Year Published
- 2008 (0)
- 2009 (2) Apply 2009 filter
- 2010 (1) Apply 2010 filter
- 2011 (2) Apply 2011 filter
- (-) Remove 2012 filter 2012
- (-) Remove 2013 filter 2013
- 2014 (0)
- 2015 (2) Apply 2015 filter
- (-) Remove 2016 filter 2016
- (-) Remove 2017 filter 2017
- 2018 (1) Apply 2018 filter
- 2019 (3) Apply 2019 filter
- 2020 (0)
- 2021 (1) Apply 2021 filter
Research Topics
Populations
Types of Research
- Data Analysis (1) Apply Data Analysis filter
- Literature Review (4) Apply Literature Review filter
- Portfolio Review (0)
- Research Brief (0)
Geography
- (-) Remove East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter East Africa Region and Selected Countries
- (-) Remove Global filter Global
- South Asia Region and Selected Countries (4) Apply South Asia Region and Selected Countries filter
- Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries (1) Apply Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- (-) Remove Sub-Saharan Africa filter Sub-Saharan Africa
- West Africa Region and Selected Countries (3) Apply West Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
Dataset
Current search
- (-) Remove East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter East Africa Region and Selected Countries
- (-) Remove Sub-Saharan Africa filter Sub-Saharan Africa
- (-) Remove Global filter Global
- (-) Remove 2016 filter 2016
- (-) Remove Household Well-Being & Equity filter Household Well-Being & Equity
- (-) Remove Education & Training filter Education & Training
- (-) Remove Political Economy & Governance filter Political Economy & Governance
- (-) Remove 2013 filter 2013
- (-) Remove 2012 filter 2012
- (-) Remove Poverty filter Poverty
- (-) Remove 2017 filter 2017
Donor countries and multilateral organizations may pursue multiple goals with foreign aid, including supporting low-income country development for strategic/security purposes (national security, regional political stability) and for short-and long-term economic interests (market development and access, local and regional market stability). While the literature on the effectiveness of aid in supporting progress on different indicators of country development is inconclusive, donors are interested in evidence that aid funding is not permanent but rather contributes to a process by which recipient countries develop to a point that they are economically self-sufficient. In this report, we review the literature on measures of country self-sufficiency and descriptive evidence from illustrative case studies to explore conditions associated with transitions toward self-sufficiency in certain contexts.
Cash transfer programs are interventions that directly provide cash to target specific populations with the aim of reducing poverty and supporting a variety of development outcomes. Low- and middle-income countries have increasingly adopted cash transfer programs as central elements of their poverty reduction and social protection strategies. Bastagli et al. (2016) report that around 130 low- and middle-income countries have at least one UCT program, and 63 countries have at least one CCT program (up from 27 countries in 2008). Through a comprehensive review of literature, this report primarily considers the evidence of the long-term impacts of cash transfer programs in low- and lower middle-income countries. A review of 54 reviews that aggregate and summarize findings from multiple studies of cash transfer programs reveals largely positive evidence on long-term outcomes related to general health, reproductive health, nutrition, labor markets, poverty, and gender and intra-household dynamics, though findings vary by context and in many cases overall conclusions on the long-term impacts of cash transfers are mixed. In addition, evidence on long-term impacts for many outcome measures is limited, and few studies explicitly aim to measure long-term impacts distinctly from immediate or short-term impacts of cash transfers.
In this report, we analyze the evidence that improved and expanded access to financial services can be a pathway out of poverty in Bangladesh and Tanzania. A brief background review of finance and poverty reduction evidence at the country, household, and individual level emphasizes the importance of a functioning financial system and the need to remove individual and household barriers to capital accumulation. We follow with an in-depth literature review on studies that link poverty reduction in Bangladesh or Tanzania with one or more of five financial intervention categories: remittances; government subsidies; conditional and unconditional cash transfers; credit; and combination programs. The resulting empirical evidence from these sources reveal a high share (61%) of positive reported associations between a financial intervention and outcome measure related to our five chosen financial interventions. The remaining studies found insignificant or mixed associations, but very few (3 out of 56) indicate that access to a financial mechanism was associated with worsened poverty. The heterogeneity of study types and interventions makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the efficacy of one intervention over another, and more research is needed on whether such approaches constitute a durable, long-term exit from poverty.
Household survey data are a key source of information for policy-makers at all levels. In developing countries, household data are commonly used to target interventions and evaluate progress towards development goals. The World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study - Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) are a particularly rich source of nationally-representative panel data for six Sub-Saharan African countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. To help understand how these data are used, EPAR reviewed the existing literature referencing the LSMS-ISA and identified 415 publications, working papers, reports, and presentations with primary research based on LSMS-ISA data. We find that use of the LSMS-ISA has been increasing each year since the first survey waves were made available in 2009, with several universities, multilateral organizations, government offices, and research groups across the globe using the data to answer questions on agricultural productivity, farm management, poverty and welfare, nutrition, and several other topics.