘a global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale’. They said the rescue package would include resources totalling $850 billion, to be channelled through global financial institutions, ‘to support growth in emerging market and developing countries by helping to finance counter-cyclical spending, bank recapitalisation, infrastructure, trade finance, balance of payments support, debt rollover, and social support.’ http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/comments/2296/

The EU Commission helps with a support package. The EU has recognized that the current recession is affecting the global system at all levels – overturning the old notion that globalisation could only be good. The hardest hit are those who were already the world’s poorest – particularly those who had begun to climb out of poverty. To give EU action a coherent framework, the Commission has issued a policy paper – Supporting developing countries in coping with the crisis. The paper reaffirms the two guiding principles for EU relations with developing countries – partnership and solidarity. http://ec.europa.eu/development/icenter/repository/COM_2009_0160_4_EN.pdf

Related Publications:

UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development
http://www.un-ngls.org/IMG/pdf_ngls_bulletin_1.pdf
In an effort to help keep interested stakeholders informed on the latest developments and events leading to the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development taking place in New York from 1-3 June 2009, NGLS has launched a dedicated weekly ’bulletin’ up to the Conference. This first issue reviews the mandate and background of the Conference. It also contains information on related meetings and reports from the UN system.

DCED has launched a new web page providing links to a selection of the many materials now being produced on the global financial crisis and its impact in developing countries. http://www.enterprise-development.org/page/the-global-financial-crisis

The Centre for Development Policy and Research is pleased to announce the publication of Development Viewpoint #24, ‘‘How the Global Crisis Is Transmitted to Developing Countries”. The author, Jan Toporowski, Department of Economics, SOAS, expose how developing countries are extraordinarily vulnerable to the financial crisis that is unfolding in the U.S. because its debt deflation (its reduction of expenditures to repay its debt) will reduce developing-country exports and, in turn, the outflow of U.S. dollars, the international reserve currency, which is crucial to financing international trade. He also notes that the recent fall in commodity prices and the appreciation of the U.S. dollar will only exacerbate developing-country problems. http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/49755.pdf

CDPR also announced the publication of Development Viewpoint #26, ‘‘Global Financial Crisis and Recession: What Could Happen to Major Emerging Economies?” http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/49965.pdf. The authors, Terry McKinley, Director of CDPR, and Naret Khurasee, a researcher at Alphametrics, draw on the results of a 2010-2015 global scenario, generated by the State of the World Economy macroeconomic model, to assess the projected impact on the major emerging economies of Brazil, China, India and South Africa. They find that as the global economy is projected to recover after 2010, all four economies should resume credible rates of economic growth. But China is expected to perform the best during 2010-2015. The other three economies are projected to grow more slowly and confront problems of current-account deficits or government debt. For related material on the State of the World Economy model, see: http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/researchareas/worldmodel.

The Centre for Development Policy and Research is pleased to announce the publication of Development Viewpoint #28, ‘‘The Roots of the Global Financial Crisis”, http://www.soas.ac.uk/cdpr/publications/dv/50940.pdf. The author, Costas Lapavitsas, Department of Economics, SOAS, and Research on Finance and Money, identifies several factors that he believes are at the root of the current crisis: loose US macroeconomics policies in the early 2000, the extraction of financial profits by commercial banks directly out of personal incomes (such as through subprime mortgages) and the adoption by banks of highly risky investment banking functions (such as securitisation of mortgages).

Labor Market in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its Adjustment to Global Financial Crisis http://www.adbi.org/email.notification/url.php?id=2711&url=%2Fevent%2F2941.labor.market.prc.global.financial.crisis

Filed under: Africa, Asia, Banking, Caribbean, Crisis, Development, Economy, European Union, OECD, Poverty, Publications

PIA improves decision making for development results

How can donors and partner countries assess the intended and unintended consequences of donor interventions? The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) explores ex ante Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA), which can assist in modifying the design of interventions to improve pro-poor impacts by identifying key areas for monitoring and evaluation (M&E). It can be applied to most modalities of donor support.

PIA is a process which helps policy-makers to understand the intended and unintended consequences of their interventions. This approach considers that good design of an intervention requires governments and their partners to understand the effect of their policies on diverse social groups, actors and institutions, including those not targeted by the policy.

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness stresses the importance of results-oriented frameworks, harmonisation and alignment to improve aid effectiveness and to assure better pro-poor outcomes. Yet, prior analysis of the impacts of policy and investment decisions on poverty reduction is a complex task. It is often built on contentious assumptions and is dependent on data availability. Ex ante PIA helps donors and their partners understand and maximise the poverty reducing impacts of their interventions. It responds both to the need for accountability to partners’ constituencies and to the importance of transparent evidence-based decision-making. It can identify interventions with high impact on poverty reduction and pro-poor growth as well as mitigating measures to protect the poor. A broad application of ex ante PIA could also provide a basis for a harmonised reporting system on poverty impacts.

Poverty Impact Assessment helps decision makers determine strategic choices for public actions so as to have the greatest impact on reducing poverty and achieving pro-poor growth. PIA provides a better understanding about potential winners and losers of an intervention and thus strengthens a results-oriented approach. PIA helps to understand stakeholders and institutions that influence and are influenced by an intervention understand the importance and inter-relationship of specific transmission channels through which changes are transmitted to the stakeholders assess the likely positive and negative outcomes for stakeholders taking into account multi-dimensionality of poverty assess the reliability of data/information and knowledge gaps.

Using PIA, policy-makers can estimate the likely quantitative and qualitative outcomes of the policy for poor groups, identify potential risks and assess the reliability of available data. Through involving people with different interests and approaches, ex-ante Impact Assessment helps to save resources, and design interventions to be better targeted to achieve their goals and avoid unintended harmful consequences. Thus it also contributes to strengthening the transparency and accountability of democratically elected governments, and encourages consistency of policy-making across policy areas.

PIA is not just another new approach to assess the distributional impacts of interventions. It deliberately draws on existing approaches and their terminology, in particular on the Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA). While PSIA is more suitable for structural policy reforms, PIA is more a stand-alone approach to assess the poverty outcome at project and programme levels. But it can also help at the initial phase of sector or policy reforms to identify requirements for a full-fledged PSIA. PIA is thus less resource demanding. While a complete PSIA requires more than 100 000 Euro, the estimated cost of PIA is less than 20 000 Euro.

See the PIA Concept Note: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/9/38878575.pdf
For more information on Poverty Impact Assessment and POVNET’s work:
http://www.oecd.org/dac/poverty

Filed under: Methods, OECD, Poverty, Research

How PIA works

Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA) helps donors and partner countries identify the intended and unintended consequences of their interventions. PIA provides a framework for improving baseline data and monitoring the impact hypothesis during implementation and inputs for ex post evaluations. It formulates recommendations for decision makers on how the intervention might be improved. Ex ante PIA is designed to harmonise approaches. It seeks to avoid both incoherent assessments created by competing methods and often-conflicting demands placed on partner governments.

PIA’s novelty is that it integrates already established approaches, their terminologies and procedures into one modular approach. The PIA consists of 5 modules. In each step the risks, monitoring needs and information quality are assessed and recommendations are made – based on evidence – on how the intervention can be improved.

Module 1: Poverty situation and relevance to national strategies and plans
Module 2: Stakeholder and institutional analysis
Module 3: Identification of transmission channels and overall results by channel
Module 4: Assessment of stakeholders’ and target groups’ capabilities
Module 5: Assessment of results on MDGs and other strategic goals

The PIA modules lead to a picture about possible poverty impacts of specific development projects or programmes. These projects can take place in all kinds of areas of development and need not specifically be directed towards the poor. PIA is a tool to then assess in how far the project does actually impact the poor. Although the tool has useful elements and forces one to think about a multitude of issues that otherwise might have slipped the mind, it is also based on very strong assumptions about linear relations between different situations. The tool asks you to predict poverty impacts based on very little information with little analytical tools. In academic terms, this tool wouldn’t be considered to be a very sound or solid tool for measuring poverty impact. Nevertheless, if it is used to force its users to think more in-depth about the project and its possible outcomes for the poor, it is certainly useful in its own right.

PIA is based on balancing qualitative and quantitative information to achieve a sound and reliable assessment. The level of detail can be determined by the needs of the organisation commissioning the PIA. This might be a quick exercise, based on already available data, or a longer, more detailed assessment, requiring greater consultation and research.

Ex ante PIA holds a number advantages over other forms of impact assessment:

• It provides a flexible methodology, which can draw on more intensive data collection and analysis where these are available. It also provides useful guidance in their absence.
• It is based on a simple framework and associated assessment procedures that build on existing methodologies and definitions. It is less demanding than poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA) in terms of data, time, personnel and financial resources.
• It complements rather than replaces other assessments during the appraisal process, such as log-frame analysis, cost-benefit/cost-effectiveness analysis or environmental assessments.It can be applied to projects, programmes, sector-wide interventions and policy reforms. However, it is not useful for assessing budget support or identifying the poverty impacts of very small projects.
• It can serve as a framework for monitoring impact hypotheses during implementation and as an input for later evaluation exercises.
• It provides a flexible level of analysis dependent on the resources available. Should more detailed analysis be required, it can be scaled up to a poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA).

Filed under: Development, Methods, OECD, Poverty, Aid, Development Policy, M&E, Research

Key reading on ex-ante Poverty Impact Assessment

Promoting Pro-Poor growth: A Practical Guide to ex-ante Poverty Impact Assessment
http://www.oecd.org/document/…

This practical guide, developed by the DAC Network on Poverty Reduction (POVNET), is designed to help staff in developing countries and in aid agencies to plan and execute PIAs and to interpret their findings, the ultimate goal being to design and implement more effective poverty reduction policies and programmes. Download: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/39/38978856.pdf

Ex ante appraisal of the impacts on poverty of the project ”Plateforme du Millénaire de Diamniadio”
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/32/39206523.pdf
Process documentation of the first Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA) in the Republic of Senegal, by Kerstin Meyer, Andrea Warner, Roland Hackenberg, Nathalie Manga Badji, GTZ, Dakar, June 2007

Sample Mission Report
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/53/38609100.pdf
Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment for Regional Economic Development: Green Belt Siem Reap Province, Cambodia

Sample Mission Report

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/31/27/41768805.pdf
Financial Cooperation with Cambodia. Poverty Impact Assessment for Rural Electrification II

Managing for Development Results and Mutual Accountability
The value of evidence based decision-making for advancing cross cutting issues
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/40/38607559.pdf
Workshop on Development Effectiveness in Practice, Dublin, Ireland, 26-27 April 2007

Using Poverty and Social Impact Analysis to design more effective poverty reduction measures
http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus14.pdf
This IPC Focus issue examines the usefulness of two recently developed analytical tools: Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) and Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA). Both approaches provide a framework to analyse the distributional impact of policies, programmes and projects. PSIA involves in-depth analysis of complex policy reform processes and offers evidence-based policy choices. PIA focuses on decisions concerning development projects and programmes. To explore PSIA’s and PIA’s potential contribution to more effective poverty reduction policies, individual articles in this volume.

Lessons learned in conducting Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment
http://www.mfdr.org/rt3/Glance/Day3/Sen.ppt
Lessons learned in conducting Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment for a Natural Resource Management Programme in India Third Round Table MfDR – Hanoi 2007.

Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment
http://www.mfdr.org/RT3/Glance/Day3/Dio.ppt
Presentation by Wolf M. Dio, GTZ, POVNET Task Team Leader, Third International Round Table MfDR, Hanoi 2007

Poverty (and social) impact analysis compared
http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus14.pdf
PSIA is an approach developed in 2001 by the World Bank and other donors, while the PIA came about in 2006 as a result of discussions within the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). The main difference between both tools is that the PIA is designed to focus on project, programmes or specific policy reforms, while the PSIA approach is better for macroeconomic and structural policy reforms. Since PSIA was introduced, approximately 150 assessments have been conducted and the International Poverty Centre (IPC) show that it has been applied with a different degree of success in different occasions. Most of the articles in the journal agree that further progress needs to be made in order to unleash PSIA’s full potential.

As well as the PIA approach, POVNET has recently developed and is actively disseminating guidance for donors on promoting pro-poor growth , including in relation to:
Agriculture:
http://www.oecd.org/document/…
Employment:
http://www.oecd.org/document/…
Infrastructure:
http://www.oecd.org/document/…

Private sector development:
http://www.oecd.org/document/…
Social protection:
http://www.oecd.org/document/…

Poverty and Social Impact Analysis
http://www.worldbank.org/psia
This World Bank website was conceived as a forum for interaction and a tool for disseminating experience.

Sourcebook on Emerging Good Practice in Managing for Development Results (MfDR)
http://www.mfdr.org/Sourcebook.html
The Sourcebook is a valuable resource which provides solution-oriented examples of MfDR in action for practitioners at many levels and in many contexts. By focusing on observable and replicable interventions, the Sourcebook aims to increase the understanding of MfDR and illustrate how many stakeholders are effectively implementing MfDR principles for greater development effectiveness.

Filed under: ILO, Links, Methods, OECD, Poverty, Publications, Research

Networks you can use for poverty impact assessment

African Parliamentary Poverty Reduction Network – (APRN)
http://www.parlcent.ca/africa/prnetwork/pr_network_e.php
The APRN was created in 2003 in response to demands by African parliamentarians for a network that would bring together Members of Parliament from all over Africa interested in central issues such as poverty reduction to discuss and share best practices, lessons learned and experiences in that area; as well as to improve their poverty monitoring capacity and increase their policy-making knowledge and build linkages with policy institutes.

Aid Workers Network

http://www.aidworkers.net
Collaborative project set up to provide practical advice for aid workers from aid workers.

BOP Source – The first social network for the base of the pyramid
http://bopsource.ning.com
A social network for the 4 billion people at the base of the economic pyramid, the NGO’s that serve them, and the companies that want to do business with them. BOP Source is an interactive platform for collaboration on productive BOP business ideas, to help companies better understand and reach BOP markets, and for NGOs to help facilitate new relationships between their constituencies and companies.

Business Fights Poverty
http://businessfightspoverty.ning.com
A professional network for all those passionate about fighting world poverty through the power of good business.

CROPnet Comparative Research Programme on Poverty

http://www.crop.org/cropnet/
CROP invites poverty researchers and others interested in poverty research to join the CROP network. At present the network holds over sixteen hundred members. Close to half of the members in the CROP network comes from the South and countries in transition. More than one hundred countries are represented, not only Norway.

Development Crossing
http://www.developmentcrossing.com
A fast-growing network of professionals engaged in corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. The site enables users to create profiles, manage blogs and discussions, create groups and events, and directly network with several thousand professionals around the world.

dgCommunities: Poverty
http://poverty.developmentgateway.org/
A free online service by the Development Gateway Foundation is devoted to knowledge-sharing and collaboration for people working to reduce poverty in the developing world.

Eldis Poverty Community

http://community.eldis.org
The Eldis Community is a free on-line community where you can meet others involved in international development and discuss the issues that are important to you. Meet other Eldis readers interested in poverty issues. Create a profile for yourself and publish your own research.

Enterprise Development Exchange
http://communities.seepnetwork.org
This Network links related communities of practice to advance sustainable poverty eradication. It is facilitated by The SEEP Network through the Value Initiative.

European Anti-Poverty Network: Fighting for a Social Europe Free of Poverty!
http://www.eapn.org
Since 1990, the European Anti Poverty Network (EAPN) has been an independent network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and groups involved in the fight against poverty and social exclusion in the Member States of the European Union.

Human Development Resource Net (HDRNet)

http://www.yorku.ca/hdrnet/index.asp
A specialised information gateway and electronic library on human development and international co-operation. Part of an international collaborative effort bringing together UN organisations, practitioners and academics from around the world to contribute material relevant to the research and practice of human development. Archives otherwise unavailable material and offers unrestricted access to the documents in English, Spanish, French and Italian.

MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org
Brings together a wide cross section of over 200 charities, campaigns, trade unions, faith groups and celebrities who are united by a common belief that 2005 offers a unprecedented opportunity for global change.

POVNET – The OECD DAC Network on Poverty Reduction
http://tinyurl.com/dlz2vt
The OECD DAC Network on Poverty Reduction (POVNET) promotes economic growth for poverty reduction, stressing the importance of both the rate and the pattern of growth to: create more and better jobs for the poor, including in the informal economy; expand access to social and productive infrastructure, particularly in rural areas where most of the poor live; increase agricultural productivity, which has so often been the key to national development; and promote social protection programmes, which help to make growth work for the poor

Poverty and Economic Policy (PEP) Research Network
http://www.pep-net.org
PEP brings together and provides scientific and financial support to teams of developing country researchers working to reduce poverty.

Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN)
http://www.sarpn.org.za
Non-profit organisation that promotes debate and knowledge sharing on poverty reduction processes and experiences in Southern Africa. SARPN aims to contribute towards effective reduction of poverty in the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) through creating platforms for effective pro-poor policy, strategy and practice.

Global Development Network (GDN)
http://www.gdnet.org
A worldwide network of research and policy institutes working to provide a fresh and relevant perspective to the development challenges of our time.

Wold Bank’s PovertyNet
http://tinyurl.com/PovertyNet
The World Bank provides an introduction to key issues as well as in-depth information on poverty measurement, monitoring, analysis, and on poverty reduction strategies for researchers and practitioners.

UN List of Poverty Networks
http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/povnet.do
IPC-IG is organizing an online catalogue of Poverty Networks, which are web-based platforms that share development-related information. The aim of this directory is to facilitate the access to development knowledge across our network in 189 countries and help foster dialogue between researchers, policymakers, civil society and multilateral organizations.

Filed under: Development, Directories, Economy, Links, Methods, OECD, Poverty

Websites you can use for poverty impact assessment

BRIDGE – Gender and Poverty
http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports_gend_pov.htm
BRIDGE Gender and Poverty publications include summaries of key materials, good practice cases, lists of tools and checklists and key online resources.

British Library for Development Studies Subject Guide on Poverty
http://blds.ids.ac.uk/guides/pov.html
This Guide provides quick access to BLDS resources through pre-designed searches of the catalogue’s 150 000 plus records.

CROP Comparative Research Programme on Poverty
http://www.crop.org
CROP is an international research programme initiated in 1992 by the International Social Science Council. It is now one of the major programmes of the Council. Hosting CROPnet as open network.

Development Gateway – Poverty
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/poverty
Development Gateway topic pages are e-communities led by experts in the development field. They connect partners, members, organizations and other stakeholders by providing opportunities to exchange knowledge, know-how and opinions.

Eldis Resource Guide on Poverty
http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/poverty
Eldis Resource Guides provide easy structured access to our extensive collection of research and policy documents. All are editorially selected, summarised and available free to download in full text. Resource guides are intended to help you keep up to date with the latest in development research, policy and practice.

Evaluation Portal by Lars Balzer
http://www.evaluation.lars-balzer.name
At this Evaluation Portal you find hand-picked, human-edited, categorized information about the topic ”evaluation” (and a bit about social science methods).

Focuss.Info Initiative
http://www.focuss.info
Focuss.info provides a high quality search engine for practitioners, researchers and students in the area of global development studies. When these websites are available on the Internet, the Focuss.Info search engine indexes the hand-picked websites, with a focus on global development cooperation, and make these websites full text retrievable. In other words: start saving and sharing your favorite websites via social bookmarks spaces, such as Delicious or CiteULike, and report your social bookmark account to the Focuss.Info Initiative.

Free evaluation resources for developing countries.
http://earth.prohosting.com/elecon/evaldevel/evaldevelopment.html
Gene Shackman created this site to work with a coalition of evaluators and evaluation organizations to provide evaluation, consulting or training resources to organizations and evaluators in developing countries.

Global Donor Platform for Rural Development
http://www.donorplatform.org
Since the creation of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development in 2004, major bilateral and multilateral development agencies are united in a coordinated endeavour to get the rural development agenda right. Donors are committed to achieving increased development assistance impact and more effective investment in rural development and agriculture.

Global Poverty Research Group – GPRG
http://www.gprg.org
ESRC-funded multidisciplinary research group providing a framework for collaboration between the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) at Oxford University, and IDPM and CPRC at Manchester University.

Governance and Social Development Resource Centre
http://www.gsdrc.org
Funded by the UK Department for International Development, the Governance and Social Development Resource Centre (GSDRC) aims to help reduce poverty by informing policymaking and enhancing professional knowledge in relation to governance, conflict and social development.

GTZ’s Poverty-related activities´
http://www.gtz.de/en/themen/uebergreifende-themen/902.htm
GTZ supports partners in developing countries as well as BMZ, other ministries and international organisations. This support is focussing on strategies for broad-based growth, the implementation of national poverty reduction strategies, poverty-oriented results monitoring and policy monitoring.

International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), UNDP
http://www.undp.org/povertycentre/index.htm

Based in Brazil, IPC serves as the nexus for promoting, learning and knowledge sharing on key poverty concerns among developing countries to improve the living conditions of the world’s poorest citizens. The Centre’s mission is to facilitate South-South learning in development solutions by fostering policy dialogue; carrying out policy-oriented research; as well as conducting training and evaluation. Its vision is the attainment of high inclusive growth. See in particular research and publications on social protection and cash transfers.

Methods for Social Research in Developing Countries
http://srmdc.net
Website to make the contents of Methods for Social Researchers in Developing Countries available free to researchers in developing countries, where books are too expensive for faculty, students, or even for libraries to buy.

Poverty Assessment Tools
http://www.povertytools.org
This IRIS Center Website hosts updates and reports and discussions around developing and recommending poverty assessment tools. It also hosts a Poverty Assessment Tools listserv, where discussions are moderated and conducted with bounded timelines. Summaries of previous listserv discussions are also available.

PovertyFrontiers
http://www.povertyfrontiers.org

PovertyFrontiers is a USAID-supported Website dedicated to sharing knowledge and resources on poverty reduction, pro-poor growth, asset-based approaches to development, and poverty-related issues. PovertyFrontiers is also a forum for those involved in poverty reduction to exchange ideas and best practices.

Q-Squared: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in Poverty Analysis
http://www.q-squared.ca
This Website is a great resource for those seeking information on poverty research, measurement and analysis. Q-Squared aims to promote better integration of qualitative and quantitative poverty research methods. The site links to a variety of commissioned publications presenting good practice in accurate poverty research, as well as information about training, news and events.

Research Methods Knowledge Base
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/contents.htm
This site is the home page for a number of additional Webpages, each of which provides brief, easily understood descriptions and illustrations of virtually any social research method you might want to use; covers the foundations of research, sampling, measurement, design, analysis, and the process of writing up a research report.

Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG)

http://sosig.ac.uk
Provides selected, high quality information for students and researchers in the social sciences, business, and law; also provides links to over 50,000 social science Webpages.

Statistical Databases
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/databases.htm
Provides brief descriptions of and links to a wide variety of databases produced by Statistics Division, UN, and that are available with unrestricted access.

Statistical Sites on the World Wide Web, U.S. Department of Labor
http://www.bls.gov/bls/other.htm
Provides links for online access to statistical and other information from more than 70 agencies of the U.S. government and statistical offices of most countries throughout the world.

The Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC)

http://www.chronicpoverty.org
This international partnership of universities, research institutes and NGOs was established in 2000 with initial funding from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID).

UN Secretariat’s Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD)
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/social/poverty/
The Division seeks to strengthen international cooperation for social development, particularly in the areas of poverty eradication, productive employment and decent work and the social inclusion of older persons, youth, family, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, persons in situations of conflict and other groups or persons marginalized from society and development.

UNEG United Nations Evaluation Group
http://www.unevaluation.org
This site hosts the Country Level Evaluation Database and the UNDP Evaluation Resource Center (ERC). UNEG has many links to external evaluation resources including evaluation associations and societies, international organisations, training resources and governments.

Virtual Resource Centre on ex-ante Impact Assessment

http://europeandcis.undp.org/pia
This UNDP website has been launched and is being maintained as one of the components of the regional project on ex-ante Impact Assessment funded by UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Local Government and Public Service Support Initiative of Open Society Institute, Budapest. Under the ”best practices” heading, the Virtual Resource Centre aims to show a selection of key steps and ideas in the ex-ante impact assessment process, drawn from the work of key institutions or recorded in countries implementing the ex-ante impact assessment process in their policy formulation.

Web Pages that Perform Statistical Calculations
http://statpages.org
Provides over 600 links, including nearly 400 pages that perform calculations, and growing; a source of information on almost anything you might need in conducting analyses and calculations, including links to interactive statistics, free software, books and manuals, and demonstrations and tutorials.

… more Web Links: http://delicious.com/weitzenegger

Filed under: Crisis, Development, Economy, Employment, Links, Methods, Poverty, Research