Ideas to Action:

Independent research for global prosperity

Publications

 

Cash On Delivery Aid for Health: What Indicators Would Work Best? - Working Paper 275

12/1/11
William Savedoff and Katie Douglas Martel

This paper assesses the challenges of applying COD Aid in the health sector. After clarifying how COD Aid differs from results-based financing approaches, the paper presents four key characteristics for designing a successful agreement. It discusses features of the health sector and foreign aid flows to health that need to be considered when designing a successful COD Aid agreement for this sector.

Incentive Proliferation? Making Sense of a New Wave of Development Programs

8/31/11

A new wave of development programs that explicitly use incentives to achieve their aims is under way.They are part of a trend, accelerating in recent years, to disburse development assistance against specific and measurable outputs or outcomes. With a proliferation of new ideas under names such as “payments for performance,” “output-based aid,” and “results based financing,” it is easy to lose sight of basic underlying similarities in these approaches and to miss some significant differences.

Learning from Development: the Case for an International Council to Catalyze Independent Impact Evaluations of Social Sector Interventions

5/31/06

This brief outlines the problems that inhibit learning in social development programs, describes the characteristics of a collective international solution, and shows how the international community can accelerate progress by learning what works in social policy. It draws heavily on the work of CGD's Evaluation Gap Working Group and a year-long process of consultation with policymakers, social program managers, and evaluation experts around the world.

When Will We Ever Learn? Improving Lives Through Impact Evaluation

5/31/06
The Evaluation Gap Working Group

Each year billions of dollars are spent on thousands of programs to improve health, education and other social sector outcomes in the developing world. But very few programs benefit from studies that could determine whether or not they actually made a difference. This absence of evidence is an urgent problem: it not only wastes money but denies poor people crucial support to improve their lives.