Many investments in infrastructure are
built on the belief that they will ineluctably lead to
poverty reduction and income generation. This has entailed
massive aid-financed projects in roads in developing
countries. However, the lack of robust evaluations and a
comprehensive theoretical framework could raise questions
about current strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the
second Cameroonian national household survey (Enquete

Paying for performance (P4P) provides
financial incentives for providers to increase the use and
quality of care. P4P can affect health care by providing
incentives for providers to put more effort into specific
activities, and by increasing the amount of resources
available to finance the delivery of services. This paper
evaluates the impact of P4P on the use and quality of
prenatal, institutional delivery, and child preventive care

The measurement of inequality of
opportunity has hitherto not been attempted in a number of
countries because of data limitations. This paper proposes
two alternative approaches to circumventing the missing data
problems in countries where a demographic and health survey
and an ancillary household expenditure survey are available.
One method relies only on the demographic and health survey,
and constructs a wealth index as a measure of economic

Since the 1980s and early 1990s, the
World Bank has been supporting projects that involve
communities own development. This has been largely
manifested in the design and implementation of
community-based development (CBD) and community-driven
development (CDD) initiatives, with the latter gaining
increasing momentum in recent years. The purpose of this
study was to assess the development effectiveness of the

This paper explores the available
literature on participatory approaches to development as an
input to the operations evaluation department (OED)
evaluation of World Bank-supported community-based
development (CBD) and community-driven development (CDD)
interventions. Participatory approaches to development have
gained substantial support in the international community
over the past quarter century, and have become increasingly

The reduction of infant and child
death is one of the eight millennium development goals
(MDGs). In addition, one of the goal one indicators is child
malnutrition. A central question for the development
community is to understand the factors underlying child
health and nutritional status. What are the determinants of
these indicators, which of these determinants are amenable
to policy intervention, and which are the most effective

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the World Bank introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy
Paper (PRSP) process in 1999 to strengthen the poverty
alleviation focus of their assistance to low-income
countries. This report reviews Tajikistan s experience with
the PRSP process, focusing on the effectiveness of IMF and
World Bank support to the process and the extent to which
the two institutions lending and non-lending activities in

This report analyzes the experience
of Mauritania with the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS)
process. The focus of the report is on evaluating the
performance of the World Bank in supporting the PRSP
initiative, not on appraising the authorities policies. The
report covers the formulation and implementation of the PRSP
and encompasses the two PRSP progress reports which have
been completed since the initiative was launched in

This report analyzes the experience
of Cambodia with the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
process3. The focus of the report is on evaluating the
performance of the World Bank in supporting the PRSP
initiative, not on appraising the authorities policies.
Given the early stage of the PRS Process, with the document
only formally launched by government in March 2003, the
report focuses on the process of PRSP formulation in

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the World Bank introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy
Paper (PRSP) process in 1999 to strengthen the poverty
alleviation focus of their assistance to low-income
countries. This report reviews Nicaragua s experience with
the PRSP process, focusing on the effectiveness of IMF and
World Bank support to the process and the extent to which
the two institutions lending and non-lending activities in

The Global Poverty Report considers
the effects of globalizing markets on poverty in developing
countries. It outlines the channels through which increased
trade openness can affect poverty and examines the evidence
from four regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific,
Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America and the
Caribbean. Written at the request of the G8, the report is
the result of a joint effort of the regional development

Deeper regional integration can be
beneficial especially for regions along international
borders. It can open up new markets on opposite sides of
borders and give consumers wider access to cheaper goods.
This paper uses data from five contiguous districts of
India, Nepal, and Bangladesh in the northeast of the
subcontinent to measure the degrees of trade complementarity
between districts. The paper illustrates that the regions