Marito Garcia

AIDS-Induced Orphanhood as a Systemic Shock: Magnitude, Impact, and Program Interventions in Africa

Abstract According to many descriptive accounts, the orphan crisis in Africa has assumed alarming proportions, largely due to AIDS-related deaths. Using household panel data from Uganda to confirm this and assess the impact on affected households and children, we find that (a) receiving a foster child leads to a significant reduction of investment; (b) initial disadvantages in foster children’s access to education were largely eliminated by the introduction of a program of Universal Primary Education; and (c) new inequalities have emerged in foster children’s access to health services. Even though this suggests that specific programs could help to alleviate some of the negative impacts of orphanhood, the policy response in many African countries has remained piecemeal. We use data from existing programs to estimate the cost of a concerted policy response and highlight implications for further research.

The Cash Dividend : The Rise of Cash Transfer Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa

The results of the review do not disappoint. The authors identified more than 120 cash transfer programs that were implemented between 2000 and mid-2009 in Sub-Saharan Africa. These programs have varying objectives, targeting, scale, conditions, technologies, and more. A sizable number of these programs conducted robust impact evaluations that provide important information, presented here, on the merits of cash transfer programs and their specific design features in the African context. The authors present summary information on programs, often in useful graphs, and provide detailed reference material in the appendixes. They highlight how many of the cash transfer programs in Africa that had not yet begun implementation at the time of writing will continue to provide important evaluation results that will guide the design of cash transfer programs in the region. In addition to presenting data and analysis on the mechanics of the programs, the authors discuss issues related to political economy. They highlight the importance of addressing key tradeoffs in cash transfers, political will, and buy-in, and they emphasize the need to build evidence-based debates on cash transfer programs. Useful anecdotes and discussion illustrate how some programs have dealt with these issues with varying degrees of success. This text will serve as a useful reference for years to come for those interested in large- and small-scale issues of cash transfer implementation, both in Africa and beyond. However, the book is not an end in itself. It also raises important questions that must be addressed and knowledge gaps that must be filled. Therefore, it is useful both in the information it provides and in the issues and questions it raises.

Africa's future, Africa's challenge : early childhood care and development in Sub-Saharan Africa

This book seeks to achieve a balance, describing challenges that are being faced as well as developments that are underway. It seeks a balance in terms of the voices heard, including not just voices of the North commenting on the South, but voices from the South, and in concert with the North. It seeks to provide the voices of specialists and generalists, of those from international and local organizations, from academia and the field. It seeks a diversity of views and values. Such diversity and complexity are the reality of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) today. The major focus of this book is on SSA from the Sahel south. Approximately 130 million children between birth and age 6 live in SSA. Every year 27 million children are born, and every year 4.7 million children under age 5 die. Rates of birth and of child deaths are consistently higher in SSA than in any other part of the world; the under-5 mortality rate of 163 per 1,000 is twice that of the rest of the developing world and 30 times that of industrialized countries (UNICEF 2006). Of the children who are born, 65 percent will experience poverty, 14 million will be orphans affected by HIV/AIDS directly and within their families and one-third will experience exclusion because of their gender or ethnicity.

Youth in Africa's labor market

Youth and Africa have received increased attention in recent policy discussions and World Bank work, as articulated in the Africa action plan and the World Development Report 2007: development and the next generation. The Africa action plan offers a framework to support critical policy and public action led by African countries to achieve well-defined goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The World Development reports main message is that the time has never been better to invest in young people living in developing countries. It offers a three pillar policy framework for investing in and preserving the human capital of the next generation. Both frameworks respond to the desire to find solutions to Africas development challenges and to prepare for and benefit from the next generation of workers, parents, and leaders. This report examines the challenges Africas youth face in their transition to working life and proposes policies for meeting these challenges. It presents evidence from case studies of 4 countries - Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda and from household data on 13 countries. The four case studies include a stocktaking of existing policies and programs to address youth employment and labor markets. The overarching message of the report is the call to further invest in the human capital of youth in Sub-Saharan Africa to take advantage of the large youth cohorts there. Youth in Africa leave school too early and enter the labor market unprepared, limiting their contribution to economic growth and increasing their vulnerability to poverty and economic hardship.

Achieving Better Service Delivery through Decentralization in Ethiopia

This report seeks to identify changes in human development outcomes in a period of deepening decentralization and to suggest how the countrys decentralized governance structure will be improved to increase access to, as well as the quality of, relevant services. The report states decentralized governance structure helped facilitate improvements in service delivery and human development outcomes. The report argues that while policymakers, providers, and citizens must work together to strengthen accountability mechanisms, there is a particular need to strengthen local government and enhance the role of service. The report focuses on key actors and their roles in accelerating progress toward achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) in Ethiopia. The report provides feedback from users of public services on access to, quality of, and adequacy of services. Improvements in health and education outcomes in the past 15 years occurred at a time of massive decentralization in Ethiopia.

Developing an International Network to Support Early Childhood Development (ECD) : Results from Experience in Africa

An effective network for capacity building, knowledge sharing, and intercountry cooperation is a powerful vehicle to enhance allocative efficiency in education development. This article describes an early childhood development (ECD) network for Africa and its multipronged approach of regional partnerships, southsouth learning exchanges through international conferences and seminars, and an ECD virtual university that uses 21 st -century technologies and distributed learning methods to provide systematic training and build capacity among cohorts of ECD leaders in the Majority World. The article outlines the network’s history, goals, key results, challenges encountered, and lessons learned, and addresses the question: In the context of education development, why is early childhood so important?

L'Avenir de l'afrique, le defi de l'Afrique : soins et developpement de la petite enfance en Afrique Sub Saharienne

This book seeks to achieve a balance, describing challenges that are being faced as well as developments that are underway. It seeks a balance in terms of the voices heard, including not just voices of the North commenting on the South, but voices from the South, and in concert with the North. It seeks to provide the voices of specialists and generalists, of those from international and local organizations, from academia and the field. It seeks a diversity of views and values. Such diversity and complexity are the reality of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) today. The major focus of this book is on SSA from the Sahel south. Approximately 130 million children between birth and age 6 live in SSA. Every year 27 million children are born, and every year 4.7 million children under age 5 die. Rates of birth and of child deaths are consistently higher in SSA than in any other part of the world; the under-5 mortality rate of 163 per 1,000 is twice that of the rest of the developing world and 30 times that of industrialized countries (UNICEF 2006). Of the children who are born, 65 percent will experience poverty, 14 million will be orphans affected by HIV/AIDS directly and within their families and one-third will experience exclusion because of their gender or ethnicity.