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An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, NGOs, civil society, international organizations and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and real results have increased, there is an attendant need for enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs, and projects. This Handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system. These steps begin with a “Readiness Assessment” and take the practitioner through the design, management, and importantly, the sustainability of such systems. The Handbook describes each step in detail, the tasks needed to complete each one, and the tools available to help along the way.

Written for those who said to the authors (and for others in the same situation): \"We know we need M and E, but we don't know how to set up an M and E system, or how to make ours work well and provide the information we need.\" This detailed, practical manual explains the skills and steps for making a monitoring and evaluation (M and E) system that functions well. The goal is an M and E system -- people, processes and partnerships -- that collects, verifies and analyzes good quality information that is useful and used by decision makers, managers, implementers, funders, and other stakeholders. The manual begins by introducing the concept of results-based management, and the internationally accepted \"12 components of functional M and E Systems\" framework. It describes the purpose and functions of each component, and builds skills by taking users through the steps for setting up, or improving what already exists. (The 12 modules – one for each component – are listed overleaf.) Each module has clear learning objectives, detailed systematic explanations and useful examples, and exercises for learners to work through that apply what is being taught (model answers are available on line). Use: It can be used as a reference manual, a training text, or for self-study. It is likely to be especially useful for trainers and trainees trying to meet the need for skilled professionals, capacity and technical advice in building sustainable M and E systems. Using the 12 components of any working M and E system as a benchmark, users can easily assess their own system for sustainability, identify where improvements are needed, and follow the detailed, systematic steps and \"how to\" guidance. Potential Users: The broad audience for this manual includes all those responsible for M and E, across all sectors. The primary audience is people who set up, operate, or oversee M and E functions, trying to ensure that data are collected, compiled, and provided in a useful way to decision makers. The book was written mostly for staff in government agencies at national and sub-national levels, but is fully relevant to NGOs, the private sector, and funding agencies. All implementing or policy-making organization with programs that aim for results and change need monitoring and evaluation, will find this guide useful, practical, systematic and thorough. Development: The manual shares the authors' extensive practical, hands-on experience helping clients to build and use M and E systems, and advising on managing for results. The materials were developed and tested \"in the field\", and benefited from detailed discussions with other M and E practitioner-experts to get consensus on the approach. The draft was refined after extensive peer reviews, and pilot use in training courses inTanzania and Turkey. The manual complements and extends the globally recognized best-selling book co-written by one of the authors, widely used by academic institutions, governments, and developing partners worldwide to better understand the principles and practices of results-based M and E. \"Making Monitoring and Evaluation Systems Work\" goes beyond the broad consensus on the need to measure, monitor, and manage to results, and the investments in monitoring and evaluation systems, to go step-by-step through the details and practicalities of making sure M and E systems are functional and sustainable. Contents Introductory Module: Introduces the Training Course, the concept of results-based management and the 12 Components of Functional M and E Systems 1. The Enabling Environment: People, organization, partnerships and planning Module 1: Organisational Structures for M and E: Explains the importance of including M and E in organisational structures, and how to plan for human resources to meet the needs of an M and E system.

What happens after your program's strategy has been designed? How do you now wether you've been successful in implementing the strategies you planned? After more than a decade of development investments in monitoring and evaluation few countries are able to regularly report on how effective their policies and programs are in achieving the results they desire. It is not through lack of good Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) design, nor political mandates to support the effort, but from a lack of sustained management and delivery of effective M&E programs within established organizations. This title will not only help you build functional M&E systems, but also provide you with the tools and concepts for helping others build their systems.

An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, NGOs, civil society, international organizations and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater a

The time that children spend in school varies across countries. Do these differences explain international gaps in pupils' academic achievements? In this article I estimate the effects of instructional time on students' achievement using PISA 2006 data, which include data samples from over 50 countries. I find that instructional time has a positive and significant effect on test scores, and that the effect is much lower in developing countries. Evidence also suggests that the productivity of instructional time is higher in countries which implemented school accountability measures or that gave schools autonomy in budgetary decisions and in hiring/firing teachers.

The unanticipated spike in international food prices in 2007-08 hit many developing countries hard. International prices for food and other agricultural products increased by more than 100 percent between early 2007 and mid-2008. Prices for food cereals more than doubled; and those for rice doubled in the space of just a few months. The food price increases were particularly hard on the poor and near-poor in developing countries, many of whom spend a large share of their income on food and have limited means to cope with price shocks. An estimated 1.29 billion people in 2008 lived on less than $1.25 a day, equivalent to 22.4 percent of the developing world population. In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 923 million people were undernourished in 2007. Simulation models suggested that poverty rose by 100-200 million people and the undernourished increased by 63 million in 2008. The World Bank organized rapidly for short-term support in the crisis, launching a fast-track program of loans and grants, the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP). The GFRP mainly targeted low-income countries, and provided detailed policy advice to governments and its own staff on how to respond to the crisis. The Bank also scaled up lending for agriculture and social protection to support the building of medium-term resilience to future food price shocks. The International Finance Corporation responded by sharply increasing access to liquidity for agribusinesses and agricultural traders in the short and medium term, as well as new programs to improve incentives for agricultural market participants. This evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank Group response in addressing the short-term impacts of the food price crisis and in enhancing the resilience of countries to future shocks.

Despite the prevalence of R&D support programs, evaluation studies based on explicit differences in support allocation are rare. In this paper, the identification of the causal effect of R&D support on company performance is based on geographic variation in government funding arising from a population-density rule. I find positive impacts on R&D investment, employment, and sales among the participants who were granted an R&D subsidy as a result of additional aggregate R&D support funding in their region. Although there are no instantaneous impacts on productivity, the study provides evidence of long-term productivity gains.

Agricultural mechanization is a crucial indicator of modernization in agriculture. It improves productivity and underpins the evolution of a modern state. This study scrutinizes the enduring effects of government subsidies on farm machinery acquisition, income growth, and capital accumulation in rural households. It is based on policies about targeted poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. Research findings indicate that government subsidies have significantly increased the per capita net income of rural households. However, in the post-poverty alleviation era, for households that already possess agricultural machinery, the benefits brought by government subsidies in the early stages of the policy cycle tend to diminish over time. From 2016 to 2020, government subsidies continued to enhance the value of agricultural machinery in rural households. Their impact on ownership rates first slightly declined and then increased again. The promotional effect in 2020 was not significantly better than in 2016. When China is fighting against poverty, it is essential to encourage rural households to use their income and government subsidies to accumulate production capital. A long-term mechanism has been established to protect the achievements of poverty alleviation, promote agricultural mechanization and rural modernization, and support rural revitalization.

As the largest carbon dioxide emitter, China is working towards the direction of a green economy. As an irreplaceable part of establishing a green economy, the low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy is implemented in many large cities in China, and the scope of implementation will be further expanded. However, to date, there has been an absence of empirical studies basing on prefecture-level cities about the evaluation of China’s LCCP policy. Evaluating and optimizing the LCCP policy is constructive to achieve the goal of China’s green economic transition. In this paper, we evaluated the effect of the LCCP policy on China’s low-carbon economic transition by using the difference-in-difference (DID) approach which can effectively alleviate endogenous problems and better evaluate this effect and the panel data of 210 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2016. The empirical analysis revealed that the LCCP policy inhibited China’s low-carbon economic transition in general. Specifically, the policy worked well in the eastern region but failed in the central region and western region by studying the regional heterogeneity and influence mechanism. The reason is that the LCCP policy can stimulate low-carbon innovation with the help of innovation offset effects in the eastern region, but it failed to do so in the central region and western region. In addition, this paper analyzed the performance of three types of policy tools adopted by local governments to implement the policy, we found that market-economic tools are valuable to improving the low-carbon economic transition in pilot areas, but command-mandatory tools and voluntary tools have failed to achieve the expected objectives. The research results of this article can provide policy recommendations for optimizing the low-carbon policy and provide a reference for countries that are determined to develop a green economy.