The list of all suggested enduring questions submitted to 3ieENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT Biodiversity
- How can sustainable use of coastal ecosystems in a context of high ecological vulnerability be ensured?
- What incentive systems encourage local populations to preserve biodiversity?
- How can local varieties be promoted as the basis for high-yielding varieties?
- How can evaluators of biodiversity conservation interventions best cope with the significant lack of scientific data on biological systems, and the high expense of obtaining this data?
Climate change
- What are the most effective Greenhouse gas mitigation strategies vis a vis particular sectors?
- How does access to land & other natural resources affect and climate change in rural communities?
- How and in what path is possible to change the western style of life since now we know that he is to a large extent responsible by the environmental damage?
- How do the environmental benefits of behavior change interventions for Western consumers (e.g. food miles) compare to the costs to developing country producers?
- How should the benefits of adaptation interventions be valued given the uncertainty of the occurrence of the events to which they are adapting?
- How do the environmental benefits of behavior change interventions for Western consumers (e.g. food miles) compare to the costs to developing country producers?
- How should the benefits of adaptation interventions be valued given the uncertainty of the occurrence of the events to which they are adapting?
Environmental policies and institutions
- In term of the ownership structures, can communal or leasing systems provide a more inclusive model than ISHS?
- In term of the financial arrangements, can micro-credit systems, subsidy increase, down-payment reduction, or providing solar home systems free of charge, help poor people gain access to SHS?
- Does public participation provide a means to improving the governance of the Solar Home Systems?
- How effective have reforestation projects been?
- How to reduce poverty within the context of environmental sustainability?
Land management
- What has been the impact of deforestation on peat-land in Indonesia?
- What has been the impact of the Brazilian policy on deforestation?
- What incentives encourage sustainable land use?
- What are the most efficient ways to promote sustainable commercial forest management?
Pollution management and environmental health
- What cost effective measures can be undertaken to reduce urban pollution?
- How can firewood consumption and/or charcoal production be made more efficient?
- How to bring in climate safe poverty reduction conditions in majority of the rural areas of the south, where the farmers are keen to change in to commercial crops that are energy, water and chemical intensive?
- Will an Air Pollution Tax on all vehicles entering cities whose revenues are used to aid the poor reduce pollution? Increase development outcomes?
- What are cost effective measures to improve indoor air quality?
- What are the health costs of industrial water pollution?
Water resources management- What are the best ways to provide clean water to a community?
- Are point-of-use (iodine tablets, water purification solutions) effective when available and affordable (or free), or are larger community-wide interventions needed?
- How to provide safe drinking water and sanitation for all when water resources are shrinking or in conflict (and person hours are lost due to bad sanitation provision)?
- What mechanisms can secure supply of clean and safe water to a majority of global citizens?
- Why do some sections of society oppose water supply reforms, especially in Latin American countries?
- What are the best incentives to reduce pollution of drinking water resources?
- What is the optimum means to provide proper toilet/sanitary facilities and drinking water facilities near slums?
- What are the relative costs and benefits of community versus household water connections?
- Does the community total sanitation approach work?
- Does improved water supply have to be accompanied by IEC to be effective?
- Can the private sector provide sustainable water services?
Other environment and natural resources management
- What policies will bring about access to cleaner energy by poor households?
- How can the move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources be increased?
- What are the significance of the human population on the ecosystem?
- What kinds of institutions lead to more sustainable use of natural resources?
- What are the linkages between disasters, environment and poverty?
FINANCIAL AND PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENTRegulation and competition policy
- What are the practical, tested, transparent monitoring systems?
Small and medium enterprise support
- Are many African firms too small and if so why?
- What are the true economic and social impacts of microfinance services -- particularly savings and credit and insurance -- to the very poor?
- Do different approaches to micro lending (e.g., pure credit vs. empowerment approaches) have different outcomes?
- Which approach to micro finance seems most powerful with regard to economic gains?
- Which approach to micro finance seems most powerful with regard to status gains?
- Which approach to micro finance seems most powerful with regard to intrahousehold changes in power, resource control, and decision making?
- What is the measurable impact of microfinance on the local economy, ie above the household level?
- Does microfinance reduce poverty?
- Is there a trade off between commercialistaion of microfinance and poverty reduction?
- What is the impact of competition on the poverty reducing effects of microfinance?
- Is there a tradeoff between outreach and sustainability of microfinance?
- What is the implication of the current commercialisation of microfinance for the traditional aim of microfinance institutions to provide credit for the poor?
- What is the optimum means to promote small scale enterprises at the household level?
- What are the benefits of providing assistance to local herbal gardens/ local growth of medicinal plants?
- How to improve capacity, productivity and hence real income per worker in small and medium enterprises undertaken by the poor?
- What is the optimal size of micro finance loans in rural settings?
- Are complementary business services necessary for microfinance loans to be successful?
- What number of different loan products maximizes impact before becoming unmanageable for the institution and confusing for the client?
- What other products, such as savings and insurance, can be effective complements or substitutes for loans?
- To what extent do collateral requirements or collateral substitutes discourage the poor from participating in MFIs, and to what extent do they raise repayment rates?
- How effective are collateral substitutes compared to traditional collateral?
- Is entrepreneurial activity essential for maintaining repayment and ensuring impact on the household?
- To what extent do business skills training help clients manage their enterprises and bolster repayment rates?
- Why do so many micro-entrepreneurs seem to stagnate at a certain business size, and what can be done to help them expand, employ others, and open additional locations?
- Recent evidence from the Philippines and the success of ASA and Grameen II has raised questions about the extent to which high repayments rest on group liability. Can individual liability work as well, or nearly as well?
- To what extent do high interest rates drive out the poor?
- Does subsidized credit “crowd out” market-priced services from competing MFIs?
State enterprise/bank restructuring and privatization
- Does contracting the private sector for service delivery increase equitable coverage?
- How can we achieve successful privatization of the public sector, still avoiding poor administrative systems & poor selection of civil servants?
- Does the private sector reach the poor better than the public sector?
Other financial and private sector development
- What is the optimal means of providing transparent, accountable micro/macro finance for empowerment?
- What is the optimal means of providing crop insurance and produce 'buy back' guarantees?
- When is a low interest - defined at 4%- guaranteed loan facility the optimum form of financing for the poor and does on-line tracking increase the benefits?
- What variations in financial services/products increase farmers participation and savings rates?
- What is the impact of savings and insurance vehicles on the lives of poor people?
- What kind of financial services, if any, when offered to the poor, have a sustained and long-term effect on increasing household income?
- What are the constraints faced by the poor to access finance?
- What services are needed to improve the poor's access to finance?
- What institutional arrangements are best suited to improve access to finance?
- How can government subsidize the cost of borrowing?
- Could the Grameen model be replicated?
- How can access to assets be made more equal?
- What size loan is best for serving the dual needs of the client and the institution?
- Does allowing the poor to use credit for any type of expenditure serve them best? Or, does loosening the requirement encourage further indebtedness without a means of escape?
- Do high interest rates on microcredit attract riskier clients?
- What is the impact of microfinance on the poor?
- Does microfinance work for the very poor?
- What specialized services, if any, serve the “poorest of the poor?”
- Does one need to provide financial literacy along with the loan in order to be effective?
- What types of marketing for microfinance products are most effective at increasing take-up of services among the poor?
- To what extent does offering credit and savings in poor communities deepen access and increase welfare?
- Do programs that conduct meetings in the field but require clients to make repayments at the bank branch have lower client retention?
- Can provision of microfinance services in remote areas be profitable?
- Do women have higher microcredit repayment rates than men? If so, what program designs can work best to encourage men to repay their loans?
- What products and policies can generate the greatest increase in empowerment of female clients?
- How does population density affect the ability of the private sector (formal, informal) to establish a presence?
HUMAN DEVELOPMENTChild health
- In light of the recent research highlighting the importance of early socio-communicative interaction between mother and infant/young child (0-3) and the mediation of toxic stress, what is the most cost effective way to include effective child rearing practices with child health and nutrition services?
- What are the short and long-term impacts of Early Childhood Development programs on child and community outcomes? What type of programming is most cost-effective given particular contextual factors and constraints?
- What is the most efficacious and effective programmatic approach to care for mother and baby in the immediate and early postnatal period, in order to reduce deaths during the first week of life from birth asphyxia, prematurity/low birth weight and infections?
- What is an effective community postnatal care package(s) delivered via an existing health system or large scale program to reduce neonatal mortality and improve newborn care practices?
- How can 100% coverage of mothers and newborns with immediate and early postnatal care be achieved?
- How can family planning services and pre- and post-natal services for women be increased?
- How do we reduce infant mortality in Africa?
- What is the best means to provide orphans with healthcare?
- Are child-focused development partnerships important, and if yes, how can they be made to work better?
- Which interventions prevent child nutritional status in developing countries falling behind in the first two years’ of life?
- How does use of child care in developing countries affect child health amongst pre-schoolers?
- Which interventions can ensure proper child development amongst orphans?
- Which elements of ECD programs matter most? Can any be discarded as ineffective or too costly?
- Are there aspects of the links between Early Childhood Development programs and outcomes for which improved knowledge is particularly important because the effects are thought to be particularly large or because there is great uncertainty about the probable magnitudes of the effects?
- What is the nature of data quality with regard to representativeness, power, coverage of important concepts in the linkage between Early Childhood Development programs and outcomes over the life cycle and therefore the impact of ECD interventions, and measurement error?
- What special features of Early Childhood Development data might permit better exploration of the impact of Early Childhood Development interventions? Can the data be linked to time series records on a range of contextual changes? Can the robustness of the estimates to at least some of the estimation problems be tested, for instance by exploiting information on siblings, members of the same sample cluster, experiments, and/or longitudinal data?
- How best can good estimates of the resource costs for Early Childhood Development programs be obtained?
- How can better estimates of the social versus the private rates of return to Early Childhood Development programs be obtained so that we would be better informed about the efficiency motive for policies?
- Might incentives or other mechanisms be used to make Early Childhood Development programs more efficient and therefore have higher benefit-cost ratios?
- How can the impact of war on children’s emotional and material well-being be ameliorated?
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- What is the best package of interventions in specific geographies to improve IMR, U5MR, MMR?
Education for all
- What is the best way to improve the effectiveness of teachers in the classroom (different forms of training? supervision? team teaching?)?
- Which interventions raise learning outcomes?
- How can we achieve 100% enrollment, retention and transition rates in primary schools
- Has the education MDG been successful in Kenya?
- In terms of health workers and teachers deployment, what incentives government should provide them?
- How government prepares for the future manpower requirement of the society?
- What explains/are root causes of low primary enrollment figures in some districts of Kenya?
- To what extent to interventions in school management impact access and learning outcomes?
- Can learning outcomes be attributed to an intervention, or is any change in/attention to schooling going to produce improved results?
- What is the impact of community mobilization and community engagement with schools on children's learning outcomes?
- What interventions help children make the smoothest transition from home and preschool into primary school, having the greatest impact on primary school success and general well-being?
- What are the most effective programmatic interventions to support literacy and numeracy development in young children and adolescents, particularly in resource poor and culturally/linguistically diverse environments?
- How do education opportunities most effectively support adolescents’ transitions to adult roles in work and family?
- How can access to and quality of education be increased simultaneously?
- How do we attract some of the best high school graduates to the teacher education programs (especially in the public sector)?
- What are some valid and efficient procedures to evaluate teachers (both entering the profession and in service)?
- What are good incentives (monetary, professionally and other) to retain and motivate further the best teachers in the public sector?
- Is it cost effective for a group of countries to form a consortium to take advantage of economies of scales in on-line education (or distance learning) in pre-k to k12 in addition to university level?
- How can both universal and good quality basic education be achieved?
- How can quality basic and higher education be provided?
- What kind of second-chance schooling interventions can be effective in preparing children, especially girls, who never joined or who dropped out of school to acquire literacy and life skills and to re-join the formal education system.
- Does providing vocational/Technical/life long learning centres at the village level lead to the eradication of poverty?
- Should agriculture education be compulsory for all rural children studying in rural India?
- What is the optimum means of achieving free, mandatory education through the 10th standard/grade?
- What is the optimum means of increasing English language education with numeracy skills?
- What is the most cost effective means to give the poor access to good education (not only primary school but also up to tertiary) and health care, especially in rural areas?
- Would there be way to help the intelligent but poor people to obtain higher education so that they could make their lives better?
- Do adult literacy programs result in higher incomes? And other welfare outcomes?
- What health or nutritional interventions are most cost effective in improving children’s classroom performance and learning outcomes?
- Are single sex schools necessary for girls to achieve good educational performance?
- Do voucher systems for primary education in Africa work?
- Which teaching aids best promote maximum time on task in the classroom?
- How does additional school revenue from attendance-related grants (CCTs) affect school performance?
- What is the optimal length of the school day?
- Do community-based school management committees improve school performance? Are there other, more cost effective, forms of parental feedback?
- What incentives can best reduce teacher absenteeism in a cost effective manner?
- What are the relative benefits of basic versus advanced education in Low Income Countries?
- Why have global promises for universal primary education since the 1960s still not been met?
- What interventions enable the most marginalised and hard to reach people to be included in education, at the same time as improving quality and access for all?
- How can every child be supported to learn the curriculum in a language they understand, as well as having access to other languages?
Education for the knowledge economy
- How can we strengthen the capacity for impact evaluation for evaluators in the developing country?
- What are the measures to strengthen national M & E associations as counterparts of government M & E agencies as well as agents for external monitors and evaluators in governance M & E?
- What kind of measures can governments take to stop/diminish the brain drain (of highly educated and skilled professionals) to foreign countries?
- How may the country benefit from the migrants who are residing outside the country in supporting the educational institutions in the home country?
- How can an education that will empower people to be self-sufficient and capable of addressing their needs that is culturally sensitive and context specific be provided?
- How do we stop brain drain?
- Does offering stipends to rural youth below the poverty line undergoing training increase outcomes?
- Does including seed money for trainees in the design of entrepreneurship training programs for the rural youth/urban poor increase their long-run self earning capacity?
- Are IT centres in rural communities cost effective means of improving welfare outcomes?
- Can IT enhance school learning outcomes?
- What are the positive and negative spillovers from IT-based development?
- Which research methods are most amenable to increasing student engagement and performance while simultaneously enhancing collaborations between researchers, practitioners, and policymakers?
- In Sri Lanka, what course of study is the most demanded by the labor market?
Health system performance
- How do we improve the attitude of health workers to better respond to the needs of poor?
- What are effective ways to motivate and manage health care workers to provide quality care with good productivity in the public sector?
- How can 100% immunization coverage be achieved?
- Does social marketing/cost sharing of health commodities increase demand, access, and usage in poor regions? Does this effect hold for all types of commodities or does it vary depending on the type of product?
- What types of behavior change communication/health education have an impact on people's choices, behaviors, and knowledge?
- Can health be the core or key result area in strategizing a poverty reduction policy?
- Any plan to revisit the concept of healthy settings? [Has the concept of 'Healthy Settings' been efficacious?]
- Which life savings interventions can be effectively packaged and brought closer to underserved populations to address obstetric causes of death?
- What strategies work best for targeting and reaching underserved (poor, marginalized) populations with basic maternal, newborn, and child health services?
- What approaches (training, supervision, remuneration?) work best in linking community health workers to the formal health system?
- What impact on neonatal, child, and maternal mortality can countries achieve by creating and supporting national cadres of community health workers?
- What are the most effective strategies to reduce the migration of health workers from developing to developed countries?
- What is the optimum number of roles or activities that community health workers can feasibly manage?
- How best can we motivate and sustain high quality service delivery (including behavior change communication) by community health workers to improve maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition?
- What incentives best reduce health service worker absenteeism in a cost effective manner?
- How much does the context matter for behavior change interventions to be effective?
- Is home-based delivery of basic health services cost effective?
- What financially sustainable health financing system have the largest impact on health service use by the poor?
- Is the growth of the private health sector in low income countries increasing coverage or merely shifting source of care?
- How does the quality of health care compare between the public, private, and informal private sectors in specific geographies?
- What do we know about the effect on health insurance on health outcomes, especially for the poorest?
HIV/AIDS
- What are effective ways to modify behaviors to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (HIV/AIDS in particular, but also others)?
- Which kinds of interventions around prevention of HIV transmission work the best?
- Which HIV prevention programs work the best for women and girls?
- Given the higher vulnerability of women to HIV in general, but particularly in Africa, how can women be specifically targeted to intensify prevention and women’s protection?
- What is the relative value of different HIV prevention interventions on reducing incidence?
- How can a national reporting rate of over 90% for people testing for HIV be achieved?
- What measures can most effectively help to achieve a 10% reduction on national HIV prevalence?
- Which interventions are most effective to increase VCT services in a rural community?
- How can the spread of AIDS be stemmed?
Injuries and non-communicable diseases
- What are the most effective intervention strategies to obtaining sustained and high use of insecticide treated nets?
- Which methods (implemented at scale) are most effective for improving the quality of diarrhea, malaria, & pneumonia case management services of private providers in settings of high child mortality?
- How can traffic accidents be reduced?
- Which interventions most cost effectively reduce accidents in the home?
- What are the most effective health promotion strategies for control of cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking & obesity?
- What are the constraints to effective management of cardiovascular disease in these populations?
Nutrition and food security
- To what extent can nutritional status be improved through changes in feeding practices using locally available foods?
- What is the best way to solve food crisis in the world?
- How do we increase the number of farming communities in a given province or country?
- How do we improve the nutrition status of children under five?
- What are the most effective ways of delivering behavior change interventions to improve infant and young child feeding at scale?
- What should be done to increase food security in Africa?
- What is the best means to feed orphans?
- What is the optimum subsidy design to provide food to the poor?
- Can targeted food subsidies ever be a cost effective nutrition intervention?
- Which nutrition interventions have the largest impact on adult earning outcomes?
Population and reproductive health
- Does the provision of youth friendly health services improve reproductive health outcomes for youth in areas where these service are available?
- Does a holistic approach to adolescent development (reproductive health, economic opportunities, and education) significantly enhance outcomes in reproductive and sexual health? If so, is it because of a greater enabling environment, more skills among youth, or other factors?
- Will involvement of men in family planning result in improved reproductive health outcomes for women?
- What are some examples of effective programs and methodologies that delay first pregnancy (or first marriage) until at least age 18?
- How can we increase the validity of self reported sexual behavior among boys and girls?
- Which delivery systems have the greatest impact on contraceptive prevalence?
- How can contraceptive discontinuance be limited?
Other communicable diseases
- What is best practice in immunization?
- How can the currently available female condom with acceptable efficacy be effectively promoted as an empowering prevention method instead of focusing investment on future solutions such as microbicide with lower efficacy?
- What have been the most successful approaches to increase DTP3 coverage in recent years?
Other human development
- What are the current and future health & education services needed?
- Who are the future service providers or enablers of health and education services?
- Do we have good databases on health and education?
- To what extent does education for women improve their health and the health of their children in Kenya or in a district in Kenya?
- To what extent has the focus on MDG targets helped or hindered progress in the MDG sectors? What has been the impact on sectors not covered?
- What practical steps steps can be taken regarding progress with the MDGs in S S Africa?
- Does coupling social services with incentives and pro-poor financing methods (including social insurance) increase access, affordability and quality of services rendered?
- What is the optimal level of training for social sector workers (ag, health, education, etc.)?
- Why do we maintain 2015 as the target for the MDGs when there is widespread agreement that the target will not be met for any goal? Why are the targets not being met?
- How can the MDGs be achieved in Sri Lanka?
PUBLIC SECTOR GOVERNANCEAdministrative and civil service reform
- What are the best criteria for the nomination of public service employees in developing coutries?
- How can coordination among government ministries be improved?
- How can the capacity of the civil servants who plan and prepare development projects be improved?
- Will and independent quality assurance and rating mechanism on the performance of athe dministrative system bring about a change in the performance in food, agriculture, transport, and health sectors?
- How can the harassment of the poor by the police/administrators be reduced?
- What is the most useful comprehensive civil service reform strategy?
- How to reduce the size of the public sector and still achieve efficiency in service delivery?
- How to reform the regulatory framework for good governance?
- How can bureaucracies be made more efficient?
- How can government commitment to undertake policy and institutional reforms be increased?
- Which schemes (grants, retraining etc.) best ensure the productive employment of retrenched public sector workers?
- Do performance contracts improve agency performance?
- Is performance-based pay effective in developing countries?
Decentralization
- What kind and form of democratic decentralization works best -- for the poorest and most marginalized -- in which contexts?
- (When) is it more effective to work through central government or local government?
- Does fiscal decentralization help reduce poverty?
- Why do local governments work effectively in certain contexts but not in others?
- What type of leadership will be required for administering grass root/local self governments?
- Will guidance and empowering health with grass root/local self governments bring about an desireable change/improvement in health and sanitation in rural people?
- What level of transparency/accountability and punitive measures will the grass roots/local self government require to improve their performance.
- Does the principle of subsidiarity lead to better governance?
Public expenditure, financial management and procurement
- What government policies can leverage remittences most effectively?
- How to we ensure that budgets are written in a time efficient manner and implemented appropriately for the benefit of majority of the population?
- What are the necessary measures to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditures?
- Have public policies regarding science and technology been informed by the interests of the population, interests that could be different and contradictory to economic development objetives?
- What guidance must be given to the national investment in science and technology to bring about a greater social benefit?
Tax policy and administration
- What conditions are needed for individual countries to sign up to Tobin-type taxes?
- What is the impact of redistributing assets (or wealth) upon the economic and social welfare of recipients?
- Which differences in terms of impact on equality and income can be found between generalized negative income taxes or social insurance schemes and conditional cash transfers?
Other accountability/anti-corruption
- What kinds of interventions are least susceptible to corruption/ elite capture?
- Does aid have adverse consequences on political incentives / do revenue windfalls lead to more corruption?
- How can foreigners affect corruption in other countries?
- Can corruption be eliminated?
- How can we increase transparency in politics and in private sector competition?
- How can the amount of corrupt politicians be reduced?
- What is the best model for a corruption watch dog agency?
- How to establish a system of transparent notice within nation states governments of known poor countries so that best partners or terms can be recruited or negotiated?
- Does transparency in community-level project finances improve project outcomes?
- What are the best interventions for anti-corruption commissions to undertake?
- How can bribery & corruption be reduced in the public sector & what makes it less evident in the private sector?
- What projects effectively reduce the opportunities for corruption (in procurement, tax collection, etc.)?
- Do electronic governance systems result in less opportunities for corruption, increase efficiency of the system, and reduce costs for the government (i.e. electronic procurement systems)?
- What works in reducing the impact of corruption on development?
- Are media a first line of defence against corruption?
Other public sector governance
- How do we measure governance outcomes, and what kinds of projects have the most reliable positive impact on governance?
- Under what circumstances do public expenditure tracking surveys improve government service delivery?
- Are human development indicators higher in democracies and/or do they improve with democratization?
- What decision making institutions best capture the interests of beneficiary populations?
- What are the most effective ways to improve the quality of service delivery (health, education..) when capacity is low?
- Is democracy the best form of government?
- How does good governance affect development and poverty reduction?
- What are proper and efficient allocations of resources including manpower?
- Is improving governance important for achieving Millennium Development Goals in Africa?
- Has a decline of leadership ethics in the public offices affected poverty reduction strategies in African countries?
- What measures of public policy benefit a better orientation of scientific and technological knowledge into the problems of the development of a country?
- How to promote the use of scientific research to develop of goods and services related to the attention of social problems like the undernourishment, child mortality, unemployment, the educational desertion, the domestic violence, the residential deficit, etc.?
- How can coordination between government and the private sector/ civil society be improved?
- How to prevent the ethics of the gangster and rent-seekers from penetrating that of good governance?
- What is the effectiveness of user fees or other government subsidies for generating sustained uptake?
- What have we learned so far from the evaluation of public sector management projects (particularly on the expenditure side -- programming, planning, budget, monitoring and evaluation) financed by donors? I
- Is there a threshold below which state performance will not recover (e.g., poor governance, corruption, conflict, poverty etc), how do we recognise it for each state, and how does it operate?
- What generates the political will needed by rulers/elite to pursue developmental goals, and what undermines it?
- What is the minimum condition of democracy and governance in fostering development?
- What is the equilibrium level of the minimum condition of democracy/governance in the short run and economic development in the long run? (Can one be prioritized at the sake of the other, and if not what is the most appropriate balance between the two?)
- What institutions (besides an independent media) e.g. academia, justice, audit - will do as much as the media to raise awareness of development issues?
RULE OF LAWAccess to law and justice
- What are the most effective interventions to encourage abused spouses to seek legal justice than suffer under the traditional veil of family taboo in Zambia?
- What is the best method to ensure that the rule of law is enforced and applied with equality to all persons in the country?
- What interventions and incentives ensure good policing?
- How does greater publicity to laws affect their effectiveness?
Law reform
- Will abolishing alcohol / spirits / drugs increase development outcomes?
- Must all aspects of a justice system be reformed at once to be effective?
- Are there conditions under which targeted programs can be implemented in policing and/or prosecutions and/or judicial reform and/or prisons/jails?
- What is the highest priority aspect of the justice system, ie .if only one aspect can be addressed, which is best to start with?
Legal institutions
- What types of interventions help build a sound legal system that can be the foundation for equitable development?
- How effective has the assistance been to community policing and/or gendarmeries? What are the best practices?
- To what extent is inward foreign direct investment affected by the content and implementation of host state laws?
Personal and property rights
- How can respect for human rights be increased?
- What is the impact of land securing for smallholders on agricultural investment and productivity?
Other rule of law
- What measures will quickly reduce child defilement and other forms of child abuse cases in Zambia?
- Are failures of development due to a lack of independent journalism?
- Should an independent media be a precondition for aid?
- Should funding for independent public and private media be a first priority, rather than one of the last?
RURAL DEVELOPMENTRural markets
- Which interventions increase the farm gate price that poor rural farmers are able to negotiate with private traders?
- What critical steps should be taken to reduce manufacturing bio-fuel from corn and wheat needed to feed poor people?
- Could there be a way to increase the income of small farmers in the face of rising input prices (fertilizers, diesel oil, etc)?
- What is the impact of the development of food processing and retail micro-activities on poverty reduction and on food safety (type of interventions: access to working capital, access to better machines, training, etc…)?
Rural non-farm income generation
- How many pro-poor tourism projects in rural areas are monitored and evaluated using the institutional indicators? What are the conclusions and recommendations?
- How is the income from tourism distributed in rural areas?
- How does tourism benefit the rural folks- diversifying their livelihood, providing more job opportunities, increasing their living standard and/or enhancing their capacity?
Rural policies and institutions
- What are the first-round and subsequent impacts of a "needs-based" approach to land redistribution?
- Why didn't some farmers who were trained by government officials use the techniques from the training courses?
- What agricultural interventions have been successful in Africa, and why?
- What are the models of agricultural extension that work in developing countries?
- Will equitable distribution of farmland amongst farmers and forming farm co-operatives achieve removal of poverty by branding their produce and marketing directly instead of through middle men?
- What is the best way to promote sustainable self-financed (ie. by users) maintenance of land development?
Rural services and infrastructure
- How effective have irrigation interventions been?
- Why do electrcity cooperatives work well in rural Bangladesh, but not in rural Philippines?
- What is the most cost effective means to give the poor access to health care, especially in rural areas?
- What are the most cost-effective means to bring infrastructure and other public facilities to poor regions?
- What are the best strategies of developing rural water infrastructure?
- Can sustainable small-scale irrigation be promoted in Africa?
- Do resettlement schemes provide a sustainable livelihood for settlers?
Other rural development
- Why don't more African farmers irrigate/ use fertilizer?
- Which interventions will bring about sustainable, cost effective increases in productivity in agricultural production in arid areas in Africa?
- What are the key interventions that we believe are reflective of rural development?
- How can the use of fertilizer in Africa be improved?
- How can the efficiency of food production be increased?
- How effective have "total land use" programmes been?
- How effective has private sector investments in biofuel production (and flower production etc) been?
- How can both food security and farmers' incomes be improved?
- How can we reduce crop losses during and after harvesting ?
- What are the incentives given to youth to stay and work in agriculture in rural areas?
- What are the best means to reduce urbanization?
- What are the best strategies for rural development?
- What are the best ways to retain social sector workers in rural areas?
- Are ‘seed and fertilizer packs’ effective and sustainable?
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, GENDER AND INCLUSIONConflict Prevention and Post-conflict Reconstruction
- Can development and state-building take place without conflict? Does our emphasis on minimising conflict undermine the natural state-building, and development process in LDCs?
- What can be done to finally put an end to war?
- What interventions have the greatest impact in preventing conflict?
- Are community based development programs the most effective in mitigating conflict? (and under what circumstances?)
- What interventions have the greatest impact in stability during the post conflict period?
- What are the lessons and best approaches for rebuilding infrastructure during post-conflict reconstruction?
Gender
- What are effective ways to get girls in marginal populations to attend and complete school (stipends? girls-only schools? female teachers? Special curriculum? safe transportation?)?
- What are the most effective strategies to reduce gender inequality? Must we await the rising tide of markets and multi-generational accumulation of educational gains or are there quicker, more direct paths to gender equality, that might actually assist economic progress rather than await it?
- What is the local economic impact of girls' education?
- What measures can most effectively reduce drop-out rates especially among the girl child in school?
- Do you think the educational qualification of women has any effect on their health or their children's?
- What measures will quickly reduce cases of violence against women in Zambia?
- What are the best ways to keep girls in school?
- "What is the impact of microfinance on the psychological and/or economic
- empowerment of women?"
- Which microfinance strategy contributes to the empowerment of women?
- How can the importance of girl child education be emphasized?
- What strategies might be effective at addressing the gender-related causes of undernutrition in South Asia: early marriage, early pregnancy, social isolation, low decision-making and purchasing power and access to markets, among others?
- Does including a mid-day meal enhance education for girls?
- How can access to employment for women be increased, especially in rural areas?
- How can gender be mainstreamed into poverty reduction in all its dimensions?
- Does access to quality education and reproductive health services for girls,reduce incidence of illness (malaria, HIV/AIDS), unsafe motherhood, and high population growth?
- What approaches for mainstreaming gender empowerment into programs are most effective?
- What is the most effective balance between mainstreaming projects for empowering women?
- How can we differentiate the impact or effectiveness of programs on men vs. women?
- How would gender and development policies and programs differ if they were operationalized as an integral part of national and global women's movements struggle against patriarchy instead of as apolitical welfare improvements?
Indigenous peoples
- How best can we ensure continuity of traditional indigenous practices during the process of economic development?
- Why are indigenous knowledge and technologies rarely integrated in donor funded development interventions?
- What are effective ways to integrate indigenous knowledge and technologies systems in the teaching curricula at various levels?
Participation and civic engagement
- What kinds of "citizen empowerment" initiatives lead to better local services (education, sanitation, roads...) and under what conditions?
- Do 'participatory' (if well defined) approaches work to improve equity?
- Do participatory approaches 'work' to increase participation of vulnerable/marginalized groups?
- The relative performance of community-driven versus less participatory and perhaps more centralized or top-down development mechanisms?
- Which interventions increase political access for the poor?
- What are the measures to improve the capacity of Civil Society's participation in governance, e.g. that government recognise CS as a partner and not opponents in development?
- What are the measures to ensure that Civil Society's representatives remain effective, independent and report publicly to their constituencies on their governance participations?
- What do we mean by participation in the issue of priority needs (infrasturcutre)?
- Can advocacy models be scalable among a wide variety of contexts?
- As major social scientists have proposed theory-based models of community capacity in domains that includes leadership, participation, organizational networks, collective efficacy, social cohesion, sense of ownership, information equity, among others, what is the association between community capacity domains and development outcomes in education, health, nutrition, and economic opportunities? What domains are the best predictors (and in what context) to support the achievement of positive outcomes given a range of evidence-based interventions?
- How can people be empowered to control the resources that are spent on their behalf so that they lead their own development?
- How do we promote patriotism amongst citizen of African countries?
- How can external actors (civil society, NGOs- local or international) act to first understand the perspective of the marginalised and second bring them to demand their rights?
- What is the contribution of collective actions in dealing with marginalisation?
- How best to galvanize public support for a government reform agenda?
- How can inclusion of all stake-holders, including political leadership to create a comprehensive consensus to carry out reform be achieved?
- How would participation in democratic governance be implemented differently if it was seen as an end in itself and not merely a means to other goals?
Social Analysis and Monitoring
- How can we effectively measure development in terms of its impact on the socio-cultural practices of ordinary people?
- Is economic development always in agreement with social development?
- How could the social impact of development banks / agencies disbursements over targeted population be measured?
- Does community participation enhance social capital?
- What dividends are seen out of enhanced social capital? Increased collective action? Improved project effectiveness?
Other Social Development
- How to reverse the exclusion of poor people from economic and political life?
- How to conduct poverty reduction work in solidarity with poor people and in the interest of securing universal human rights?
- How far is social development grounded in health development and vice-versa?
- Are 'social determinants of health' given adequate importance in the 'development studies' curriculum?
- How can sociallly excluded groups, including disabled people, be effectively included in all development initiatives?
SOCIAL PROTECTION AND RISK MANAGEMENTPoverty strategy, analysis and monitoring
- What is the optimum means to identify,support and strengthen people/institutions working for the poor?
- What is the current level poverty by region and sub-region?
- Do direct money transfers to the poorest of the poor help?
- How to reduce poverty in society that is gender sensitive, rapid and sustainable?
- How to use development cooperation resources most effectively for reducing poverty?
- How to use development cooperation resources to support goals and priorities for rapid and sustainable poverty reduction that are country-driven, participatory, comprehensive and results-oriented?
- How to set up and run environment enabling institutions for monitoring and evaluating of poverty reduction initiatives that are country-driven?
- How to integrate the development of partnership capacity with the promotion of policy coherence initiatives for poverty reduction?
- How to identify and dismantle social and economic inequality barriers against poverty reduction internationally?
- What are the effects on the poor of improved governance, prudent macro-economic management, competitive markets and vibrant private sector?
- Under which circumstances does improving access to assets on a universal basis (access to housing or land reform) have a positive impact on human development?
- Does community participation improve identification and targeting of the poor?
- To what extent is the community-demand mechanism favorable to the poor?
Social risk coping
- What is the optimum means of providing clothing and shelter to the poor?
- What forms of insurance work in low-income settings?
- Are there viable formal schemes of community-based risk-sharing?
Social risk mitigation
- Does the Samurdhi Cash Transfer Programme in Sri Lanka get people out of poverty?
Social risk reduction
- How can human trafficking be eradicated?
- How can governments be made more efficient and austerity measures be implemented with the least negative effects?
- To what extent are public works (a subset of safety nets programmes) an effective strategy of poverty reduction among the vulnerable - breaking the vicious cycle of poverty; regaining human dignity and hope in life; bringing back their self-esteem and confidence to participate actively in communal activities and live a “respectful” life? Are these interventions effective for those with “chronic incapacity to work and earn” (such as elderly headed or HIV/AIDS affected households)?
- How realistic is the assumption that most vulnerable households have an able-bodied person who is not only willing to: a) earn bread for the family; b) exchange labour for a low wage; but also c) has the time to engage in the public works?
- With usually a short implementation cycle of public works – coupled with a low wage (ideally lower than the average casual labour-wage), how realistic is it to expect that the vulnerable will realise consumption smoothing and that there will be a re-distribution of income through transferring cash-incomes to the vulnerable in exchange for labour?
Vulnerability assessment and monitoring- How do the following risks affect poor people: Lack of food, ill-health, unemployment, crime, old age, and domestic violence against women, armed conflict, natural disaster and other environmental risks?
- To what extent do social funds reach groups of vulnerable poor?
- Is the difference between income poverty and multidimensional poverty dependent on location?
TRADE AND INTEGRATIONExport development and competitiveness
- How to achieve income and spatial equity and access to basic goods when global players are entering the basic goods market?
- How to make globalization work for many as against few?
International financial architecture
- What is the impact of donor funds in African development?
- How do we address the issue of money laundering and funds-flight from underdeveloped to developed countries?
Regional integration
- Can Regional bodies' capacities be made strengthened, utilized effectively in terms of policy dialogues and policy development?
- Should regional agencies be established to evaluate and accredit educational institutions in the concerned regions.
- What are the effects of income inequality between countries?
Technology diffusion
- How can Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) improve the livelihoods of the world's developing population?
- How can trade be most effectively used to maximize the absorption of technology?
- How can foreign direct investment be most effectively used to maximize the absorption of technology?
- What are the best mechanisms for technology transfer to underdeveloped countries?
- What institutional mechanisms assure the participation of the population in the formulation of scientific and technological policies, in the development, diffusion and adoption of technology, and in the investigators guidance of their scientific and technological work?
- How to empower the population, guided by policy, the academy and the companies, in the development and use of science and technology?
- How can ICT be used to increase productivity (to increase the content of knowledge in the goods and services and, consequently, their value and the income of the workers)?
- How can information communication technology facilitate the productivity of low-income workers?
Trade facilitation and market access
- How effective have programs to support international trade of agricultural products been?
- What is the best way to deliver transparent information on market prices in a rural context (radio, key-informant, gsm …) and what is the impact of having this information on smallholder’s sales, income, etc?
Other Trade and Integration
- Are seasonal migration programs really a win-win?
URBAN DEVELOPMENTAccess to urban services for the poor
- How do we address the problems of rural to urban migration?
OTHER
- When are infrastructure maintenance programs more useful that building new infrastructure?
- Why do poverty, and its correlation with social identity (castes), persist in India despite rapid economic development?
- (When) are private transfers to poor people more efficient than investments in public goods?
- What kinds of transport infrastructure projects have the greatest impact on poverty?
ECONOMIC MANAGEMENTAnalysis of economic growth
- What is the ideal degree of equity/redistribution to achieve maximum macro-economic growth?
- Does investment in population health lead to economic growth? If so, for what kind of diseases and under what conditions?
- What are the reasons why Africa is slow in development?
- Are institutions that promote growth and alleviate poverty the same?
- What is economic development policy that controls inflation, engenders sustained economic growth, and job creation?
- How can pro-poor growth be made more sustainable?
- How can income inequality that undermines the pace and quality of growth be reduced?
Debt management and fiscal sustainability
- Do the majority of citizens see the benefits of reducing fiscal deficits in developing countries?
Economic statistics, modeling and forecasting
- What are the effects of income inequality within a country?
Other economic management
- How do we create more jobs?
- What is the best means to create gainful employment?
- How can everyone be provided with a decent job that comes with adequate working conditions and allows people to escape poverty through their own efforts?
- How can employment levels be increased?
- Does street theatre to motivate unemployed youth increase employment?
GENERAL
- For whom is poverty a problem and what are the features of that problem?
- How do poor people perceive and explain their situations?
- How would poor people, if given the opportunity, change their situations?
- Who or which institution is the most critical in defining development objectives?
- Do we apply or adopt the right tools to address development challenges?
- Do we apply lessons learnt correctly from our past initiatives?
- Have the factors that shape the dynamics of poverty such as assets and political representivity or voice being evaluated?
- Has the project / programme improved the underlying well-being of people (viz. quality of life indicators) beyond just material welfare?
- Has the project contributed to the reduction of inequalities?
- What has the project done towards side-effects and for those who lose out from it?
- Do facilitators matter in determining outcomes?
- Do targeted groups receive the benefits intended for them?
- Does aid generate dependency?
- Can aid programs that are not pro-poor but pro-donor be ended?
- How to end cultures of rent-seeking?
- Who should reach the middle group-- government/NGO/private sector?
- What should be the institutional mechanism for addressing the 'missing middle'?
- How much support/effort donor communities/development partners/governments are giving importance in transforming the ideals of managing for development results become a state policy across the globe, in different institutions.
- If planning and budgeting are the critical entry points in improving effectiveness, aren’t our ideas of “process and content” be the twin gadget that could facilitate a development strategy determine success? Why is the role of a facilitator a necessity?
- What are the best partnership practices available in the priority areas for poverty reduction?
- How can we adapt best practices widely? How could we improve practices to make them pro-poor if they are not.
- Is it possible to significantly affect individual adolescent behavior in the absence of changes in social norms?
- How can behavior change be accomplished in an environment where human rights are not respected (when self efficacy is not a possibility because of situations such as indentured servitude, child labor, corporal punishment, domestic violence and emotional and sexual abuse)?
- Why institutions fail?
- Is development as practiced a Western construct? Are there indigenous ways for 'development'?
- How can user engagement and behavior change be achieved?
- Why do organizations and institutions address issues of poverty outside those that are suffering from poverty?
- How can poverty, particularly in developing countries be addressed when governments of developing countries slavishly implement External Agencies' policies without regards to their economies' domestic capacity?
- How do we think poverty can be reduced when corrupt leaders in Developing Countries are celebrated abroad and their stolen wealth are gratefully accepted as huge deposits in foreign banks?
- Which continent is most exploited , by who and why?
- Do cultural beliefs play a role in empowering the poor?
- What is the relevance of the social movement in addressing development marginalisation in Africa?
- Can development targets be achieved when there are influential groups of fundamentalists in a society?
- What is the institutional context that helps promoting development, and what is the institutional context that inhibits achieving development targets?
- Is ethnic heterogeneity a bottleneck in poverty alleviation?
- What is the most effective approach to reduce poverty in Africa?
- Do the benefits of publicly funding international development advisors outwiegh the public service opportunity cost?
- What is the optimum means to promote simplistic living in the community (male/female)?
- What are the regional benefits of creating 'Free from Poverty' Model villages?
- What are the benefits of local Think Tanks?
- Does the involvement of NGO/INGO's in program implementation help?
- What are the most important package of strategies that the international community could deploy to bring the "bottom billion" out of their traps?
- What are the most important/effective factors and contexts for large and long-term behavior change in poor and rural areas?
- What policies and programs are most effective to catalyze behavior change interventions where benefits/results are not immediate but relate to long-term impact?
- How can incentive structures be devised to align the efforts of various entities and individuals in society to invest optimally in human resources (health, nutrition and education)?
- What lessons have we to learn from China about development, which are replicable in Africa?
- How does the Paris agenda undermine developmental processes?
- Is our emphasis on MDGs distracting us from other, more vital developmental processes – e.g., politics?
- What role does culture (or ‘shared meaning’ - see P Chabal and J-P Daloz) play in promoting or undermining development processes?
- What drives donors – as a group, an agency or as individual employees – and what are the consequences for development?
- Is democracy really developmental?
- Is development ‘a state of mind’, a cognative/social process resulting in collective action, rather than outputs per se, and what socio-cultural characteristics are needed (rather than technological solutions) to promote such a ‘culture’?
- Can ‘culture’ be divorced from social forces and an underlying political economy and can cultural ‘traits’ (performance, behaviours, beliefs, etc) be imported to drive change in places where they do not originate?
- If socio-political change is dependent on structural economic reform, how do we kick start economic changes that depend on socio-political transformation?
- Is there a way we can build ‘with the grain’ of the deep social forces in underdeveloped societies that can be developmental?
- What can donors do to help partner country governments strengthen their capacity to manage for development results?
- What kind of policies have been a recurrent failing pattern in the Latin American Region , and which policies could be adapted from the Asian experience?
- What is the potential of international migration to reduce poverty?
- Does international migration benefit or hurt small island countries?
- What can or should be done about brain drain?
- If the market is such an efficient mechanism, why do 1-2 billion people face unemployment or underemployment?
- How do development policies reproduce and legitimate inequality and poverty?
- How do we bring about a synthesis of science-religion-administration (Understanding-Involvement-PracticalTeamwork) in individiuals and in the entire population on Earth?
- How could the genuine aid impact to development and diplomatic impact be combined in be assessing the effectiveness of aid, especially when aid is given by the donor countries where aid is regarded as one of the diplomacy?
- When the aid accountability to the people of the donor countries and the accountability to the people of the recipient countries are different, is there an appropriate way of maximizing the effectiveness of aid?
PROGRAM DESIGN QUESTIONS
- Which intervention design features can ensure the poorest benefit?
- In countries with extremely limited government capacity or a questionable commitment to citizen welfare (eg Zimbabwe, Somalia, Sudan), what kinds of assistance/interventions can be useful?
- Are bundled interventions (eg electrification with telecommunications or health with literacy) more likely to produce results and if so, which components are best bundled?
- Do financial contributions from beneficiaries lead to better project selection and implementation?
- Does local participation in decision making improve project selection and implementation?
- (When) is funding better channeled through NGOs or through government?
- (When) is it more effective to provide services through government, NGOs or through the private sector?
- Are programs more effective when administered by government or by community groups?
- Does preference targeting 'work' to produce more sustainable outcomes?
- (When) do development projects strengthen or weaken the power of local elites?
- (When) are multi-sector approaches more efficient than single sector approaches?
- Which approaches are most effective at increasing people's awareness and encouraging behavioral change (in different sectors)?
- To what extent can development outcomes in one sector (eg. health) be better achieved by interventions in other sectors?
- What type and level of interventions make real difference in peoples livelihoods within the project timeframe?
- What cost-effective package of multisector interventions (non-formal education, economic opportunities, reproductive health) have an overall impact on the well-being of adolescents in developing countries?
- How can coordination among development cooperation agencies be improved?
- What are effective strategies based on clear and consistent concepts and approaches?
- How can a common agenda among development partners, linking specific causes of poverty in each setting with suitable policies and action, be created?
- What capacity development interventions have the greatest impact on health, social, and economic indicators and why?
- What interventions increase motivation and quality of social sector workers?
- What are the best ways to engage communities and collect their feedback to address their needs?
- Do integrated programs/approaches produce better results/more effective than single sector programs?
- Are programs likely to be more sustainable if they demonstrate 3 years progress improvement vs. 5 years progressive improvement?
- How to achieve sustainable development through alternative perspectives and new assumptions?
- Are targeted programs more sustainable than a universal rights approach when defining a development and poverty alleviation strategy?
- What are the most effective ways to build a close linkage between project-based interventions and overall development policy changes in a client country?
- To what extent are social fund investments subject to elite capture and political influence compared to other government programs?
- Does participation of communities in planning, management and maintenance increase utilization and sustainability of community investments?
- How do costs of investments under social funds compare to those of other institutions? For example, does community contribution result into lower costs? Does community management of resources and contracting lower unit costs, and / or reduce on financial-“leakages”?
- How do development programs mainstream and sustain the practice of anticipating impact , so that there are no surprise findings when the impact studies are carried out at the end of the program/project.
- What is the optimum level of aid coordination at the policy level (in the capitals) when undermining the time for service delivery on the ground?
- With which conditions can loan project be most effective in promoting development impact?
- When we say that an intervention is cost-effective, how universal is this statement? In other words, can we specify for which settings the cost and effectiveness parameters are still broadly valid, and for which they aren’t?
EVALUATION DESIGN QUESTIONS
- What are the characteristics of interventions that can be evaluated by specific types of impact research designs?
- What strategies are available to encourage high-quality data collection in each study, especially if the data are to be collected by local program staff?
- How will each study design include measurement of the quality of implementation for the target intervention, as well as of the intended outcomes?
- Under what conditions successful impact evaluations are initiated?
- What development interventions (policy measures, programs or projects) are selected for rigorous impact evaluations?
- When are rigorous impact evaluations required?
- What programs or entities are required to have rigorous impact evaluations?
- How often are rigorous impact evaluations scheduled?
- What procedures are used to determine when or whether rigorous impact evaluation takes place?
- How can we improve early indicators of post-assignment issues with RCTs?
- How can we improve mid-course corrections when post-assignment issues look as if they might compromise certainty of results?
- When the community is the unit of assignment, what community-level indicators can best detect adequate fidelity to the evaluation design, and where the design may be off-course?
- How can we increase the demand for impact evaluation?
- How do we evolve an assessment tool that would generate a comprehensive knowledge about the outcomes and impacts of the two- decade investments in the field of rural development?
- What methodology would compare and contrast performance at different levels (rural communities, national, regional)?
- Are regional bodies still relevant in promoting goodwill and cooperation? How do we make them useful in the global advocacy of assessing results/impacts?
- Is it useful to try to develop a list of intervention MECHANISMS that explain HOW interventions bring about an effect? One early example (Bemelmans=Videc) was: carrots, sticks, and sermons. Pawson identified "naming and shaming." Mark and Henry culled a list of mechanisms from the psychological literature. If we can conduct evaluations in ways that identify the operative mechanisms that lead to results, we may be able to generalize across programs more productively. Is this a valuable direction for evaluators to move?
- How do we know the exact needs of beneficiaries of the projects?
- What is the appropriate time frame for assessing a particular intervention, and how does this vary across interventions of different types and scales?
- What are the best methods and timeframes to measure impact of behavior modification projects?
- What is the appropriate time period over which you call something sustainable?
- How does the development community harmonize the impact assessment strategy with the business process of grantmaking?
- How do we measure consistently the extent of new opportunities/growth in individuals' choices?
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