This introductory paper presents the results of an international multi-disciplinary research project on the measurement of food consumption in national household surveys.
... See More + Food consumption data from household surveys are possibly the single most important source of information on poverty, food security, and nutrition outcomes at national, sub-national and household level, and contribute building blocks to global efforts to monitor progress towards the major international development goals.The paper synthesizes case studies from a diverse set of developing and OECD countries, looking at some ofthe main outstanding research issues as identified by a recent international assessment of 100 existing nationalhousehold surveys (Smith et al., 2014). The project mobilized expertise from different disciplines (statistics,economics, food security, nutrition) to work towards enhancing our understanding of how to improve the qualityand availability of food consumption and expenditure data, while making them more valuable for a diverse set of users. The individual studies summarized in this paper analyze, both theoretically and empirically, how different surveys design options affect the quality of the data being collected and, in turn, the implications for statistical inference and policy analysis. The conclusions and recommendations derived from this collection of studies will be instrumental in advancing the methodological agenda for the collection of household level food data, and will provide national statistical offices and survey practitioners worldwide with practical insights for survey design, while providing poverty, food and nutrition policymakers with greater understanding of these issues, as well as improved toolsfor and better guidance in policy formulation.
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The development objective of the Second Karnataka State Highway Improvement Project for India is to accelerate the development of the core road network through leveraging public sector outlays with private sector financing and improving the institutional effectiveness of the road sector agencies to deliver effective and safe roads to users.
... See More + The restructuring includes following changes: (a) extension of the loan closing date to December 28, 2018; (b) reallocation of loan proceeds across expenditure categories; (c) extension of the due date for two loan covenants; and (d) corresponding changes to the results framework and disbursement projections.
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This report analyzes Africa's current performance in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) research, as well as future trends. In March 2014 several African governments' ministers agreed on a Joint Call for Action in Kigali to adopt a strategy that uses strategic investments in science and technology to accelerate Africa toward a developed knowledge-based society within one generation.
... See More + The World Bank and Elsevier are partnering on this report to examine the research enterprise over a decade from 2003 to 2012 of three different geographies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): West and Central Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa. The research performance of these regions is compared to that of South Africa, Malaysia, and Vietnam; the latter two countries had a comparable research base to the SSA regions at the beginning of the period of analysis. This report presents four main developments over the past decade in research in SSA: 1) sub-Saharan Africa has greatly increased both the quantity and quality of its research outputl; 2) SSA research output in STEM lags that of other subject areas significantly; 3) SSA, especially East Africa and Southern Africa, relies heavily on international collaboration and visiting faculty for their research output; and 4) research collaboration in Africa features a number of particular characteristics that are critical to understand for the design of successful policies. Following an overview, this report's introductory chapter introduces the underlying database and the main methodological approaches and concepts used in the report. The next chapter provides a broad overview of the research enterprise in the different regions and across different subject groupings by using a variety of metrics to examine the quantity, usage, and quality of research output. What types of knowledge and how much are being generated by SSA researchers? By whom and how much is that knowledge being used? Chapter 3 focuses on key aspects of research collaboration for the Africa regions. How frequently do researchers in the different regions co-author articles with international colleagues or colleagues in non-academic institutions? How impactful are those co-authored articles, and with which institutions do researchers collaborate the most? The final chapter focuses on the mobility of researchers to and from the different regions.
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