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Given the success of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs elsewhere, in 2010 the Government of Tanzania rolled out a pilot CCT program in three districts. Its aim was to see if, using a model relying on communities to target beneficiaries and deliver payments, the program could improve outcomes for the poor the way centrally-run CCT programs have in other contexts. The program provided cash payments to poor households, but conditioned payments on complying with certain health and education requirements. Given scarce resources, the Government randomly selected 40 out of 80 eligible villages

Transfer payments --- Tanzania --- Social policy. --- Economic policy. --- Government transfer payments --- Payments, Transfer --- Tansania --- Tānzāniyā --- United Republic of Tanzania --- United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar --- Tʻan-sang-ni-ya --- Obʺedinennai︠a︡ Respublika Tanzanii︠a︡ --- Tanzanier --- Tanganyika and Zanzibar --- Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania --- تنزانيا --- Танзанія --- Tanzanii︠a︡ --- Аб'яднаная Рэспубліка Танзанія --- Ab'i︠a︡dnanai︠a︡ Rėspublika Tanzanii︠a︡ --- Танзания --- Обединена република Танзания --- Obedinena republika Tanzanii︠a︡ --- Τανζανία --- Ενωμένη Δημοκρατία της Τανζανίας --- Henōmenē Dēmokratia tēs Tanzanias --- 탄자니아 --- Tʻanjania --- タンザニア --- Объединённая Республика Танзания --- Танзанија --- Tanzanija --- Уједињена Република Танзанија --- Ujedinjena Republika Tanzanija --- Об'єднана Республіка Танзанія --- Ob'i︠e︡dnana Respublika Tanzanii︠a︡ --- 坦桑尼亚 --- Tansangniya --- Expenditures, Public --- Income distribution --- National income --- Accounting --- Tanganyika --- Zanzibar --- Tanzanie

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The 2014 Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in West Africa is the largest to date by far. Ebola Virus Disease causes disproportionate mortality among the working-age population, resulting in far more mortality for parents of young children than other health crises. This paper combines data on the age distribution of current and projected mortality from Ebola with the fertility distribution of adults in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, to estimate the likely impact of the epidemic on the number of orphans in these three countries. Using the latest mortality estimates (from February 11, 2015), it is estimated that more than 9,600 children have lost one or both parents to Ebola Virus Disease. The absolute numbers of orphans created by the Ebola epidemic are significant, but represent a small fraction (1.4 percent) of the existing orphan burden in the affected countries. Ebola is unlikely to increase the numbers of orphans beyond extended family networks' capacities to absorb them. Nonetheless, the pressures of caring for increased numbers of orphans may result in lower quality of care. These estimates should be used to guide policy to support family networks to improve the capacity to provide high quality care to orphans.

Education --- Governance --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Urban Development

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In the past two years alone, at least six systematic reviews or meta-analyses have examined the interventions that improve learning outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. However, these reviews have sometimes reached starkly different conclusions: reviews, in turn, recommend information technology, interventions that provide information about school quality, or even basic infrastructure (such as desks) to achieve the greatest improvements in student learning. This paper demonstrates that these divergent conclusions are largely driven by differences in the samples of research incorporated by each review. The top recommendations in a given review are often driven by the results of evaluations not included in other reviews. Of 227 studies with student learning results, the most inclusive review incorporates less than half of the total studies. Variance in classification also plays a role. Across the reviews, the three classes of programs that are recommended with some consistency (albeit under different names) are pedagogical interventions (including computer-assisted learning) that tailor teaching to student skills; repeated teacher training interventions, often linked to another pedagogical intervention; and improving accountability through contracts or performance incentives, at least in certain contexts. Future reviews will be most useful if they combine narrative review with meta-analysis, conduct more exhaustive searches, and maintain low aggregation of intervention categories.

Education --- Education for All --- Effective Schools & Teachers --- Human Capital --- Impact Evaluation --- Primary Education --- Secondary Education --- Tertiary Education

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Despite dramatic global gains in access to education, 130 million girls of school age remain out of school. Among those who do enter, too many do not gain the essential skills to succeed after they complete their schooling. Previous efforts to synthesize evidence on how to improve educational outcomes for girls have tended to focus on interventions that are principally targeted to girls, such as girls' latrines or girls' scholarships. But if general, non-targeted interventions-those that benefit both girls and boys-significantly improve girls' education, then focusing only on girl-targeted interventions may miss some of the best investments for improving educational opportunities for girls in absolute terms. This review brings together evidence from 270 educational interventions from 177 studies in 54 low- and middle-income countries and identifies their impacts on girls, regardless of whether the interventions specifically target girls. The review finds that to improve access and learning, general interventions deliver gains for girls that are comparable to girl-targeted interventions. At the same time, many more general interventions have been tested, providing a broader menu of options for policy makers. General interventions have similar impacts for girls as for boys. Many of the most effective interventions to improve access for girls are household-based (such as cash transfer programs), and many of the most effective interventions to improve learning for girls involve improving the pedagogy of teachers. Girl-targeted interventions may make the most sense when addressing constraints that are unique to girls.

Economic Development --- Education --- Education for All --- Enrollment --- Gender --- Gender and Education --- Girls --- Impact Evaluation

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As evidence from rigorous impact evaluations grows in development, there have been more calls to complement impact evaluation analysis with cost analysis, so that policy makers can make investment decisions based on costs as well as impacts. This paper discusses important considerations for implementing cost-effectiveness analysis in the policy making process. The analysis is applied in the context of education interventions, although the findings generalize to other areas. First, the paper demonstrates a systematic method for characterizing the sensitivity of impact estimates. Second, the concept of context-specificity is applied to cost measurement: program costs vary greatly across contexts-both within and across countries-and with program complexity. The paper shows how adapting a single cost ingredient across settings dramatically shifts cost-effectiveness measures. Third, the paper provides evidence that interventions with fewer beneficiaries tend to have higher per-beneficiary costs, resulting in potential cost overestimates when extrapolating to large-scale applications. At the same time, recall bias may result in cost underestimates. The paper also discusses other challenges in measuring and extrapolating cost-effectiveness measures. For cost-effectiveness analysis to be useful, policy makers will require detailed, comparable, and timely cost reporting, as well as significant effort to ensure costs are relevant to the local environment.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis --- Education --- Education for All --- Impact Evaluation --- Public Sector Development --- Teaching and Learning --- Tertiary Education --- Transport --- Transport Economics Policy and Planning