Publications

This case study is part of the “Let Them Work” initiative by Refugees International (RI) and the Center for Global Development (CGD). It outlines the barriers Venezuelans face in Colombia to economic inclusion, the impacts of these barriers, and the steps that the Government of Colombia, international organizations, donors, and the private sector could take to overcome them.

Is research into a Covid-19 vaccine a suitable use of Official Development Assistance (ODA)? This note attempts to tease apart a discussion of “is this ODA” from “is this a global public good?” and then separate out again “is this ODA and/or a global public good?” from “is this an efficient way to spend money?”

Limited resources mean that policymakers must make tough choices about which investments to make to improve education. Although hundreds of education interventions have been rigorously evaluated, making comparisons between the results is challenging. This paper proposes using learning-adjusted years of schooling (LAYS)—which combines access and quality and compares gains to an absolute, cross-country standard—as a new metric for reporting gains from education interventions.

Evidence on ‘what works’ to promote women’s economic empowerment has expanded in recent years but remains geographically unbalanced, with English speaking countries and those with more longstanding research traditions better represented. Recognizing the importance of context specificity in understanding and advancing gender equality, we seek to fill a gap in the literature by reviewing interventions, policies, and broader socio-economic trends within West Africa and the extent to which they have contributed to progress in narrowing economic gender gaps in the region.

How should policies to control the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic differ across countries? We extend recent contributions integrating economic and epidemiological models for the United States to a developing country context, Uganda.

Using a phone survey of 1,211 households in Pakistan, we examine the effects of COVID-19 on three key domains: education, economic, and health-related.

COVID-19 creates additional challenges that policymakers need to consider while designing and implementing new social assistance programs. This note describes how Bihar addressed the policy challenges to implement the program and the lessons it holds for India and globally.

This paper advances the concept of budgetary space for health, which explores resources available for health that are generated through higher public expenditure, better budget allocations, and through improved public financial management (PFM).