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This paper is organized as follows. In chapter two, Samson Bilangna and Marcellin Djeuwo from the Cameroon customs administration present the history and the outcomes of the performance measurement policy launched by their administra-tion: the General Directorate of Customs signed 'performance contracts' with the frontline customs officers in 2010 and with some importers in 2011. In chapter three, Jose-Maria Munoz, an anthropologist, offers a complementary view of the introduction of figures in the Cameroon tax administration. The fourth chapter ends the book's first part, which focuses on performance measurement. Xavier Pascual from the French customs administration describes the system implemented by his administration to measure the collective performance of customs units and bureaus. In chapter five, Anne-Marie Geourjon and Bertrand Laporte, who are both economists, and Ousmane Coundoul and Massene Gadiaga, who are from the Senegalese customs administration, present the use of data mining to select imports for inspection. This project is being developed in Senegal and embodies the concept of risk analysis. Sharing the same global aim to make controls more efficient, economists Gael Raballand and Guillermo Arenas from the World Bank and anthropologist Thomas Cantens from the World Customs Organization suggest, in chapter six, using mirror statistics to detect potentially fraudulent import flows. Mirror statistics calculate the gaps of foreign trade statistics between two trading partner countries. To conclude the second part on the integration of measurement in information systems, Soyoung Yang from the Korea Customs Service (KCS), in chapter eight, offers a case study on KCS's implementation of a single window system. With respect to risk analysis, the concept of single window is widespread in the trade and customs environments, but few concrete achievements have been presented and analyzed.

Numerous developing countries have substantially increased their number of subnational administrative units in recent years. The literature on this phenomenon is, nonetheless, small and suffers from several theoretical and methodological shortcomings: in particular, a unit of analysis problem that causes past studies to mistakenly de-emphasize the importance of local actors. We posit that administrative unit proliferation occurs where and when there is a confluence of interests between the national executive and local citizens and elites from areas that are politically, economically, and ethnically marginalized. We argue further that although the proliferation of administrative units often accompanies or follows far-reaching decentralization reforms, it likely results in a recentralization of power; the proliferation of new local governments fragments existing units into smaller ones with lower relative intergovernmental bargaining power and administrative capacity. We find support for these arguments using original data from Uganda.

AbstractBackgroundThe African Region Monitoring Vaccine Effectiveness network (AFRO-MoVE) was established by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa in March 2021 to support implementation of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness studies in the region. ObjectivesPrimary goals of the evaluation were to assess how AFRO-MoVE addressed its objectives supporting regional vaccine effectiveness (VE) studies, to describe challenges and opportunities, and make recommendations to strengthen future efforts related to regional VE research. MethodsFrom September 2023 through June 2024, a mixed-methods approach was employed to synthesize information from: (1) documentation provided by AFRO-MoVE; (2) a standardized study review tool; (3) an electronic stakeholder survey; and (4) a series of key informant interviews. Data were collected and exported via REDCap and summarized using Microsoft Excel. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. Perceived challenges were summarized together with perceived support by the network in addressing each challenge. ResultsAFRO-MoVE provided support to ten VE studies, including support for protocol development, study implementation, data management, and analysis, while also facilitating knowledge exchange and experience sharing among study implementers. While respondents reported strengthened capacity for VE studies at the national and regional levels in these areas, enrollment of SARS-CoV-2 positive cases was challenging, due to a decline in reported cases in network countries in mid-2022, when many studies were launched. These challenges contributed to a lack of published VE estimates from network study sites in time to inform vaccine policy. ConclusionAFRO-MoVE technical assistance and financial support was viewed positively by network members and contributed to increased capacity for conducting VE studies in the region. Publication of study results would further bolster the impact of the network. These finding underscore opportunities to enhance capacity for rapid VE generation and support preparedness for future pandemics.

Impact evaluation has grown more popular as a method for identifying the causal links between interventions and outcomes. These kind of evaluations assess changes that can be attributed to a particular intervention. Both innovations in statistical methods and the demand for evaluations that can measure such development results are increasing. The World Bank Group is the largest producer of impact evaluations among all development institutions. Thus, IEG has evaluated the relevance, quality, and influence of World Bank and IFC impact evaluations. IEG finds that the World Bank Group portfolio of impact evaluations is largely aligned with sector strategies and project objectives. Selection and coordination of impact evaluations has been improving. Most World Bank impact evaluations meet either medium or high quality standards, and about half of IFC impact evaluations did. Issues related to funding, staff capacity, and incentives, however, constrain the scope and coverage of impact evaluations in the Bank Group. IEG makes five recommendations to strengthen the Bank Group’s impact evaluation efforts, revolving around consistency, coordination, quality standards, and ensuring operational relevance. Both development and evaluation professionals will find valuable lessons in this evaluation. There are real benefits from impact evaluations, including their influence on development practices through contributions to project assessment and design of future projects. Thus, development practitioners engaged in designing projects, evaluators interestedin using similar methodology, and the general evaluation community will be able to use the lessons IEG sets out in this report.

The pressure of climate change, environmental degradation, and urbanisation, as well as the widening of socio- economic disparities have rendered the global population increasingly vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters. With a primary focus on medical and public health humanitarian response to disasters, Public Health Humanitarian Responses to Natural Disasters provides a timely critical analysis of public health responses to natural disasters. Using a number of case studies and examples of innovative disaster response measures developed by international agencies and stakeholders, this book illustrates how theoretical understanding of public health issues can be practically applied in the context of humanitarian relief response. Starting with an introduction to public health principles within the context of medical and public health disaster and humanitarian response, the book goes on to explore key trends, threats and challenges in contemporary disaster medical response. This book provides a comprehensive overview of an emergent discipline and offers a unique multidisciplinary perspective across a range of relevant topics including the concepts of disaster preparedness and resilience, and key challenges in human health needs for the twenty-first century. This book will be of interest to students of public health, disaster and emergency medicine and development studies, as well as to development and medical practitioners working within NGOs, development agencies, health authorities and public administration.

The National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) and its 501(c)(3) affiliate the NADO Research Foundation work with the national network of more than 500 regional development organizations (RDOs) across the United States to promote economic competitiveness, rural and regional development, and quality of place. RDOs are multi-jurisdictional organizations that provide regional planning and local community and economic development services. With grant support, the NADO Research Foundation has been building capacity and offering technical assistance on a wide range of transportation and regional development topics for rural Tribes, communities, or RDOs since the mid-1990s. NADO has found that for rural regions, making progress on any type of transportation challenge requires a network of partners working both in and outside of transportation.

Value chain–based approaches offer tremendous scope for market-based improvements in production, productivity, rural economy diversification, and household incomes, but are often covered by literature that is too conceptual or heavily focused on analysis. This has created a gap in the information available to planners, practitioners, and value chain participants. Furthermore, few references are available on how these approaches can be applied specifically to developing agriculture in Africa. 'Building Competitiveness in Africa's Agriculture: A Guide to Value Chain Concepts and Applications' describes practical implementation approaches and illustrates them with scores of real African agribusiness case studies. Using these examples, the 'Guide' presents a range of concepts, analytical tools, and methodologies centered on the value chain that can be used to design, implement, and evaluate agricultural and agribusiness development initiatives. It stresses principles of market focus, collaboration, information sharing, and innovation. The 'Guide' begins by examining core concepts and issues related to value chains. A brief literature review then focuses on five topics of particular relevance to African agricultural value chains. These topics address challenges faced by value chain participants and practitioners that resonate through the many cases described in the book. The core of the book presents methodological tools and approaches that blend important value chain concepts with the topics and with sound business principles. The tools and case studies have been selected for their usefulness in supporting market-driven, private-sector initiatives to improve value chains. The 'Guide' offers 13 implementation approaches, presented within the implementation cycle of a value chain program, followed by descriptions of actual cases. Roughly 60 percent of the examples are from Africa, while the rest come from Europe, Latin America, and Asia. The 'Guide' offers useful guidance to businesspeople, policy makers, representatives of farmer or trade organizations, and others who are engaged in agro-enterprise and agribusiness development. These readers will learn how to use value chain approaches in ways that can contribute to sound operational decisions, improved market linkage, and better results for enterprise and industry development.

Successfully achieving the sustainable development goals requires addressing complex, interrelated, wicked problems across multiple scales and contexts and decision-making that tackles nested layers of goals and targets across the interrelated social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The Stakeholder Approach to Risk-informed and Evidence-based Decision-making (SHARED) bridges processes, tools and accessible evidence to support inter-sectoral and multi-stakeholder decision-making and implementation aimed at achieving resilience aspirations and associated investments. Adaptive collaborative management and multiple-loop learning serve as a basis for the systematic approach to institutional learning that supports shifts in underlying institutional understanding and values leading to actionable organisational change. This paper describes a contextual application of tailored technical assistance and institutional support to the Turkana County Government in Kenya, a newly devolved governance structure, under conditions of complexity. The SHARED Turkana County decision case demonstrates how the approach responded to a policy aspiration, resulting in greater and more intentional use of evidence in planning and budget allocations, cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder partnerships, inclusive and transformative projects and a consultative and evidence-based five-year County Integrated Development Plan.

New horizons are opening for Africa, with a growing number of Chinese andIndian businesses fostering its integration into advanced markets. However,significant imbalances will have to be addressed on both sides of the equation to support long-term growth.