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Using recent Demographic Health Survey data for Bangladesh and the neighboring Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, this paper reexamines the determinants of child wasting and maternal anemia. The findings bear out the importance of commonly cited factors, such as mother's education and age, household wealth, and child birth order. However, the findings also highlight significant and large regional differences between Indian states and Bangladeshi provinces. For example, the results for Jharkhand state in India and Barisal province in Bangladesh indicate that controlling for those commonly cited determinants, the poorest, least-educated mothers and their children in Barisal have better health outcomes than the wealthiest, best-educated counterparts in Jharkhand. Mapping analysis of the spatial variations in child wasting and maternal anemia shows clear patterns of clustering over large areas that frequently overlap state/province and national boundaries. Possible sources of these striking differences include spatially differentiated prices and availability of critical nutrients; dietary preferences related to religion and ethnicity; nutrition education; and administration of public health and nutrition policy.

Child Health --- Child Wasting --- Early Child and Children's Health --- Education --- Educational Sciences --- Health Care Services Industry --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Industry --- Maternal Anemia --- Nutrition --- Pregnancy --- Reproductive Health

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This paper presents the results of an impact evaluation of a performance-based financing pilot in rural areas of two regions of Tajikistan. Primary care facilities were given financial incentives conditional on general quality and the quantity provided of selected services related to reproductive, maternal and child health, and hypertension-related services. The study relies on a difference-in-difference design and large-scale household and facility-based surveys conducted before the launch of the pilot in 2015 and after three years of implementation. The performance-based financing pilot had positive impacts on quality of care. Significant impacts are measured on facility infrastructure, infection prevention and control standards, availability of equipment and medical supplies, provider competency, provider satisfaction, and even some elements of the content of care, measured through direct observations of provider-patient interactions. While the communities in the performance-based financing districts reported higher satisfaction with the local primary care facilities, and despite the improvements in quality, the findings suggest moderate effects on utilization: among the incentivized utilization indicators, only timely postnatal care and blood pressure measurements for adults were significantly impacted.

Child Health --- Early Child and Children's Health --- Health Care --- Health Care Services Industry --- Health Economics and Finance --- Health Service Delivery --- Health Service Management and Delivery --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Hypertension --- Industry --- Performance-Based Financing --- Reproductive Health

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This paper looks at how changing food prices affect child undernutrition in Ethiopia. It derives height for age (stunting) and weight for height (wasting) as indicators of child undernutrition from the two most recent years of the Livings Standards Measurement Survey and utilizes market prices for key cereals, teff, wheat, and maize at the zone level across all regions of the country. Using a panel data fixed effects model, the analysis finds that, contrary to previous studies, rising crop prices are positively associated with improved child stunting rates for children between ages 6 months and 5 years, while the results for wasting are not conclusive. These results suggest that across the board policy interventions that seek to suppress cereal price increases may have adverse effects on poverty reduction in the long term by undermining potentially positive impacts on child nutrition.

Child Undernutrition --- Early Child and Children's Health --- Food Prices --- Health Care Services Industry --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Industry --- Inequality --- Livings Standards Measurement Survey --- Nutrition --- Poverty Reduction --- Reproductive Health --- Stunting --- Wasting

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Although decelerating from 6.9 percent the previous year, economic growth in 2018 is estimated to remain robust at 6.5 percent. The slowdown in growth in 2018 has been partly due to a combination of the following domestic factors : (i) the severe floods that hit the country during July - September 2018, which adversely affected agricultural production and damaged infrastructure in several provinces; (ii) the weak performance of the mining sector despite higher commodity prices; and (iii) continued fiscal consolidation, which contributed to slower credit growth. These downside factors offset the gains from the industry sector driven by the expansion of construction activities and electricity exports, coupled with robust growth in wholesale and retail trade. There is evidence of increasing job creation between 2010 and 2017. According to the 2017 Labor Force Survey, wage jobs are estimated to have gradually increased since 2010. This has resulted in 28 percent of households situated mostly in urban areas reporting an increase in income. As a result, ownership of consumption goods among the more affluent households increased faster than in poorer, mainly rural, households. Therefore, while poverty is still expected to decline modestly, inequality is likely to have increased. The government intends to remain on the path of fiscal consolidation, with the deficit estimated to decrease to 4.7 percent of GDP in 2018 from 5.3 percent in 2017, owing to some improvement in revenue collection and expenditure restraint. Improved revenue performance has been primarily driven by higher excise revenues due to increasing oil imports coupled with a higher price of oil. Other drivers include an increase in income taxes, dividend earnings, and other non-tax revenues. Strengthened revenue administration, such as the use of electronic tax payment platforms, has also supported revenue mobilization for certain tax types. Public outlays have been rationalized through tighter control of the public wage bill and downward adjustment of non-wage current spending. These measures offset higher interest payments and the increase in capital spending financed by external loans. Fiscal consolidation is estimated to have slowed the accumulation of public debt in 2018, though not enough to reverse the rising debt-GDP ratio, which is estimated to increase from 60.1 to 60.6 percent of GDP between 2017 and 2018.

Child Health --- Early Child and Children's Health --- Economic Growth --- Education --- Education for all --- Fiscal and Monetary Policy --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Human Capital --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Monetary Policy --- Poverty Reduction --- Trade

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With Malawi's economic growth recovering and single digit inflation, the Government has a keyopportunity to rein in fiscal deficits and reduce domestic debt. If it can better control domestic debt levels, the Government could increasingly move towards creating the conditions for the privatesector to increase investment, which can drive growth and job creation. To support this, the Government needs to develop a track record of achieving sustainable fiscal deficits in order to contain and reverse the escalating domestic debt burden, to contain interest rates and avoidcrowding out private sector investment, and to increase public investment. Malawi's economy is projected to grow by 4.4 percent in 2019, up from 3.5 percent in 2018. Agricultural activity rebounded in 2019 due to favorable weather conditions, which offset the negative effects from Tropical Cyclone Idai in parts of the southern region of the country. Crop production was generally strong, particularly in the case of maize, with production increasing by 25.7 percent. This supported overall economic growth, despite a decline in tobacco production. However, the ongoing political impasse, with widescale demonstrations that have continued since May 2019, has constrained business activity and increased uncertainty, weighing on investment. The Government missed the revised fiscal deficit target in FY2018/19. The fiscal deficit increased to 6.5 percent of GDP, higher than the revised target of 5.8 percent. The impact of election-related expenses,increased interest payments and costs associated with the disaster response pushed recurrentexpenditure beyond targeted levels by 1 percent of GDP. This was partially offset by under-execution of development expenditure, which was not enough to keep the fiscal deficit to 5.8 percent of GDP. Poor revenue performance, which was lower by 0.5 percent of GDP, compounded the problem.

Agriculture --- Debt --- Early Child and Children's Health --- Economic Growth --- Fiscal and Monetary Policy --- Food Security --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Human Capital --- Job Creation --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Maternal Health --- Monetary Policy --- Nutrition --- Poverty Reduction --- Prenatal Care --- Reproductive Health --- Stunting