Despite growing aid volumes, financing development is becoming more difficult, not less. Better information on private finance flows will help developing-country governments craft more effective policies. Without stronger government leadership, well-intentioned but diverging donor approaches...

Despite growing aid volumes, financing development is becoming more difficult, not less. Better information on private finance flows will help developing-country governments craft more effective policies. Without stronger government leadership, well-intentioned but diverging donor approaches...

The idea of local “ownership” of development policies is now popular among the donor community, but without a reduction of conditionality on aid disbursements, enhanced ownership will be difficult to achieve. While there are still strong reasons for attaching certain kinds of conditionality...

“Ownership” makes aid work better when recipients can choose between policy options. Governments need to encourage home-grown development strategies and free local policy debates. Policy conditions on aid don’t work.

Donors, aid agencies and recipient governments are having a hard time implementing their promises on aid. Options based on a better understanding of their diverse priorities would help make the aid system more effective. Policy makers pursuing poverty reduction and other development goals should...

Informal employment is a widespread phenomenon in Romania and a key challenge for the country’s development. Policies should target two distinct groups: those who voluntarily opt out of the formal system and those with no alternative. Transforming people’s attitudes towards the state and...

Sustainable development requires well co-ordinated and functioning formal and informal institutions. In developing countries, courts, regulations and formal conventions are often observed in the breach or fail to function. By default, informal institutions – tradition, culture, family...

The financing of health care is a major challenge for developing countries, especially since deficiencies in national health systems specifically harm the poor. Innovative financing mechanisms, such as private health insurance, offer benefits and risks. Their implementation requires caution on...

Have you ever wondered how many women are in paid employment compared to men? We know they get unequal wages, but just how unequal is their pay? Meanwhile, who are the managers, and what is their gender makeup? Are women and men entering the higher levels of state in equal numbers?