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Begin New Search Topic Health Political Geography Africa Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Center for Global Development Publication Year within 25 Years

1. The Face of African Infrastructure: Service Availability and Citizens' Demands

Author:
Vijaya Ramachandran, Benjamin Leo, and Robert Morello
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The need for infrastructure improvements is a top-tier economic, political, and social issue in nearly every African country. Although the academic and policy literature is extensive in terms of estimating the impact of infrastructure deficits on economic and social indicators, very few studies have examined citizen demands for infrastructure. In this paper, we draw upon survey data to move beyond topline estimates of national infrastructure access rates towards a more nuanced understanding of service availability and citizen demands at the regional, national, and sub-national level. We find a predictable pattern of infrastructure services across income levels—lower income countries have fewer services. The survey data also allows us to observe the sequencing of infrastructure services. On the demand side, survey respondents are most concerned with jobs and income-related issues, as well as with the availability of infrastructure: specifically transportation and sanitation. These priorities transcend demographic factors, including gender and location (urban/rural).
Topic:
Health
Political Geography:
Africa

2. To Charge or Not to Charge: Evidence from a Health Products Experiment in Uganda

Author:
Dean Karlan, Pia Raffler, Greg Fischer, and Margaret McConnell
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In a field experiment in Uganda, we find that demand after a free distribution of three health products is lower than after a sale distribution. This contrasts with work on insecticide-treated bed nets, highlighting the importance of product characteristics in determining pricing policy. We put forward a model to illustrate the potential tension between two important factors, learning and anchoring, and then test this model with three products selected specifically for their variation in the scope for learning. We find the rank order of shifts in demand matches with the theoretical prediction, although the differences are not statistically significant.
Topic:
Development and Health
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

3. IDA at 65: Heading Toward Retirement or a Fragile Lease on Life?

Author:
Todd Moss and Benjamin Leo
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Even under conservative assumptions, IDA will likely face a wave of country graduations by 2025. We project that it will lose more than half of its client countries and that the total population living in IDA-eligible countries will plunge by two-thirds. The remaining IDA-eligible countries will be significantly smaller in size and overwhelmingly African, and a majority are currently considered fragile or post-conflict. This drastically altered client base will have significant implications for IDA's operational and financial models. We conclude with three possible options for IDA and recommend that World Bank shareholders and management begin frank discussions on its future sooner rather than later.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Health, World Bank, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
Africa

4. Rice Crisis Forensics: How Asian Governments Carelessly Set the World Rice Market on Fire

Author:
Tom Slayton
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The world rice market was aflame last spring and for several months it looked as if the trading edifice that had exhibited such resilience over the last two decades was going to burn to the ground. World prices trebled within less than four months and reached a 30- year inflation-adjusted high. Many market observers thought the previous record set in 1974 would soon be toast. The fire was man-made, not the result of natural developments. While the governments in India, Vietnam, and the Philippines did not to set the world market on fire, that was the unintended result of their actions which threatened both innocent bystanders (low-income rice importers as far away as Africa and Latin America) and, ultimately, poor rice consumers at home. This paper describes what sparked the fire and the accelerants that made a bad situation nearly catastrophic. Fortuitously, when the flames were raging at peak intensity, rain clouds appeared, the winds [market psychology] shifted, and conditions on the ground improved, allowing the fire to die down. It remains to be seen, however, if the trading edifice has been seriously undermined by the actions of decision makers in several key Asian rice exporting and importing countries. In describing the cascading negative effects of these seemingly rational domestic policies, this paper aims to help policy makers in the rice exporting and importing nations to avoid a repeat of the disastrous price spike of 2008.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Health, Humanitarian Aid, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, India, Asia, and Latin America

5. Performance-Based Incentives for Health: A Way to Improve Tuberculosis Detection and Treatment Completion?

Author:
Rena Eichler, Diana Weil, and Alexandra Beith
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Tuberculosis is a public health emergency in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Of the estimated 1.7 million deaths from TB, 98 percent are in the developing world, the majority being among the poor. In order to reach the MDG and the Stop TB partnership targets for 2015, TB detection rates need to double, treatment success rates must increase to more than 7075 percent, and strategies to address HIV-associated TB and multi-drug resistant TB must be aggressively expanded. DOTS, the internationally-recommended TB control strategy is the foundation of TB control efforts worldwide. A standard recording and monitoring system built on routine service-based data allows nearly all countries in the world to track progress in case detection and treatment completion through routine monitoring. This provides a good base for measuring the impact of different strategies for improving TB control outcomes.
Topic:
Health, International Organization, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Asia

6. Performance-Based Incentives for Health: A Way to Improve Tuberculosis Detection and Treatment Completion?

Author:
Rena Eichler, Diana Weil, and Alexandra Beith
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Tuberculosis is a public health emergency in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Of the estimated 1.7 million deaths from TB, 98 percent are in the developing world, the majority being among the poor. In order to reach the MDG and the Stop TB partnership targets for 2015, TB detection rates need to double, treatment success rates must increase to more than 7075 percent, and strategies to address HIV-associated TB and multi-drug resistant TB must be aggressively expanded. DOTS, the internationally-recommended TB control strategy is the foundation of TB control efforts worldwide. A standard recording and monitoring system built on routine service-based data allows nearly all countries in the world to track progress in case detection and treatment completion through routine monitoring. This provides a good base for measuring the impact of different strategies for improving TB control outcomes.
Topic:
Development, Health, Human Welfare, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe

7. Do Visas Kill? Health Effects of African Health Professional Emigration

Author:
Michael Clemens
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The emigration of highly skilled workers can in theory lower social welfare in the migrant-sending country. If such workers produce a good whose consumption conveys a positive externality—such as nurses and doctors in a very poor country—the loss can be greater, and welfare can even decline globally. Policies to impede emigration thus have the potential to raise sending-country and global welfare. This study uses a new database of health worker emigration from Africa to test whether exogenous decreases in emigration raise the number of domestic health professionals, increase the mass availability of basic primary care, or improve a range of public health outcomes. It identifies the effect through two separate natural quasi-experiments arising from the colonial division of the African continent. These produce exogenous changes in emigration comparable to those that would result from different immigration policies in principal receiving countries. The results suggest that Africa's generally low staffing levels and poor public health conditions are the result of factors entirely unrelated to international movements of health professionals. A simple model proposes that such results would be explained by segmentation of health workforce labor markets in the sending countries. The results further suggest that emigration has caused a greater production of health workers in Africa.
Topic:
International Relations, Health, and Migration
Political Geography:
Africa

8. AIDS Treatment and Intrahousehold Resource Allocations: Children's Nutrition and Schooling in Kenya

Author:
Markus Goldstein, Joshua Graff Zivin, and Harsha Thirumurthy
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The provision of life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment has emerged as a key component of the global response to HIV/AIDS, but very little is known about the impact of this intervention on the welfare of children in the households of treated persons. We estimate the impact of ARV treatment on children's schooling and nutrition outcomes using longitudinal household survey data collected in collaboration with a treatment program in western Kenya. We find that children's weekly hours of school attendance increase by over 20 percent within six months after treatment is initiated for the adult household member. For boys in treatment households, these increases closely follow their reduced market labor supply. Similarly, young children's short-term nutritional status—as measured by their weight-for-height Z-score—also improves dramatically. We also present evidence that the impact of treatment is considerably larger when compared to the counterfactual scenario of no ARV treatment. The results illustrate how intrahousehold allocations of time and resources are altered in response to significant health improvements. Since the improvements in children's schooling and nutrition at these critical early ages will affect their socio-economic outcomes and wellbeing in adulthood, the widespread provision of ARV treatment is likely to generate significant long-run welfare benefits.
Topic:
Health and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

9. New data on African health professionals abroad

Author:
Gunilla Petterson and Michael A. Clemens
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The migration of doctors and nurses from Africa to developed countries has raised fears of an African medical brain drain. But empirical research on the causes and effects of the phenomenon has been hampered by a lack of systematic data on the extent of African health workers' international movements. We use destination-country census data to estimate the number of African-born doctors and professional nurses working abroad in a developed country circa 2000, and compare this to the stocks of these workers in each country of origin. Approximately 65,000 African-born physicians and 70,000 African-born professional nurses were working overseas in a developed country in the year 2000. This represents about one fifth of African-born physicians in the world, and about one tenth of African-born professional nurses. The fraction of health professionals abroad varies enormously across African countries, from 1% to over 70% according to the occupation and country. These numbers are the first standardized, systematic, occupation-specific measure of skilled professionals working in developed countries and born in a large number of developing countries.
Topic:
Development, Health, and Migration
Political Geography:
Africa