This paper provides a comparative analysis of school-based management reforms in four Central American countries (EDUCO in El Salvador, PRONADE in Guatemala, PROHECO in Honduras, and 'Centros Autonomos' in Nicaragua). It starts by providing a characterization of the models and then reviews how they have expanded community participation and empowerment and school decision-making autonomy. It then continues by analyzing the impact of community and school empowerment on the teaching-learning process, including measures of teacher effort. The paper assesses the impact of the models on several...

In recent years, the power sector in several developing countries has suffered from a frustrating gap between strong, pro-reform rhetoric at the political level, and weak, hesitant implementation of the reform measures on the ground. Focusing on the recent experience of power sector reform in India, this paper looks afresh at the problem of the 'rhetoric-implementation gap' by taking the lack of political will as its starting point, and identifying the ingredients that comprise it in the current context of India. Assuming that people and institutions are not impartial but instead respond to...

Cooperative financial institutions (CFIs) are among the poorly understood entities in financial markets. They include diverse member-owned financial intermediaries referred to as credit unions, savings and credit cooperatives, cooperative banks, and other terms that differ across regions of the world. Their institutional structure and governance, legal and regulatory status, and scale and services portfolio also vary widely across regions and especially between industrialized countries and developing economies. A most basic common denominator is that they collect deposits and do business...

Accurate data on household energy use, combined with other data on household well-being (including consumption, income, health, and education), is essential to monitor progress in the household energy transition from traditional biomass fuels to modern fuels and electricity and to evaluate the effect of government energy policies on living conditions. Multi-topic socioeconomic household surveys, such as the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), can provide data with which to make these measurements. Designers of LSMS and other multi-topic household surveys can use these...

This report assesses the status and practice of higher education quality assurance in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on degree-granting tertiary institutions. A main finding is that structured national-level quality assurance processes in African higher education are a very recent phenomenon and that most countries face major capacity constrains. Only about a third of them have established structured national quality assurance mechanism, often only as recently as during the last ten years. Activities differ in their scope and rigor, ranging from simple licensing of institutions by the minister...

The Caribbean Region is second only to Africa in the impact of HIV and AIDS. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has responded to this challenge by promoting a multisectoral response to the epidemic. UNESCO has provided regional leadership in strengthening the education sector component of this response. In 2005, UNESCO launched, with CARICOM and the World Bank, a regioinal dialogue involving representatives of Ministries of Education, national HIV and AIDS coordinating councils, development partners, and regional institutions providing leadership in the HIV response, which led to the...

This study reviews aid flows to the health sector in Somalia over the period 2000-06. In close collaboration with the Health Sector Committee of the Coordination of International Support to Somalis, the authors collected quantitative and qualitative data from twenty-six international agencies operating in Somalia, including bilateral and multilateral donors. The paper reaches three main conclusions. First, aid financing to the health sector in Somalia has been constantly growing, reaching US$7-10 per capita in 2006. Although this is a considerable amount compared to other fragile states, it...

Ce rapport rend compte de l etat et de la pratique de l amelioration de l assurance qualite (AQ) en Afrique subsaharienne avec un focus particulier sur les etablissements de troisieme cycle qui decernent des diplomes universitaires. L un des resultats principal est que les processus structures nationaux d'assurance-qualite de l enseignement superieur africain sont des phenomenes tres recents et que bon nombre de pays font face a des contraintes majeures de moyens. Un tiers seulement desdits pays sont dotes de mecanismes nationaux d assurance-qualite etablis et structures, souvent aussi...

The report, based on a complex analytical methodology, provides a clear economic rationale for investing in improved water resources development and management in Kenya. It is part of the World Bank's policy dialogue on water resources management reforms and investment planning in Kenya. It focuses on the economic implications of two key factors that make the economy and people of Kenya highly vulnerable the effects of climate variability and the steady degradation of the nation's water resources. The 1997-2000 El Nino-La Nina episodes cost the country Ksh 290 billion, about 14 percent of GDP...

Describes how the timely use of two-way communication in large water infrastructure projects leads to improved project design and is key to identify and address problems that could result in project delays and incremental costs.