Arsenic contamination in shallow groundwater aquifers remains a major barrier to providing access to safe drinking water in Bangladesh. Chronic exposure to arsenic has been shown to cause serious health impacts, including various cancers, skin lesions, neurological damage, heart disease, and...

Water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions are increasingly recognized as essential for improving nutritional outcomes in children. Emerging literature describes the negative effects of poor sanitation on child growth. However, limited evidence has shown a link between water quality and...

International migration for temporary employment is key to South Asia's development path, in terms of both jobs and remittance flows. Overseas markets are a critical source of employment for South Asian economies that may not be able to absorb workers sufficiently or quickly enough into the...

Between 2001 and 2019, Bhutan made significant economic progress with an average annual growth rate of 7 percent. This progress was accompanied by significant improvements in monetary and nonmonetary standards of living. However, recent shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic and global macroeconomic...

Dual practice, health professionals working simultaneously in the public and private sectors, is perceived to negatively impact quality of health care. Though a range of policy options exists to regulate dual practice, little is known about the impact of different options on quality of care....

Whether and the extent to which social norms matter for women's labor force participation has been shown to vary by context. This paper presents rigorous evidence on how these relationships hold in the case of Nepal, where female labor force participation remains among the lowest in the world....

Amid increasing and overlapping crises as well as mega-trends such as demographic transitions and technological advancements, it is important to re-examine the role and delivery of social protection in South Asia. Against this backdrop, the report "Rethinking Social Protection in South Asia:...

Despite its growing popularity, evidence that volunteering enhances civic values and social cohesion among different communities remains limited in developing countries. This study presents novel evidence from Lebanon on the impact of offering a volunteering program that consisted of...