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Blog post
Improving land security through community-based organisations
Researchers and policymakers agree that secure land rights constitute a vital pillar for sustained livelihood improvements among marginalized populations, but existing solutions have been primarily top-down in orientation. Can community-based organisations help to improve land security from the ground up? Bihar state law guarantees each rural household the right to hold...
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Blog post
Don’t shoot the messenger – electricity theft and trust in Karachi, Pakistan
We assume that more information makes markets work better. Information can provide individuals incentives to act better. However, in some situations, information on poor behaviour can lead to mistrust, not just of other people, but of the institution that delivers the message. The Karachi setting Karachi is Pakistan’s largest city and industrial hub, home to 16.6...
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Blog post
Should graduation programmes replace the more conventional cash transfers?
The past decade has seen an exponential rise in social protection initiatives – mostly in the form of unconditional cash transfer programmes. In Latin America, Africa and South Asia, these emerge as promising interventions to reduce poverty. There is also a rising global trend of using conditionalities linked to such transfers to increase school enrolment, and access to...
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Blog post
Increasing religious awareness and professional training
The discovery of natural gas triggered violent extremism in Northern Mozambique. Could religious awareness and professional training quell violence? [caption id="attachment_28440" align="alignnone" width="768"] Figure 1: The Economist, Aug 9th 2018.[/caption] There is vast economic and political science literature on conflict and civil wars, which mostly focuses on the...
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Blog post
Building a capable civil service in Liberia: The role of the Performance Management System
Over the past thirty years, Liberia has encountered a mix of challenges, from negotiating civil war and an Ebola epidemic to welcoming the first democratic transition of power in three-quarters of a century. The recently elected Weah administration has made governance one of the four pillars of its ‘Pro-poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development’, including a push to...
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Blog post
Lighting up Rwanda: Assessing the demand for pay-as-you-go lighting
The government of Rwanda has successfully increased the rate of electrification, from 10% in 2010 to 43% in 2018. However, for 57% of the population without electricity, the alternative energy sources include traditional biomass, kerosene, and rechargeable lamps which can harm respiratory health and the environment. In 2017, the Rwandan government launched a universal...
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Blog post
What do we (not) know about the benefits of households' electrification?
Household electrification has recently become a controversial topic. When The Economist declared that “electricity does not change poor lives as much as was thought,” a number of non-profits and industry representatives wrote indignant responses (CEO of SolarAid, CrossBoundary) arguing that electricity, including distributed solar power, can be a game-changer for rural...
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Blog post
Informal workers and taxation in Zambia: Who pays and does it make a difference?
Taxation in Africa has been increasingly covered in the news, especially with controversial attempts in countries such as Benin, Tanzania, and Uganda to tax users of social media sites and phone texting services. While the true intentions of these efforts are debatable, raising sufficient domestic revenue has long been a challenge for many African governments. A long line...
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Blog post
The Chinese are here: An analysis of import penetration and firm performance in Sub-Saharan Africa
In the early 1990s, most of the imports into Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) originated mainly from Western economies such as the US, UK, France, and Germany. 25 years later, the share of imports from the UK had decreased to 2.3% in 2015 from 13.9% in 1990, while that of the US to 4.6% in 2015 from 13% in 1992. On the other hand, China’s share of total imports in SSA rose to...
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Blog post
Understanding Third Tier Organisations (TTOs) in Pakistan and their role in filling public delivery gaps at the community level
Research into Third Tier Organisations in Pakistan highlights the important work they carry out in spite of a lack of significant government funding. Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), a not-for-profit, along with its partner organizations has been working on social mobilization and development of voluntary organizations at community level across Pakistan. A...
Blog post
Replenishing the rice bowl: Productivity and quality in Myanmar’s rice export industry
Myanmar’s rice industry can be reignited by reforms. However, key challenges need to be addressed for the country to re-establish itself in the international market. Myanmar once held the distinction of being the world’s largest exporter of rice, accounting for one-third of the global rice trade in 1934-1935. Post-independence nationalisation of the industry was...