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Opening the Black Box: Contextual Drivers of Social Accountability fills an important knowledge gap by providing guidance on how to assess contextual drivers of social accountability effectiveness. This publication aims to more strategically support citizen engagement at the country level and for a specific issue or problem. The report proposes a novel framing of social accountability as the interplay of constitutive elements: citizen action and state action, supported by three enabling levers: civic mobilization, interface and information. For each of these constitutive elements, the report identifies 'drivers' of contextual effectiveness which take into account a broad range of contextual ...
The report reviews how citizens can influence education, health and social protection services through access to information and opportunities to hold providers accountable. It takes stock of international evidence and experience from projects supported by the World Bank to identify knowledge gaps, key questions and areas for further work.
Results from this study of the extent and implications of attrition for three longitudinal household surveys from Bolivia, Kenya, and South Africa suggest that multivariate estimates of behavioral relations may not be biased because of high attrition. This suggests that demographers and other social scientists can proceed with collecting longitudinal data to control for unobserved fixed factors and to capture dynamic relationships.
The development of government bond markets and, in particular, their currency composition have recently received much interest, partly because of their relation with financial crises. The authors study the determinants of the size and currency composition of government bond markets for a panel of industrial and developing countries. They find that countries with larger economies, greater domestic investor bases, and more flexible exchange rate regimes have larger domestic currency bond markets, while smaller economies rely more on foreign currency bonds. Better institutional frameworks and macroeconomic fundamentals enhance both domestic currency bond markets and increase countries' ability to issue foreign currency bonds, while they raise the share of foreign exchange bonds.
Using data on mergers and acquisitions involving Korean firms, the authors identify which sectors and firms attracted foreign investment after the liberalization of investment of activity at the end of 1997. They find that domestic acquisitions are similar to foreign acquisitions by sector (of both the target and the acquiring firm), but that international transactions are larger than Korean transactions. This suggests that consolidation is a two-stage process: Firms consolidate first domestically, then internationally. The authors also find that foreign investment is focused on high-value-added sectors, on larger and more profitable firms, on firms with low debt, and on firms that export a large share of output. Their results suggest that growth induces foreign investment.
Developing-country governance and its monitoring have risen to the top of the development agenda. This mounting interest is in response to compelling evidence that links governance to development performance-policy quality, public service provision, the investment climate, and the extent of corruption. 'Governance Reform: Bridging, Monitoring, and Action' lays out a broad framework for analyzing and monitoring governance in developing countries. It identifies fourteen core indicators for governance monitoring both broad measures of overall patterns and specific 'actionable' measures that can be used to guide reforms and track progress. The book also summarizes good practices for reforming pu...
This report examines the role of incentives, trust, and engagement as critical determinants of service delivery performance in MENA countries. Focusing on education and health, the report illustrates how the weak external and internal accountability undermines policy implementation and service delivery performance and how such a cycle of poor performance can be counteracted. Case studies of local success reveal the importance of both formal and informal accountability relationships and the role of local leadership in inspiring and institutionalizing incentives toward better service delivery performance. Enhancing services for MENA citizens requires forging a stronger social contract among pu...
Builds on micro-level critiques of transitional justice to debate a more comprehensive alternative at the level of theory and practice.
In South Africa land is one of the most significant and controversial topics. Land restitution has been a complex, multidimensional process that has failed to meet the expectations with which it was initially launched in 1994. Land, Memory, Reconstruction, and Justice brings together a wealth of topical material and case studies by leading experts in the field who present a rich mix of perspectives from politics, sociology, geography, social anthropology, law, history, and agricultural economics. The collection addresses both the material and the symbolic dimensions of land claims, in rural and urban contexts, and explores the complex intersection of issues confronting the restitution program, from the promotion of livelihoods to questions of rights, identity, and transitional justice.