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This IEG evaluation, requested by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors, represents the first independent evaluation of the PSIA experience. The evaluation finds that:. • The PSIA approach has appropriately emphasized the importance of assessing the distributional impact of policy actions, understanding institutional and political constraints to development, and building domestic ownership for reforms. • PSIAs have not always explicitly stated their operational objectives (i.e., informing country policies, informing Bank operations, and/or contributing to country capacity). • PSIAs have had limited ownership by Bank staff and managers and have often not been effectively integrated into country assistance programs. • Quality assurance and Monitoring and Evaluation of the overall effectiveness of PSIAs have been weak. The evaluation recommends that the World Bank:. • Ensure that Bank staff understand what the PSIA approach is and when to use it. • Clarify the operational objectives of each PSIA and tailor the approach and timeline to those objectives. • Improve integration of the PSIA into the Bank’s country assistance program by requiring that all earmarked funding for PSIAs be matched by a substantial contribution from the country unit budgets. • Strengthen PSIA effectiveness through enhanced quality assurance.

The Sourcebook introduces a framework for social analysis in Poverty and Social Impact Analysis along with a set of practical tools that address the institutional, political, and social dimensions of policy design and implementation and how these impact poverty and distributional equity. It is designed for country practitioners working in policy analysis in a range of areas, including macroeconomic, sectoral, and public sector policy.

Having clear picture on food security status and its major determinants helps policy makers and planners to introduce new policies that enhance food security. The study was aimed to evaluate the impact of policies, strategies and institution on food security and poverty status of the vegetables farmers in Gezira State with reference to the Blue Nile farmers. To achieve these objectives stratified random sampling technique was used to select the respondents from five localities lays along Blue Nile, so 150 farming households were interviewed. Food security Policy and strategy were collected by the mean of questionnaire targeting key line institutions. Poverty indices were calculated using expenditure as welfare indicator,Gini coefficient was applied. The results showed that the majority 75% of the respondents were above expenditure poverty line (7196)SDG. Moreover, the results showed that the poverty gap index was equal to five percent. Kamlin, Medani, East Gezira reported the higher expenditure distance from the poverty line (6 percent). The severity of poverty in the state is estimated to be two percent, likewise the severity of poverty in East Gezira was found to have a higher percentage (three percent). According to Gini coefficient the income distribution estimated at 0.46 while that for expenditure distribution is estimated at 0.31, these results showed a higher degree of inequality. The results showed that the poorest 20% of the population earned 0.06% of the total income while the richest 20% earned 45% of the total income. About 50.7% from the respondents use borrowing from others as one of their coping strategies.  About 78%of policy makers said that there was organized team from all institutions dealing with food security and nutrition issue, all policy makers in the state said there was strategy concerning the food security and nutrition issues. The study recommended that the cash transfer needed to lift the poor out of poverty that each poor person needs five percent of the value of the poverty line.

The complexity of ecological-economic systems significantly reduces our ability to investigate their behavior and propose policies aimed at various environmental and/or economic objectives. Following recent suggestions for integrating nonlinear dynamic modeling with input-output (IO) modeling, we develop a fully dynamic ecological-economic model by integrating IO with system dynamics (SD) for better capturing critical attributes of ecological-economic systems. We also develop and evaluate various scenarios using policy impact and policy sensitivity analyses. The model and analysis are applied to the degradation of fish nursery habitats by industrial harbors in the Seine estuary (Haute-Normandie region, France). The modeling technique, dynamization, and scenarios allow us to show trade-offs between economic and ecological outcomes and evaluate the impacts of restoration scenarios and water quality improvement on the fish population.

The European Community is striving for a sustainable society as suggested by the UN’s 2015 sustainability goals. The circular economy in the paper and packaging industry is of particular importance here because it consumes many resources. The paper industry in Germany with a fiber recycling rate of 85% in 2022 is already a pioneer and role model for other industries. All materials should be recyclable. Fiber-based composites/laminates are currently becoming increasingly important. Essential questions are: which collection systems and recycling paths should be used for fiber-based composites/laminates, and where are there currently challenges with recycling? To answer these questions, 58 questionnaires answered by German experts and practitioners in the German paper industry were evaluated. Wet-strength papers, adhesives, plastic coatings and wax dispersions were perceived as a problem by 70% of all respondents, and packaging residues by almost 40%. Additionally, 90% stated that the composition of paper for recycling changes regularly due to legislation, trends and innovations, while 60% attributed this to recent changes in legislation. For at least 80%, virgin fibers from packaging are valuable for paper recycling, but only 15% of respondents stated that virgin fibers compensate for the disadvantages of rejects. Almost 90% expected challenges with fiber-based composites/laminates in the existing paper for recycling processes. Overall, the collection and recycling of fiber-based composites/laminates in conventional paper for recycling collection and the recycling system is not desirable. An integrated collection, sorting and recycling system should be considered, especially because a further increase in fiber-based composites is to be expected. In the end, the design for recycling and following recycling guidelines are the key to the recycling industry in the future. Good recyclability of fiber-based composites/laminates would improve their acceptance by paper recyclers. Their virgin fibers are particularly valuable. The results of our study are relevant to the recycling and fiber industry, standard-setting bodies, regulatory authorities and research. The limitation of this study is that experts from the paper industry were interviewed, but the recyclability of the fiber materials was not analyzed by measurement, and the machine technology of the interviewees could not be examined and evaluated.

Background Understanding how policies lead to changes in health systems and in practice helps policymakers and researchers to intervene more successfully. Yet identifying all the possible changes that occur as a result of a new policy is challenging not only methodologically and logistically, as limited resources are available to conduct indefinite evaluations, but also theoretically, as a complete mapping and attribution of post-hoc changes requires a full understanding of the mechanisms underpinning all change. One option is to identify possible changes across a number of policy impact domains. Methods Using a Policy Impact Framework, we brought together data from media, documents and interviews to identify changes to midwifery policy, practice and provision, following the launch of a new global policy initiative, the State of the World’s Midwifery (SoWMy 2014) report published in 2014. We used these identified impacts to develop a map of the mechanisms underpinning these changes. Results SoWMy 2014 contributed to a number of changes at national levels, including increased status of midwifery within national governments, improved curricula and training opportunities for midwives, and improved provision of and access to midwifery-led care. These contributions were attributed to SoWMy 2014 via mechanisms such as stakeholder interaction and acquisition of government support, holding national and international dissemination and training events, and a perceived global momentum around supporting midwifery provision. Policy initiatives of this kind can lead to changes in national and international policy dialogue and practice. We identify factors and mechanisms that are likely to increase the scope and scale of these changes, at contextual, national and global levels. Conclusions Identifying changes following a policy using a policy impact framework can help researchers and policymakers understand why policies have the effect they do. This is important information for those wishing to increase the effectiveness of future policies and interventions.

The relationship between open access and academic impact (usually measured as citations received from academic publications) has been extensively studied but remains a very controversial topic. However, the effect of open access on policy impact (measured as citations received from policy documents) is still unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of open access on the policy impact, which might initiate a new controversial topic. Research articles in the field of library and information science (LIS) were selected as the data sample ( n  = 48,884). Negative binomial regression models were used to examine the dataset. Furthermore, propensity score matching (PSM) analysis, a causal inference approach, was used to estimate the effect of open access on the policy impact based on a selected LIS journal ( Scientometrics, n  = 4019) that received the most policy citations among the LIS journals. Linear regression models, logit regression models, four other matching methods, open access status provided by different databases, and different sizes of data samples were used to check the robustness of the main results. This study revealed that open access had significant and positive effects on the policy impact.

Despite the negative externalities on the environment and human health, today’s economies still produce excessive carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, governments are trying to shift production and consumption to more sustainable models that reduce the environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions. The European Union, in particular, has implemented an innovative policy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by creating a market for emission rights, the emissions trading system. The objective of this paper is to perform a counterfactual analysis to measure the impact of the emissions trading system on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. For this purpose, a recently-developed statistical machine learning method called matrix completion with fixed effects estimation is used and compared to traditional econometric techniques. We apply matrix completion with fixed effects estimation to the prediction of missing counterfactual entries of a carbon dioxide emissions matrix whose elements (indexed row-wise by country and column-wise by year) represent emissions without the emissions trading system for country-year pairs. The results obtained, confirmed by robust diagnostic tests, show a significant effect of the emissions trading system on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions: the majority of European Union countries included in our analysis reduced their total carbon dioxide emissions (associated with selected industries) by about 15.4% during the emissions trading system treatment period 2005–2020, compared to the total carbon dioxide emissions (associated with the same industries) that would have been achieved in the absence of the emissions trading system policy. Finally, several managerial/practical implications of the study are discussed, together with its possible extensions.

Background In order to understand and measure the policy impact of research we need a definition of research impact that is suited to the task. This article systematically reviewed both peer-reviewed and grey literature for definitions of research impact to develop a definition of research impact that can be used to investigate how public health research influences policy. Method Keyword searches of the electronic databases Web of Science, ProQuest, PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, Informit, PsycINFO, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Google Scholar were conducted between August 2015 and April 2016. Keywords included ‘definition’ and ‘policy’ and ‘research impact’ or ‘research evidence’. The search terms ‘health’, public health’ or ‘mental health’ and ‘knowledge transfer’ or ‘research translation’ were used to focus the search on relevant health discipline approaches. Studies included in the review described processes, theories or frameworks associated with public health, health services or mental health policy. Results We identified 108 definitions in 83 publications. The key findings were that literature on research impact is growing, but only 23% of peer-reviewed publications on the topic explicitly defined the term and that the majority (76%) of definitions were derived from research organisations and funding institutions. We identified four main types of definition, namely (1) definitions that conceptualise research impacts in terms of positive changes or effects that evidence can bring about when transferred into policies (example Research Excellence Framework definition), (2) definitions that interpret research impacts as measurable outcomes (Research Councils UK), and (3) bibliometric and (4) use-based definitions. We identified four constructs underpinning these definitions that related to concepts of contribution, change, avenues and levels of impact. Conclusion The dominance of bureaucratic definitions, the tendency to discuss but not define the concept of research impact, and the heterogeneity of definitions confirm the need for conceptual clarity in this area. We propose a working definition of research impact that can be used in a range of health policy contexts.