Efforts emphasize developing measures of harder-to-quantify dimensions of human development and relating those to socio-economic correlates, as well as the magnitude of “mortality shocks” such as genocide (Cambodia, Rwanda), HIV/AIDS (Sub-Saharan African countries), and large-scale economic shocks (e.g., Peru in the 1980s).

 

 

What is the role of factors such as access to health insurance schemes, economic crises and political conflicts, and socioeconomic and cultural inequalities in explaining the demand for health care; what are the determinants of school attendance and learning outcomes, and how are dimensions of school quality associated with these outcomes; what are the sources of vulnerability and how do different groups cope with risks?

 

 

Examples are evaluations of programs to raise the demand for education and health services, especially among the poor, such as targeted conditional cash transfers (Ecuador), scholarship programs (Cambodia, Indonesia), improvements in information availability (Pakistan, Philippines), and medical financial assistance (China, Vietnam).

 

Other studies are evaluating changes in how services are delivered, such as community-based nutrition programs (Senegal, Burkina Faso), prevention and new treatment programs for HIV/AIDS (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa), and home-based child health and parenting programs (Ecuador and the Philippines).

 

 

A key challenge is to understand the incentives that providers face and what goes on inside schools and health clinics in order to assess how resources are being used and how performance can be improved. Teachers, doctors, and other health personnel not only play a central role in the delivery of care and education; they also claim the lion’s share of recurrent expenditures. In this light, DECRG researchers have measured provider absence in health clinics and schools in six developing countries and explored its causes and consequences. That project is now shifting its primary focus to understanding how better to reduce absenteeism and improve performance.
 
Ongoing impact evaluations of specific programs are assessing how services can be improved at points of delivery

 

Some studies are about how service personnel respond to changes in incentives, such as performance-based pay, contract arrangements, and better accountability. A randomized evaluation is being conducted of information and advocacy campaigns in Indian villages aiming to spark community participation in schools and improve learning outcomes.

 

 

Contracting private providers to deliver public services is another means to expand provision and use but little is understood about what forms of contracting work best. Effects of different forms of contracting, as well as how the private sector is affected by the creation of a regulatory framework are also being examined.

 

Previous research identified particular weaknesses in political incentives of governments to deliver quality public services. Ongoing research is examining two institutional responses to overcome political obstacles to serving the poor—fiscal decentralization to local governments, and mass media engagement to promote yardstick competition across political jurisdictions on optimal allocation of public resources for human development.

 

This research component also looks at a country’s larger political context, especially the effect that international social and economic rights norms today have on that context. The enforcement of those rights by courts will likely affect the delivery of basic social services in developing countries.

 

 

That aid is likely to work better in a good policy environment continues to have the appeal of common sense, despite controversy over the existing cross-country evidence. Research planned or in progress examines this question at lower levels of aggregation, including cross-state data within selected countries, and at the project level.

 

Other research will examine the diffusion of development ideas and their impacts, in contrast to the previous focus on resources in the aid effectiveness literature. DECRG researchers are planning to update and expand research on the impact of aid on the composition of public spending, and to investigate the net impact on aid allocations of performance-based systems such as IDA and MCC.

 

 

Many of the labor market regulations and interventions that have emerged in developed and middle-income countries have limited relevance to low-income countries (especially rural labor markets in Africa and South Asia). What can be done to help make labor markets work better for poor people: how to assure more equitable and less risky outcomes for them, while preserving incentives for effort and productivity growth? 

 

Regulation of labor markets is intended to protect workers but can also hamper job creation, leaving more workers unemployed or unprotected in the informal sector. This may disproportionately affect young workers, women, and unskilled workers. Indeed, informality is pervasive in most low-income countries; labor market regulations apply only to a small proportion of workers in urban areas; and the non-farm sector in the rural economy is little understood.

 

New research will examine the extent to which the poor and excluded groups participate in and benefit from the expansion of employment opportunities, assess the relative effectiveness of labor market programs and regulations in improving the welfare of their intended beneficiaries in the short and long term, and examine them to assure that social protection interventions are adequate and conducive to longer-term poverty reduction.