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Begin New Search Topic Foreign Aid Author Amanda Glassman

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. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. A Commitment to Vaccination Index: Measuring Government Progress toward Global Immunization

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Denizhan Duran, and Juan Ignacio Zoloa
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Vaccination is among the most cost-effective health interventions and has attracted ever greater levels of investment from public and private funders. However, some countries, mainly populous lower-middle-income countries, are lagging behind in vaccination financing and performance.
Topic:
Development, Foreign Aid, and Health Care Policy

9. GAVI's Future: Steps to Build Strategic Leadership, Financial Sustainability, and Better Partnerships

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Lisa Carty, J. Stephen Morrison, and Margaret Reeves
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
On June 13, the GAVI Alliance convenes its first pledging conference in London with the aim of securing $3.7 billion to immunize an additional 250 million children by 2015. Founded in 2000, GAVI is an innovative partnership that combines donors, partner governments, UNICEF, WHO, civil society, and the private sector. It is designed to accelerate the financing and delivery of selected vaccines and related health services to the world's most disadvantaged populations. As GAVI enters its second decade of operations, it has established itself as a quiet success. And as it strives to sustain and expand its model of operations, it simultaneously strives to make itself better known and understood; better led, managed, and resourced; better assured of essential high-level political and financial support; and better served by well-functioning relations with its many essential partners.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Health, and Foreign Aid

10. The Health Systems Funding Platform: Resolving Tensions between the Aid and Development Effectiveness Agendas

Author:
Amanda Glassman and William Savedoff
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Global health aid is exceedingly complex. It encompasses more than one hundred bilateral agencies, global funds, and independent initiatives that interact with an equally complex and diverse set of institutions involved in financing and providing health care in developing countries. Numerous efforts have been made to better coordinate these activities in the interest of making them more effective. The Health Systems Funding Platform (the Platform) is one of the most recent of these initiatives. Established in 2009, the Platform has advanced farthest in two countries, Ethiopia and Nepal, and is currently expanding to several others. This paper briefly assesses the Platform and argues that the way the initiative is proceeding differs little from prior initiatives, such as sector- wide approaches and budget support. However, the initiative does represent an opportunity to make global health aid more effective if it were to deepen its commitment to improving information for policy, link funding explicitly to well-chosen independently verified indicators, and establish an evaluation strategy to learn from its experience.
Topic:
Development, Health, International Cooperation, International Organization, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Nepal and Ethiopia