News and events

Measuring Results for Dutch Development Aid, Approaches and Future Directions

A training and conference event.

The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and the Amsterdam Institute for International Development (AIID) organize - with financial support from the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department of the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation (IOB) - a training and conference event on:

Measuring Results for Dutch Development Aid, Approaches and Future Directions

The call for aid effectiveness has become more pronounced than ever before in the history of international aid. There is wide consensus that effective aid requires a higher level of accountability on the use of resources and an explicit orientation towards performance and results. The new agenda has brought along a new debate on measurement of results of aid and on the assessment of the development outcomes, scrutinizing existing evaluation practices and aid effectiveness.

While there have been notable advances in this area, many questions remain unanswered. For instance:

• How should aid be assessed when it is provided in form of sector or budget support?
• How to measure aid in fragile states, where the environment is very uncertain and it thus becomes harder to set norms for what constitutes effective aid?
• How can qualitative and quantitative methods be effectively combined?

It is in this perspective that AIID and ISS (Economics of Development / MMDP Research Cluster) organize a conference and integrated training event on ‘Measuring results for Dutch development aid, approaches and future directions’.

Detailed information can be found at www.aiid.org/conference.

Event Details:
Date:
04 Oct 2010 until 07 Oct 2010

Location: Amsterdam

Contact:
Michael Grimm (grimm@iss.nl)

ISS led research proposal selected for funding by NWO-Global Health Platoorm

An ISS led research proposal on Community Based Health Insurance in Ethiopia has been selected for funding by the NWO-Global Health Policy and Health Systems Research programme.

In 2010 a Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) pilot programme will be launched in Ethiopia, in an attempt to reduce access barriers to modern health care and provide financial protection against health shocks. The first key objective of the proposed research is to identify the conduits through which health shocks affect households’ living standards in terms of increased expenditures or forgone health care. The second objective is to examine how health care utilization, out-of-pocket health spending and poverty have been affected by CBHI.
NWO will fund a workshop to be organized in Addis Ababa, which should lead to a detailed research proposal.
The research partners for the project are the African Studies Centre in Leiden, the College of Development Studies of Addis Ababa University, the Ethiopian Economic Association and the University of Gottingen.
ISS staff involved: Arjun Bedi, Kristin Komives and Robert Sparrow.
For more information please contact Robert Sparrow.

CONTACT: Robert Sparrow <sparrow@iss.nl>

New research project - Impact evaluations of energy programmes

A consortium of the International Institute of Social Studies and the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI) in Essen, Germany

won a tender published by the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The project comprises the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of projects in the energy sector, such as electrification (micro hydro, mini grids), provision of solar lamps, biogas and efficient cocking stoves, in five countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Senegal and Indonesia). The purpose of the impact evaluations is to get insight in the magnitude of effects and to better account for results by quantifying as much as possible the effects of Netherlands' supported development interventions and draw lessons from the findings for improvement of policy and policy implementation. Impact evaluations should also help to better understand the extent to which activities reach the poor (men and women).

The projects runs over an initial period of two years with a possible extension of two further years. Country Reports are due in 2013. The project comprises extensive primary data collection in the countries under study.

At ISS the project involves Arjun Bedi, Michael Grimm, Lorenzo Pelligrini and Robert Sparrow.
More information:

CONTACT: Michael Grimm grimm@iss.nl

Health Equity and Financial Protection in Asia (HEFPA)

From 2009 to 2013 ISS/MMDP will participate in this EU sponsored collaborative project

HEFPA involves 12 research teams from Asia and Europe, and will be coordinated by the institute for Health Policy and Management (iBMG) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. The project is motivated by the related problems of limited and unequal access to health care and households’ exposure to financial risks associated with illness in low and lower-middle income Asian countries.

The first aim is to determine the causes and the consequences of limited access, equity and affordability of health care in resource-poor Asian systems. The second aim is to identify potential solutions to these problems by drawing on the experience of health financing reforms and innovations being implemented in seven South-East and East Asian countries -Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The analysis comprises both descriptive, cross-country comparative research and evaluative, country-specific research. ISS will be responsible for the Indonesia module, together with the SMERU Research Institute in Jakarta.

The project is funded by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (grant number 223166).

For more information please visit the HEFPA website or contact Robert Sparrow.

New Publications by Members in 2009:

• M. Grimm (2009), “Mortality Shocks and Survivors' Consumption Growth”, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-084.2009.00566.x
• M. Grimm, K. Harttgen, M. Misselhorn, S. Klasen T. Munzi and T. Smeeding (2009), Inequality in Human Development: An empirical assessment of thirty-two countries ,Social Indicator Research , DOI: 10.1007/s11205-009-9497-7
• Eaton, Martin and P. Goulart (2009), “Portuguese Child Labor: an Enduring Tale of Exploitation”, European Urban and Regional Studies, 16, 439-444. DOI: 10.1177/0969776409340862.
• M. Murshed (2009), “On the Non-Contractual Nature of Donor–Recipient Interaction in Development Assistance”, Review of Development Economics, 13(3)
• A. Bedi and P. Goulart published in The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey (ed. Hugh D. Hindman; New York, M.E. Sharpe, 999 pages)
• A. Fischer (2009), “Putting aid in its place: Insights from early structuralists on aid and balance of payments and lessons for contemporary aid debates”, Journal of International Development 21: 856–867.
• A. Fischer (2009), “The Political Economy of Boomerang Aid in China's Tibet”, China Perspectives (3): 38-55
• J. Ponce and A. Bedi (2009), “The impact of a cash transfer program on cognitive achievement: The Bono de Desarrollo Humano of Ecuador”, Economics of Education Review, doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2009.07.005
• Van Bergeijk, Peter A.G. and Moons.S(2009), Economic Diplomacy and Economic Security, in “NEW FRONTIERS FOR ECONOMIC DIPLOMACY”, pp. 37-54, Carla Guapo Costa, ed. Instituto Superior de Ciéncias Sociais e Politicas
• A.Bedi and G.Hazarika (2009),"Child Work and Schooling Costs in Rural Northern India", in Labor Markets and Economic Development, edited by R. Kanbur and J. Svejnar, Routledge, Chapter 20, pp. 405-425.
• Sharada Srinivasan and Arjun S. Bedi, ‘Tamil Nadu and the Diagonal Divide in Sex Ratios’,
  in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 44 No. 03 January 17 - January 23, 2009

MMDP cluster has won Research Project Funding from World Bank and IZA

Entitled: Unlocking Potential: Tackling Economic, Institutional and Social Constraints of Informal Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa

ISS is pleased to announce that the research project Unlocking Potential: Tackling Economic, Institutional and Social Constraints of Informal Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa, submitted by Michael Grimm and research cluster Macro-Micro Dynamics of Poverty, has been selected for funding by the World Bank Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) in the area Labor Markets, Job Creation and Economic Growth: Scaling up Research, Capacity Building and Action on the Ground.

The project will receive a total funding of USD 500,000.

Professor Grimm and the ISS team will lead the research, in close collaboration with partners from AFRISTAT, Bamako, Mali; the Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel, Germany; and DIAL, Paris, France. The project will run for two years, with expected outputs including publications (journal articles, policy primers, flagship report), diagnostic tools, workshops, conferences (including presentation at the IZA-WB Conference on Employment and Development being held in Cape Town (May 2010) and a dedicated website.

The primary research will take place in West Africa, Madagascar, Peru and Vietnam, with regular meetings and events being held at ISS and partner institutions.

For further information please contact Michael Grimm at grimm@iss.nl

Summary World Bank financed research project (10.44 kB)

Student Exchange:

Carole Treibich, a student in the MA Program “Public Policy and Development” at the recently established Paris School of Economics visits Staff Group 1/MMDP research cluster from May 19 to July 31. She holds a BA and an MA in Economics from the Universities of Lille and Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne, respectively. She has recently done an internship at the Ministry of Health in Uruguay. During her stay in ISS, she will be working with Michael Grimm on the determinants and consequences of traffic fatalities in low and middle income countries. She is currently based in office 4.33 or can be reached via the first class email system.

Dr Lu Caizhen received Distinction for PhD

Lu Caizhen,a Member of MMDP cluster,defended her PhD thesis entitiled "WHO IS POOR IN CHINA? Comparison of Alternative Approaches to Poverty Assessment in Rural Yunnan". She received a number of challenging questions from the review panel to which she responded well. After a private deliberation by the panel, she was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies with distinction!

Seminar Presentation by Francisco H.G. Ferreira, World Bank, April 6 2009, 16:00-17:30, 4.14

Francisco H.G. Ferreira (World Bank) presents a paper entitled "Inequality of Opportunity for Educational Achievement: an international comparison" (joint with Jeremie Gignoux, World Bank).

Francisco H.G. Ferreira is a Lead Economist with the Development Research Group at the World Bank. He has published a number of articles on both the theory and empirics of income and wealth distribution dynamics. His current research interests include the measurement of inequality of opportunity; the design of cash transfer programs; and the political economy consequences of high inequality. Chico is a co-editor of the Journal of Economic Inequality and an Editor of Economía (the Journal of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association – LACEA). He was a co-Director of the team that wrote the World Development Report 2006, on Equity and Development, and is a former member of the Executive Committee of LACEA.