World DataBank: New data resources on poverty, gender, jobs, health and more

You’ll find a large amount of data available through the World Bank’s Open Data Initiative: for time-series alone, there are some 8,000 indicators for around 200 countries. http://databank.worldbank.org/data/databases.aspx Available are six topics so far: poverty, gender, jobs, health, financial inclusion, and the policy and institutional framework in African countries. World Development Indicators (WDI) is the…

Global partnership key to achieving Millennium Development Goals by 2015 – UN report

Three important targets on poverty, slums and water have been met three years ahead of 2015, says the 2012 Report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Meeting the remaining targets, while challenging, is possible ─ but only if Governments do not waiver from their commitments made over a decade…

Green Growth: A Win-Win Approach to Sustainable Development?

The concept of ‘Green Growth’ is one which has understandable political currency, highlighted by its prominence in this year’s ‘Rio+20’ meeting hosted by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. In promising to reconcile the goals of low-carbon and sustainable development with other valued outcomes such as job creation, poverty reduction and economic growth, it…

IPA is fighting Poverty with Innovation, Evidence and Action

Innovations for Poverty Action http://www.poverty-action.org is a US 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…

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…

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…

World Bank Updates Poverty Estimates for the Developing World

New poverty estimates published by the World Bank reveal that 1.4 billion people in the developing world (one in four) were living on less than US$1.25 a day in 2005, down from 1.9 billion (one in two) in 1981. The new numbers show that poverty has been more widespread across the developing world over the…

Poverty (and social) impact analysis compared

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…

Economic Partnership Agreements Negotiations: Where do we stand?

At a time when the pace of the EPA negotiations has increased in all regions, and the state of play is ever changing, accessing the latest information available on these wide-ranging agreements is of essence. Pursuing its efforts to increase the transparency of the highly sensitive EPA negotiations, ECDPM has decided to set up dedicated…

World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008 (WESP 2008)

According to WESP 2008, the world economy is facing serious challenges in sustaining the strong pace of economic growth seen over the past few years. While the baseline forecast is for world economic growth to moderate somewhat in 2008, the risks associated with the bursting of the housing bubble in the United States, the related…

Human Development Report 2007/2008

The HDR provides evidence of the mechanisms through with the ecological impacts of climate change will be transmitted to the poor. Focusing on the 2.6 billion people surviving on less than US$2 a day, the authors warn forces unleashed by global warming could stall and then reverse progress built up over generations. The Report argues…

Measuring Well-Being Beyond GDP

The European Commission is working on a new tool to measure the wealth and well-being of countries beyond the traditional GDP. The new tool will aim to measure ‘true’ progress, taking environmental and social indicators into consideration. The initiative was presented at a high-level conference in Brussels that aimed to clarify which indices are most…

Study: Provision of Technical Assistance Personnel

Study: Provision of Technical Assistance Personnel – What can we learn from promising approaches? This ECDPM study focused on the future demand for technical assistance, how TA personnel can best be mobilised, used and managed to strengthen national capacity. The study was commissioned to contribute to the current discussions on aid effectiveness and capacity development…

Poor families hit hardest by bribery, even in rich countries, finds new TI poll

Poor families are hit hardest by demands for bribes in developed as well as developing countries, according to Transparency international’s Global Corruption Barometer 2007. The public opinion survey, published today ahead of International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December, also found that citizens in countries across the globe continue to see political parties and parliaments as…

Publication Review January 2008

Aid for Trade: New OECD Report http://topics.developmentgateway.org/trade/highlights/viewHighlight.do~activeHighlightId=114720?intcmp=925 The WTO Aid for Trade Task Force argued that a global picture of aid-for-trade flows is important to assess whether additional resources are being delivered, to identify where gaps exists, to highlight where improvements should be made, and to increase transparency on pledges and disbursements. For that purpose…

Websites of the Month: January 2008

North-South Training, Research and Policy Network on Trade and Development http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/index.php?loc=nsn/ The NSN comprises universities and policy-oriented institutions from European and ACP countries. Its overall aim is to contribute to creating in ACP countries a cadre of professionals able to provide sound policy advice on trade and development matters, through the strengthening of linkages and…

Northern Belize Economic Diversification Study

Northern Belize Economic Diversification Study We are currently in Belize to identify priority sectors offering economic diversification opportunities in the Districts of Corozal and Orange Walk as their economies adapt to change. We will recommend areas for required social and economic services/infrastructure and capacity building, and develop proposals for investments in the recommended areas. The…

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development

The WDR 2008 calls for placing the sector at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized. The last time a WDR on agriculture was published was in 1982, making this a landmark report that comes when many are calling for an…

Migration can help fight global poverty, according to new OECD report

Better and more coherent migration policies can contribute to the fight against global poverty. This is the main conclusion of “Migration and Developing Countries”, a new report by the OECD Development Centre that was presented at the German Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development. People, goods and capital move across international borders: this is what…

World Bank calls for broader access to finance

Between 50 and 80 percent of adults in many developing countries have inadequate access to financial services, finds a new World Bank policy research report entitled “Finance for All? Policies and Pitfalls in Expanding Access”. According to the report, failure to provide more households and small and medium enterprises with the financial services they need…

Promoting Pro-Poor growth: A Practical Guide to ex-ante Poverty Impact Assessment

Enabling poor women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth is critical to creating a path out of poverty and meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Yet without ex ante assessment of likely impacts, policies and programmes often fail to achieve the desired pro-poor impacts. To help donors and partner countries identify…