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1. The Political Economy of Bad Data: Evidence from African Survey Administrative Statistics

Author:
Amanda Glassman and Justin Sandefur
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Across multiple African countries, discrepancies between administrative data and independent household surveys suggest official statistics systematically exaggerate development progress. We provide evidence for two distinct explanations of these discrepancies. First, governments misreport to foreign donors, as in the case of a results-based aid program rewarding reported vaccination rates. Second, national governments are themselves misled by frontline service providers, as in the case of primary education, where official enrollment numbers diverged from survey estimates after funding shifted from user fees to per pupil government grants. Both syndromes highlight the need for incentive compatibility between data systems and funding rules.
Topic:
Development, Foreign Aid, Foreign Direct Investment, Governance, and Developing World
Political Geography:
Africa

2. Delivering on a Data Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Amanda Glassman and Alex Ezeh
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Despite improvements in censuses and household surveys, the building blocks of national statistical systems in sub-Saharan Africa remain weak. Measurement of fundamentals such as births and deaths, growth and poverty, taxes and trade, land and the environment, and sickness, schooling, and safety is shaky at best. The challenges are fourfold: (1) national statistics offices have limited independence and unstable budgets, (2) misaligned incentives encourage the production of inaccurate data, (3) donor priorities dominate national priorities, and (4) access to and usability of data are limited. The Data for African Development Working Group's recommendations for reaping the benefits of a data revolution in Africa fall into three categories: (1) fund more and fund differently, (2) build institutions that can produce accurate, unbiased data, and (3) prioritize the core attributes of data building blocks.
Topic:
Development
Political Geography:
Africa

3. HIV/AIDS Intervention Packages in Five Countries: A Review of Budget Data

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Denizhan Duran, Rachel Silverman, and Victoria Fan
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
More than ever, global health funding agencies must get better value for money from their investment portfolios; to do so, each agency must know the interventions it supports and the sub-populations targeted by those interventions in each country.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Health, Humanitarian Aid, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
India, Philippines, Ethiopia, and Nigeria

4. Priority-Setting in Health: Building Institutions for Smarter Public Spending

Author:
Amanda Glassman and Kalipso Chalkidou
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Health donors, policymakers, and practitioners continuously make life-and-death decisions about which type of patients receive what interventions, when, and at what cost. These decisions—as consequential as they are—often result from ad hoc, nontransparent processes driven more by inertia and interest groups than by science, ethics, and the public interest. The result is perverse priorities, wasted money, and needless death and illness. Examples abound: In India, only 44 percent of children 1 to 2 years old are fully vaccinated, yet open-heart surgery is subsidized in national public hospitals. In Colombia, 58 percent of children are fully vaccinated, but public monies subsidize treating breast cancer with Avastin, a brand-name medicine considered ineffective and unsafe for this purpose in the United States.
Topic:
Development, Health, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States, India, and Colombia

5. Quantifying the Quality of Health Aid: Health QuODA

Author:
Amanda Glassman and Denizhan Duran
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Health is one of the largest and most complex sectors of foreign aid: in recent years, about 15 cents of every aid dollar went to global health. While health is often cited as one of the few undisputed aid success stories, there is little quantitative analysis of the quality of health aid, and some studies suggest that health aid does not necessarily improve health outcomes.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, Health, Foreign Aid, and Health Care Policy

6. Global Health and the New Bottom Billion: How Funders Should Respond to Shifts in Global Poverty and Disease Burden

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Andy Sumner, and Denizhan Duran
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
After a decade of rapid economic growth, many developing countries have attained middle-income status. But poverty reduction in these countries has not kept pace with economic growth. As a result, most of the world's poor—up to a billion people—now live in these new middle-income countries (MICs), making up a “new bottom billion.” As the new MICs are home to most of the world's poor, they also carry the majority of the global disease burden. This poses a challenge to global health agencies, in particular the GAVI Alliance and the Global Fund, which are accustomed to disbursing funds on the assumption that the majority of poor people live in poor countries.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Health, and Poverty

7. Innovative Financing in Early Recovery: The Liberia Health Sector Pool Fund

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Jacob Hughes, and Walter Gwenigale
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
In post-conflict Liberia, the National Health Plan set out a process for transitioning from emergency to sustainability under government leadership. The Liberia Health Sector Pool Fund, which consists of DfID, Irish Aid, UNICEF, and UNHCR, was established to fund this plan and mitigate this transition by increasing institutional capacity, reducing the transaction costs associated with managing multiple donor projects, and fostering the leadership of the Liberian Health Ministry by allocating funds to national priorities. In this paper, we discuss the design of the health pool fund mechanism, assess its functioning, compare the pooled fund to other aid mechanisms used in Liberia, and look into the enabling conditions, opportunities, and challenges of the pool fund.
Topic:
Development, Health, United Nations, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Africa and Liberia

8. An Index of the Quality of Official Development Assistance in Health

Author:
Amanda Glassman and Denizhan Duran
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Health is one of the largest and most complex aid sectors: 16 percent of all aid went to the health sector in 2009. While many stress the importance of aid effectiveness, there are limited quantitative analyses of the quality of health aid. In this paper, we apply Birdsall and Kharas's Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) methodology to rank donors across 23 indicators of aid effectiveness in health. We present our results, track progress from 2008 to 2009, compare health to overall aid, discuss our limitations, and call for more transparent and relevant aid data in the sector level as well as the need to focus on impact and results.
Topic:
Development, Health, Human Welfare, Humanitarian Aid, and Foreign Aid

9. Incentives for Life: Cash-on-Delivery Aid for Tobacco Control in Developing Countries

Author:
Amanda Glassman and Thomas J. Bollyky
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Fewer people are smoking in the United States, Europe, and most of the developing world. Excise taxes, bans on smoking in public places, and graphic health warnings are achieving such dramatic reductions in tobacco use in developed countries that a recent Citigroup Bank investment analysis speculated that smoking could virtually disappear in wealthy countries over the next thirty to fifty years.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Gender Issues, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

10. Adolescent Fertility in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Effects and Solutions

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Kate McQueston, and Rachel Silverman
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Adolescent fertility in low- and middle-income countries presents a severe impediment to development and can lead to school dropout, lost productivity, and the intergenerational transmission of poverty. However, there is debate about whether adolescent pregnancy is a problem in and of itself or merely symptomatic of deeper, ingrained disadvantage. To inform policy choices and create a revised research agenda for population and development, this paper aggregates recent quantitative evidence on the socioeconomic consequences of and methods to reduce of teenage pregnancy in the developing world. The review finds variable results for all indicator types with the partial exception of knowledge-based indicators, which increased in response to almost all evaluating interventions, though it is not clear that such interventions necessarily lead to short- or long term-behavior change. The evidence base supporting the effectiveness of conditional cash transfers was relatively strong in comparison to other interventions. Similarly, programs that lowered barriers to attending school or increased the opportunity cost of school absence are also supported by the literature. On the basis of these findings, the authors argue that donors should adopt a rights-based approach to adolescent fertility and shift their focus from the proximate to distal causes of pregnancy, including human rights abuses, gender inequality, child marriage, and socioeconomic marginalization. Further research should be conducted to strengthen the evidence base by 1) establishing causality, 2) understanding the differential impacts of adolescent fertility in different contexts, and 3) investigating other the impact of adolescent fertility on other socioeconomic outcomes, such as labor participation, productivity, and the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
Topic:
Democratization, Demographics, Development, Economics, Foreign Aid, and Youth Culture