This study assesses the redistributive effects of fiscal policy in Mali and Niger. Fiscal policy is poverty increasing in Mali (by 2.4 percentage points) and Niger (2.5 percentage points).
... Exibir mais + This is a result of primarily two factors: indirect taxes (value-added taxes and import duties) and direct fiscal transfers. Although the richest people in Mali and Niger pay the majority of indirect taxes, the poorest people pay a nonnegligible amount (more than 8 and 10 percent for the bottom three deciles, respectively). Although existing direct fiscal transfers have poverty-reducing effects, they are too small (Mali) or not well targeted (Niger).
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Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS8887 JUN 17, 2019
Current measures of fiscal impoverishment and gains are not consistent with the law of diminishing returns. This paper proposes new measures of fiscal impoverishment and gains that are consistent with the law of diminishing returns, based on a methodology that gives more significance to greater income gaps, and more importance to the experience of the poorest individuals within the fiscal system.
... Exibir mais + The new indicators are decomposable and cover the incidence, intensity, and severity of fiscal impoverishment and gains. An empirical illustration using the 2014 household consumption data reveals that, overall, in Niger the fiscal system is improving the welfare of the population: only 33.2 percent of the population has become poorer due to the fiscal system, while the remaining 66.8 percent has become richer because of it. Moreover, the mean relative fiscal loss (0.014), is 11 percent lower than the mean relative fiscal gain (0.126).
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Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS8886 JUN 13, 2019
Supporting jobs for youth in Niger means addressing difficult questions of the right level of ambition, of reaching the necessary scale, and of trade-offs with funding for poverty reduction.
... Exibir mais + Jobs policy for youth in Niger faces a difficult balancing act. It must be grounded in the reality that given the very modest starting point, economic opportunities for most Nigeriens are likely to remain limited in the medium term. At the same time, jobs policy needs to contend with the fact that young Nigeriens aspire for a different economic life than that lived by their elders. The challenge is thus to determine what kind of support is realistically feasible, and can provide a good-enough perspective for young Nigeriens. Secondly, policy must ask whether the actions envisaged can make a real difference at scale, given the very big needs for better jobs. Finally, in an environment where poverty remains pervasive, it is important to acknowledge that providing jobs support specifically for youth may mean forgoing other investments that may be more efficient in reducing poverty. To make informed choices on these questions, policy makers may need to understand clearly the effectiveness of different jobs support modalities, their appropriateness in addressing Niger’s challenges, and their cost efficiency. This study seeks to provide such an assessment. The purpose of this study is to review the effectiveness of projects that supported jobs for youth in Niger over the years 2007-2018. This report reviews the design and performance of 50 jobs projects carried out under the aegis of the Government of Niger over the years 2007-2018. These projects support individuals or communities; the review does not cover macro-level policies. The review has sought to assess (1) the level of investment and the number of beneficiaries reached; (2) the success of jobs programs according to existing evaluations; and (3) whether jobs programs have targeted the primary constraints to jobs for young Nigeriens and been designed in accordance with international evidence.
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Supporting jobs for youth in Niger means addressing difficult questions of the right level of ambition, of reaching the necessary scale, and of trade-offs with funding for poverty reduction.
... Exibir mais + Jobs policy for youth in Niger faces a difficult balancing act. It must be grounded in the reality that given the very modest starting point, economic opportunities for most Nigeriens are likely to remain limited in the medium term. At the same time, jobs policy needs to contend with the fact that young Nigeriens aspire for a different economic life than that lived by their elders. The challenge is thus to determine what kind of support is realistically feasible, and can provide a good-enough perspective for young Nigeriens. Secondly, policy must ask whether the actions envisaged can make a real difference at scale, given the very big needs for better jobs. Finally, in an environment where poverty remains pervasive, it is important to acknowledge that providing jobs support specifically for youth may mean forgoing other investments that may be more efficient in reducing poverty. To make informed choices on these questions, policy makers may need to understand clearly the effectiveness of different jobs support modalities, their appropriateness in addressing Niger’s challenges, and their cost efficiency. This study seeks to provide such an assessment. The purpose of this study is to review the effectiveness of projects that supported jobs for youth in Niger over the years 2007-2018. This report reviews the design and performance of 50 jobs projects carried out under the aegis of the Government of Niger over the years 2007-2018. These projects support individuals or communities; the review does not cover macro-level policies. The review has sought to assess (1) the level of investment and the number of beneficiaries reached; (2) the success of jobs programs according to existing evaluations; and (3) whether jobs programs have targeted the primary constraints to jobs for young Nigeriens and been designed in accordance with international evidence.
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Report 136031 APR 11, 2019
Abdoulaye Sambo,Soumaila; Saidi,Mira; Walker,David Ian; Gonzalez,Alvaro S.; Von Der Goltz,Jan; Gado,Boureima; Beatrice Dehasse,Joelle; Lemière, ChristopheFrancês,
InglêsDisclosed
The Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Poverty Diagnostic (PD) in Niger is part of a global initiative to improve evidence on the linkages between WASH and poverty.
... Exibir mais + The Diagnostic provides a detailed analysis of sector status, strengths, and weaknesses to inform the attainment of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim for universal access to safely managed water supply and sanitation.
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The Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Poverty Diagnostic (PD) in Niger is part of a global initiative to improve evidence on the linkages between WASH and poverty.
... Exibir mais + The Diagnostic provides a detailed analysis of sector status, strengths, and weaknesses to inform the attainment of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim for universal access to safely managed water supply and sanitation.
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This review responds to the request of the Ministry of Employment and Social Protection for a diagnostics of the structure and fiscal sustainability of social protection and labor expenditures in Niger.
... Exibir mais + It also seeks to provide the Dispositif National de Gestion et Prévention des Crises Alimentaires (DNPGCA) and other stakeholders with detailed information on programs, spending and coverage over the 2008-2017 period. Finally, it explores ways to improve the efficiency and impact of public spending on poverty reduction and response to shocks through social protection. The review covers the main social protection programs in Niger, including shock-response mechanisms. Programs are classified into four categories: social safety nets, social insurance, labor market, and general subsidies. Social safety nets comprise unconditional and conditional cash transfers, food and in-kind transfers, school feeding programs, public works, nutrition programs and fee waivers. The review uses the term ‘core’ safety nets to specifically refer to multi-year and predictable transfers, typically accompanied by measures to build people’s resilience over time.
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This review responds to the request of the Ministry of Employment and Social Protection for a diagnostics of the structure and fiscal sustainability of social protection and labor expenditures in Niger.
... Exibir mais + It also seeks to provide the Dispositif National de Gestion et Prévention des Crises Alimentaires (DNPGCA) and other stakeholders with detailed information on programs, spending and coverage over the 2008-2017 period. Finally, it explores ways to improve the efficiency and impact of public spending on poverty reduction and response to shocks through social protection. The review covers the main social protection programs in Niger, including shock-response mechanisms. Programs are classified into four categories: social safety nets, social insurance, labor market, and general subsidies. Social safety nets comprise unconditional and conditional cash transfers, food and in-kind transfers, school feeding programs, public works, nutrition programs and fee waivers. The review uses the term ‘core’ safety nets to specifically refer to multi-year and predictable transfers, typically accompanied by measures to build people’s resilience over time.
Exibir menos -
Supporting jobs for youth in Niger means addressing difficult questions of the right level of ambition, of reaching the necessary scale, and of trade-offs with funding for poverty reduction.
... Exibir mais + Jobs policy for youth in Niger faces a difficult balancing act. It must be grounded in the reality that given the very modest starting point, economic opportunities for most Nigeriens are likely to remain limited in the medium term. At the same time, jobs policy needs to contend with the fact that young Nigeriens aspire for a different economic life than that lived by their elders. The challenge is thus to determine what kind of support is realistically feasible and can provide a good-enough perspective for young Nigeriens. Secondly, policy must ask whether the actions envisaged can make a real difference at scale, given the very big needs for better jobs. Finally, in an environment where poverty remains pervasive, it is important to acknowledge that providing jobs support specifically for youth may mean forgoing other investments that may be more efficient in reducing poverty. To make informed choices on these questions, policy makers may need to understand clearly the effectiveness of different jobs support modalities, their appropriateness in addressing Niger`s challenges, and their cost efficiency. This study seeks to provide such an assessment. The purpose of this study is to review the effectiveness of projects that supported jobs for youth in Niger over the years 2007-2018.
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Documento de Trabalho (Série Numerada) 137420 JAN 01, 2019
Social protection programs, common in developing countries, can be wide ranging. Expenditures on social schemes are large, but their effectiveness and ability to act as safety nets against shocks can be limited.
... Exibir mais + This paper devises a tractable empirical framework to explore several hypotheses in social protection schemes in Niger. The analyses document two important results. First, non-poverty status and household consumption expenditures decline remarkably when exposed to extreme shocks, that is, declines between 31 and 48 percentage points and 24,278 and 47,549 CFA, respectively. In response, affected households employ a vector of strategies to deal with realized shocks, ranging from the use of livestock holdings to doing nothing. There is evidence of substitution across the shock-strategy set over time. Engaging in migration as a coping mechanism leads to worse household outcomes. This result can be explained by theories of asymmetric information between migrants and their families, and unfavorable labor market conditions at migrants' destination. Second, social transfers are crucial only in the second quarter of the calendar year. Social assistance provided within the second quarter appear to be effective on average and significantly dampens the impact of shocks on households' consumption and vulnerability. The paper interprets this finding as evidence against the long-standing incentive-hypothesis that providing social assistance is a disincentive for households to engage in possible coping strategies, and makes them more sensitive to external shocks for behavioral reasons. The results have important implications for the design and delivery of social assistance programs.
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Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS8455 MAY 29, 2018
Social protection programs, common in developing countries, can be wide ranging. Expenditures on social schemes are large, but their effectiveness and ability to act as safety nets against shocks can be limited.
... Exibir mais + This paper devises a tractable empirical framework to explore several hypotheses in social protection schemes in Niger. The analyses document two important results: first, non-poverty status and household consumption expenditures decline remarkably when exposed to extreme shocks, that is, declines between 31 and 48 percentage points and 24,278 and 47,549 CFA, respectively. In response, affected households employ a vector of strategies to deal with realized shocks, ranging from the use of livestock holdings to doing nothing. There is evidence of substitution across the shock-strategy set over time. Engaging in migration as a coping mechanism leads to worse household outcomes. This result can be explained by theories of asymmetric information between migrants and their families, and unfavorable labor market conditions at migrants’ destination. Second, social transfers are crucial only in the second quarter of the calendar year. Social assistance provided within the second quarter appear to be effective on average and significantly dampens the impact of shocks on households’ consumption and vulnerability. The paper interprets this finding as evidence against the longstanding incentive-hypothesis that providing social assistance is a disincentive for households to engage in possible coping strategies, and makes them more sensitive to external shocks for behavioral reasons. The results have important implications for the design and delivery of social assistance programs.
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Documento de Trabalho (Série Numerada) 129586 MAY 01, 2018
The methods to select safety net beneficiaries are the subject of frequent policy debates. This paper presents the results from a randomized experiment analyzing how efficiency, legitimacy, and short-term program effectiveness vary across widely used targeting methods.
... Exibir mais + The experiment was embedded in the roll-out of a national cash transfer program in Niger. Eligible villages were randomly assigned to have beneficiary households selected through community-based targeting, a proxy-means test, or a formula designed to identify the food-insecure. Proxy-means testing is found to outperform other methods in identifying households with lower consumption per capita. The methods perform similarly against other welfare benchmarks. Legitimacy is high across all methods, but local populations have a slight preference for formula-based approaches. Manipulation and information imperfections are found to affect community-based targeting, although triangulation across multiple selection committees mitigates the related risks. Finally, short-term program impacts on food security are largest among households selected by proxy-means testing. Overall, the differences in performance across targeting methods are small relative to the overall level of exclusion stemming from limited funding for social programs.
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Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS8412 APR 18, 2018
Business enterprises and non-agricultural startups in rural economies play crucial roles in ending the vicious cycle of poverty. The propagation of business enterprises are, however, subject to a high degree of institutional frictions and vacuums e.g., information; but mobile infrastructure which has the externality of flowing information can help overcome most of these vacuums through reduced fixed costs, lower cost of information or search, and outreach to a broader customer base.
... Exibir mais + This paper studies the effects of mobile infrastructure ("mobile use activity") on propagation of rural business enterprises in Niger. Instrumental variable estimates exploit the exogenous introduction of the 2013 national mandatory SIM registration reform which provides a quasi-experimental set-up for mobile use and activity. The mandate deactivated about one-third of all existing prepaid SIMs and led to a remarkable decline in mobile use activity. The results suggest that there is economically substantial effect of mobile infrastructure on propagation of business enterprises. Moving a household with mobile use activity to a no mobile use activity environment due to SIM deactivation results in roughly 33.1 percent points decline in the likelihood of engaging in non-agricultural business enterprises. Most of this effect come from three major sources: households' ownership of a business service or center; ownership of small income generating activities; and involvement in the transformation of agricultural products. There is suggestive evidence that the reform's impact is disproportionately larger for women. With the expansion of mandatory SIM registration reforms in developing countries, the findings have extended implications in these contexts.
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Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS8278 DEC 18, 2017
Business enterprises and non-agricultural startups in rural economies play crucial roles in ending the vicious cycle of poverty. The propagation of business enterprises is, however, subject to a high degree of institutional frictions and vacuums e.g., information; but mobile infrastructure which has the externality of flowing information can help overcome most of these vacuums through reduced fixed costs, lower cost of information or search, and outreach to a broader customer base.
... Exibir mais + This paper studies the effects of mobile infrastructure (‘mobile use activity’) on propagation of rural business enterprises in Niger. Instrumental variable estimates exploit the exogenous introduction of the 2013 national mandatory SIM registration reform which provides a quasi-experimental set-up for mobile use and activity. The mandate deactivated about one-third of all existing prepaid SIMs and led to a remarkable decline in mobile use activity. The results suggest that there is economically substantial effect of mobile infrastructure on propagation of business enterprises. Moving a household with mobile use activity to a no mobile use activity environment due to SIM deactivation results in roughly 33.1 percent points decline in the likelihood of engaging in non-agricultural business enterprises. Most of this effect come from three major sources: households’ ownership of a business service or center; ownership of small income generating activities; and involvement in the transformation of agricultural products. There is suggestive evidence that the reform’s impact is disproportionately larger for women. With the expansion of mandatory SIM registration reforms in developing countries, the findings have extended implications in these contexts.
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Documento de Trabalho (Série Numerada) 125616 DEC 01, 2017
The first 1,000 days of a child's life are critical to healthy development. In poor countries, governments and international development groups are trying to design programs to give families, particularly mothers, the knowledge and services they need so that babies and young children get the healthcare, nutritious foods, and stimulation necessary for the best possible start in life.
... Exibir mais + Delivering these programs isn't easy, especially when extreme poverty, climatic shocks such as droughts, and a lack of basic services often mean families don't have the resources to purchase healthy food or the ability to get adequate healthcare for their children. Experts are looking at twinning cash transfers for the poorest with measures to improve parents' knowledge about what they can do to promote child development. But what does it take to ensure that the messages are effective? And even when women's knowledge improves, does this lead to better child development in countries with weak health and educational services?
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The Service Delivery Indicators (SDI) program aims to document what results are obtained through public spending in the health and education sector.
... Exibir mais + The focus is on the individual dimensions, whether effort (presence and workload) or knowledge (diagnostic accuracy, adherence to clinical guidelines, and case management). These dimensions are not routinely measured and reported publicly in a comparable fashion, yet are among the factors that influence policy outcomes in health. The remainder of this document is organized into three major sections: methodology and implementation; results; and implications for Niger. Annexes present details of the sampling strategy, definitions of the indicators, and additional results. A final section presents the references consulted or cited.
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The Service Delivery Indicators (SDI) program aims to document what results are obtained through public spending in the health and education sector.
... Exibir mais + The focus is on the individual dimensions, whether effort (presence and workload) or knowledge (diagnostic accuracy, adherence to clinical guidelines, and case management). These dimensions are not routinely measured and reported publicly in a comparable fashion, yet are among the factors that influence policy outcomes in health. The remainder of this document is organized into three major sections: methodology and implementation; results; and implications for Niger. Annexes present details of the sampling strategy, definitions of the indicators, and additional results. A final section presents the references consulted or cited.
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