Many developing countries use employment guarantee programs to combat poverty. This paper examines the consequences of such employment guarantee programs for the human capital accumulation of children.
... See More + It exploits the phased roll-out of India's flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) to study the effects on enrollment in schools and child labor. Introduction of MGNREGA results in lower relative school enrollment in treated districts. The authors find that the drop in enrollment is driven by primary school children. Children in higher grades are just as likely to attend school under MGNREGA, but their school performance deteriorates. Using nationally representative employment data, they find evidence indicating an increase in child labor highlighting the unintentional perverse effects of the employment guarantee schemes for Human capital.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS9106 JAN 07, 2020
This paper studies the medium-term impact of early-life welfare transfers on children's learning. It studies children who were exposed to the randomized controlled trial of the Mexico's Food Support Program (the Programa de Apoyo Alimentario, PAL), in which households were assigned to receive cash, in-kind food transfers, or nothing (a control).
... See More + The children are matched with administrative data on primary school standardized tests, which were taken four to 10 years after the experiment began. The findings show that in-kind transfers did not impact test scores, while cash transfers led to a significant and meaningful decrease in test scores. An analysis of the mechanisms driving these results reveals that both transfers led to an increase in child labor, which is likely detrimental to learning. In-kind food transfers, however, induced a greater consumption of several key micronutrients that are vital for brain development, which likely attenuated the negative impacts of child labor on learning.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS9086 DEC 17, 2019
This paper uses the roll-out of the national health insurance in Ghana to assess the cushioning effect of coverage on the financial consequences of health shocks and resulting changes in coping behaviors.
... See More + The analysis finds a strong reduction in medical expenditures, preventing households from cutting non-food consumption and causing a decrease in the volume of received remittances as well as the labor supply of healthy adult household members. Moreover, the paper presents evidence that the insurance scheme reduced the likelihood that households experiencing a health shock pulled their children out of school to put them to work. Avoidance of such costly coping mechanisms is potentially an important part of the social value of formal health insurance.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS9004 SEP 11, 2019
The development objective of Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods Project for Malawi is to improve resilience among the poor and vulnerable population and strengthen the national platform for safety nets.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts include: (i) bites from snakes and bees; (ii) slips and trips; (iii) fall from height; (iv) drowning; (v) cuts and bruises from sharp objects; (vi) working in confined spaces; (vii) child labor; (viii) gender based violence; (ix) risk of contracting HIV; (x) ergonomic hazards due to lifting of heavy loads; (xi) exposure to pesticides and chemicals; and (xii) sexual exploitation and abuse. Some of the mitigation measures include: (i) provision of well stocked first aid kits; (ii) provision of warning signs; (iii) provision of harnesses and scaffolds; (iv) installation of warning signs and barricades; (v) first aid training; (vi) provision of warning signs; (vii) do not employ under age; (viii) provide equal employment opportunities to men, women, youth and the disabled; (ix) sensitisations on HIV and AIDS; (x) adherence to established labour; (xi) implement a pesticide management plan; and (xii) women and girls empowerment.
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This is a statement by Mr. Guy Ryder, Director-General, International Labour Organization, at the 99th meeting of the Development Committee held on April 13, 2019.
... See More + He spoke about reducing inequalities and addressing the crisis of multilateralism, which calls for policy approaches that promote well-being, equality, sustainability and inclusiveness. He talked about creating decent jobs that must grow at a stronger pace to make real improvement in people’s livelihoods. He also added that a human-centered agenda could address many of the failures of current economic and social policies to reduce inequalities. He concluded by saying that achieving reductions in inequality to meet sustainable development goals (SDG) 10 will require policy coherence linking enhanced social protection with coordinated fiscal and wage policies.
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The situation in Cote d’Ivoire requires that extreme care be exercised in designing a digital national identification system. The decades-long politicization of citizenship has meant that there is absolutely no neutral ground from which to execute a technocratic intervention regarding identification.
... See More + Indeed, prior land titling projects promoted by the World Bank contributed to the forcible dispossession of vulnerable populations who are among the same people who may be harmed in the context of a global initiative to provide everyone with modern identification. The ultimate finding of this analysis is that there can be NO identification regime in Cote d’Ivoire that operates outside of politics and the probable attempts to manipulate the identification regime for strategic political ends.
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The development objective of Program for Supporting Rural Bridges Project for Bangladesh is to enhance rural connectivity, to improve the preservation and climate resiliency of rural bridge assets, and to strengthen institutional capacity for the development, maintenance and management of rural bridge assets.
... See More + Some of the negative impacts include: (i) the sub-project may create major irreversible environmental damage or may violate an existing environmental rule or regulation; (ii) may encroach into an ECA or a heritage site; (iii) safety of communities and occupational health workers; and (iv) handling of fuels, lubricants, chemicals and hazardous goods/materials onsite, and potential spills from these goods may harm the environment or health of construction workers. Some of the mitigation measures include: (i) declaration of ecologically critical areas; (ii) regulation with respect to vehicles emitting smoke harmful for the environment; (iii) promulgation of standards for quality of air, water, noise, and soils for different areas and for different purposes; and (iv) promulgation of acceptable limits for discharging and emitting waste.
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Program-for-Results Environmental and Social Systems Assessment 130087 SEP 01, 2018
The development objective of the Supporting Primary Healthcare Reform Project for Indonesia is Strengthening the performance of Indonesia’s primary health care system.
... See More + The program is expected to improve performance through strengthening accountability, improving management of health services, and enhancing performance-based financing. Some of negative impacts are include: (i) poor implementation of the accreditation system and lack of ownership from the management of the medical healthcare facilities to carry out the procedures protocols as planned in the accreditation system; (ii) poor handling of medical solid waste in its chain of custody system (poor storage, handling and disposal system at HCF or illegal dumping/storage beyond the facility) will also pose potential adverse impacts to the staff, visitors and the surrounding environment and community; (iii) potential pollution from poor quality effluent to surrounding environment and human health is likely; (iv) without good procedures, the disposal of old medical imaging orradiotherapy equipment in facilities may lead to radiation exposure and leakages if not well managed or properly decommissioned; (v)health care providers and personnel may be exposed to general infections, blood-borne pathogens, and other potential infectious materials during care and treatment, as well as during collection, handling, storage, treatment, and disposal of health care waste; (vi) risk of fire in health care facilities due to poor storage facilities, handling and presence of chemicals, pressurized gases, boards, plastics and other flammable substrates; Some of the mitigation measures are include: (i strengthening performance monitoring for increased local government and facility accountability; (ii) improving implementation of national standards for greater local government and facility performance; (iii) strengthen implementation of priority programs for maternal and child health, including immunization, as well as nutrition, communicable (especially TB) and non-communicable diseases; (iv) enhancing performance orientation of health financing for better local service delivery.
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Program-for-Results Environmental and Social Systems Assessment 126267 FEB 01, 2018
This Good Practice Note (GPN) provides the private sector with guidance on identifying, mitigating and remedying modern slavery risks. It serves as a comprehensive resource for two main audiences: investors and companies.
... See More + The investor audience includes banks, private equity firms and other financial actors that provide finance to private companies in emerging markets. For companies, this GPN provides guidance on potential actions to take across a range of sectors where there may be risks of modern slavery. The GPN further offers Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) with guidance on modern slavery risks associated with their portfolio companies. The GPN does not create new standards. Instead, it aims to provide practical support on how to better identify issues and integrate actions to address modern slavery into existing environmental and social management systems. For standards on modern slavery, readers should refer to existing conventions of the International Labour Organization, national laws, company and investor standards, and other existing instruments, many of which are referenced in this note.
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Safety nets in Africa are a popular policy instrument to address the widespread chronic poverty and encourage human capital investments in the education and health of children.
... See More + Although there have been considerable analyses on the impacts of safety nets globally, particularly in Latin America, less been done on synthesizing results across Sub-Saharan African programs. This study fills this gap by systematically extracting and standardizing the results across impact evaluations for better understanding of what has been achieved using this policy instrument in the continent. The study finds that these programs on average have significant positive impacts on total and food consumption. The programs show promising results on asset accumulation, such as livestock ownership. However, there is substantial heterogeneity in the impacts achieved across programs for some development outcomes. Through exploring this heterogeneity in impacts, the study puts forward several suggestions for better targeting various development outcomes through modifications in the design and implementation of safety net programs.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8255 NOV 22, 2017
The objective of the Urban Water and Sanitation OBA Fund for Low Income Areas Project is to increase the number of people in low income areas with access to improved water supply and sanitation services in Kenyan towns and cities.
... See More + This objective will be realized by incentivizing urban Water Services Providers to invest in water supply and sanitation improvement subprojects to benefit households in low income areas by applying one-off Output-Based Aid subsidies to make water and sanitation access affordable. Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: providing compensation for loss of assets at replacement cost; ensuring that resettlement activities are implemented with appropriate disclosure of information, consultation, and the informed participation of those affected, and improve or at least restore the livelihoods and standards of living of affected people; Provide additional targeted assistance (e.g., credit facilities, training, or job opportunities) and opportunities to improve or at least restore their income, earning capacity, production levels, and standards of living to economically displaced persons whose livelihoods or income levels are adversely affected; special consideration will be given to especially disadvantaged and/or vulnerable people such as women, children, the very old and the unemployed. Provision will be made to enhance their rights to resettlement and compensation payments. For example, the consent of spouses and children where it applies shall be a sought prerequisite for compensation payment, as provided by the Land Act (2012); the project will promote and provide in-kind compensation as an option for especially vulnerable groups and project affected community resources and facilities; the project will consider a 15 percent livelihood/disturbance allowance in addition to the assessed compensation values for affected property; and in consideration of the differences between national legislation and the World Bank safeguard policy on involuntary resettlement, the higher of the two standards will be followed, where it best applies in this RAP, since this approach also satisfies the requirements of the lesser standard.
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Could a partial subsidy for child education increase children's participation in paid work? In contrast to much of the theoretical and empirical child labor literature, this paper shows that child work and school participation can be complements under certain conditions.
... See More + Using data from the randomized evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines, the analysis finds that some children, who were in neither school nor work before the program, increased participation in school and work-for-pay after the program. Earlier cash transfer programs, notably those in Mexico, Brazil, and Ecuador, increased school attendance while reducing child labor. Those programs fully offset schooling costs, while the transfers under the Philippine transfers fall short of the full costs of schooling for a typical child. As a result, some beneficiary children from poor Philippine households increased work to support their schooling. The additional earnings from this work represent a substantive share of the shortfall in the schooling costs net of transfer. The paper rules out several potential alternative explanations for the increase in child labor, including changes in household productive activities, adult labor supply, and household expenditure patterns that, in principle, can arise after a cash transfer and may also affect the supply of or demand for child labor.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8182 SEP 06, 2017
De Hoop,Jacobus Joost; Friedman,Jed; Kandpal,Eeshani; Rosati,Furio CamilloDisclosed
