The objectives of the Plan PAZcifico : Water Supply and Basic Sanitation Infrastructure and Service Delivery Project for Colombia are to improve: (i) coverage and service quality of water supply and basic sanitation in urban areas in the Municipality of Tumaco and the Municipality of Guapi; and (ii) operational efficiency of the service providers in said municipalities.
... See More + There are four components to the project, the first component being water supply and basic sanitation improvements in the Municipality of Guapi. Provision of goods, works, technical assistance and training to improve selected water supply and basic sanitation coverage and service quality investments in the Municipality of Guapi, including, inter alia, the following investments: construction of a new water-intake structure and raw water mains, optimization of the existing water treatment plant, and rehabilitation and construction of distribution water mains and networks. The second component is the water supply and basic sanitation improvements in the Municipality of Tumaco. Provision of goods, works, technical assistance and training to improve selected water supply and basic sanitation coverage and service quality investments in the Municipality of Tumaco, including, inter alia, the following investments: rehabilitation and/or construction of raw water mains, optimization of the existing water treatment plant, and rehabilitation and/or construction of distribution water mains and networks. The third component is the capacity building and institutional strengthening of service providers in the Municipalities of Guapi and Tumaco. Provision of goods, technical assistance and training for capacity building and institutional strengthening activities to support improved water and sanitation performance of service providers and to ensure efficient and sustainable services, including, inter alia, the following activities: provision of support to the Municipality of Guapi to develop a long-term service delivery model. Finally, the fourth component is the project management and environmental and social management. Provision of goods, technical assistance and training to the PIU for the implementation of the Project (including, inter alia, in the areas of financial management, procurement, disbursement, and safeguards management) and financing of operating costs.
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The development objective of the Higher Education Quality Improvement Project for Peru is to improve Peru’s higher education quality assurance system through the promotion of self and external evaluations, the financing of improvement plans, and the provision of information.
... See More + The restructuring will bring the following changes: (i) higher council of the national system for evaluation, accreditation, and certification of the quality of education (COSUSUSINEACE) will be replaced for national system for evaluation, accreditation, and certification of the quality of education (SINEACE) to reflect current institutional arrangements following the university law; (ii) all indicators that had mention to council for the evaluation, accreditation, and certification of university higher education (CONEAU) and council for the evaluation, accreditation, and certification of non-university higher education (CONEACES) will be revised (both in the indicators’ phrasing and in their descriptions) and replaced with wording that includes all public entities in charge of higher education quality assurance. Project development objective (PDO) indicator four will be revised so as to follow-up on the broader higher education information system (SIES). Four intermediate result indicators are dropped, one (former IRI 1) because it will now be captured in the direct beneficiaries core indicator, and the other three (former IRI 2, 3, and 4) because they will be merged into a new indicator that measures a broader set of capacity building project activities from which higher education institutions (HEI) may benefit. A new intermediate results indicator will be added to reflect relevant progress by the project in supporting the development and implementation of the new higher education quality model, because this is key to have an operating framework for all public entities in charge of higher education quality assurance. Former IRI 5 and 6 will be modified to reflect changes in subcomponents 2.1 and 2.2. Target values of indicators will be revised to reflect progress so far and projections based on current trends and planned activities; (iii) legal covenants will be revised to replace COSUSUSINEACE for SINEACE, and COSUSINEACE - project coordination unit (UCP) to UCP in order to reflect current institutional arrangements following the university law. The due date on the legal covenant referring to the external advisory council (CAE) will be revised to allow the UCP to hire the corresponding committee; (iv) disbursement estimates will be formally revised to reflect progress so far, as well as the revised operational plan based on the scope of this restructuring process; (v) component 1 and its sub-components will be modified to reflect the abovementioned institutional changes introduced, replacing CONEAU and CONEACES by public entities in charge of higher education quality assurance and eliminating the evaluating entities for accreditation purposes because their role is currently under revision and the government is evaluating the option of promoting the participation of academic peers and independent accreditation agencies instead. Component 2 and its sub-components will be modified to support the provision of knowledge and information about higher education because the systems originally supported by the project were replaced by new systems with similar objectives and a new integrated information system is being developed and could benefit from the project’s support; (vi) the names of the units involved in the project will be updated according to the new university law and to reflect changes in Ministry of Education (MINEDU’s) organizational rulebook; and (vii) institutional capacity for implementation risk will be revised from moderate to high due to the fact that the higher education reforms are still ongoing and new institutional changes can affect project implementation.
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A spatial econometric model is used to link road upgrading to forest clearing and biodiversity loss in the moist tropical forests of Bolivia, Cameroon, and Myanmar.
... See More + Using 250-meter cells, the model estimates the relationship between the rate of forest clearing in a cell and its distance to the urban market, with explicit attention given to road quality and simultaneity, terrain elevation and slope, the agricultural opportunity value of the land, and its legal protection status. Forest clearing is found to be most responsive to the distance to the nearest urban market, especially with secondary roads with lower typical speeds. Using the estimated forest-clearing response elasticities and a composite biodiversity indicator, an index of expected biodiversity loss from upgrading secondary roads to primary status is computed in each cell. The results identify areas in the three countries where high expected biodiversity losses may warrant additional protection as road upgrading continues. In addition, the results provide ecological risk ratings for individual road corridors that can inform environmentally sensitive infrastructure investment programs.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7826 SEP 19, 2016
The study uses a cluster-randomized trial among 1,578 children from 979 households in rural El Salvador to test the impacts of TOMS shoe donations on children's time allocation, school attendance, health, self-esteem, and aid dependency.
... See More + Results indicate high levels of usage and approval of the shoes by children in the treatment group, and time diaries show modest evidence that the donated shoes allocated children's time toward outdoor activities. Difference-in-difference and ANCOVA estimates find generally insignificant impacts on overall health, foot health, and self-esteem but small positive impacts on school attendance for boys. Children receiving the shoes were significantly more likely to state that outsiders should provide for the needs of their family. Thus, in a context where most children already own at least one pair of shoes, the overall impact of the shoe donation program appears to be negligible, illustrating the importance of more careful targeting of in-kind donation programs.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7822 SEP 14, 2016