Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper uses research from neuroscience and the psychology of mathematics to arrive at useful recommendations for teaching mathematics at primary level to poor students in developing countries. The enrollment rates of the poorer students have improved tremendously in the last decade. And the global Net Enrollment Ratio (NER) has improved since 2001 from 83.2 percent to 90-95 percent except in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Making teaching of math and other subjects efficient for the poor in developing countries is a great challenge, particularly in south Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Many developing countries have explored new means of teaching math and other subjects. Mongolia changed its mathematics education, aiming to build a new set of priorities and practices, given the abandonment of earlier traditions. Similar to international trends of the time, South Africa in the 1990s extensively applied the constructivist learning philosophy which relied on exploration and discovery, with little emphasis on memorization, drill, In conformity with a belief that teachers could develop their own learning programs, there was virtual absence of a national or provincial syllabus or textbooks. Students were expected to develop their own methods for arithmetic operations, but most found it impossible to progress on their own from counting to actual calculating. This study integrates pertinent research from neuroscience and the psychology of mathematics to arrive at recommendations for curricular and efficient means of mathematics instruction particularly for developing countries and poor students at primary level. Specifically, the latest research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and discussions of national benchmarks for primary school mathematics learning, form the basis of our recommendations. These recommendations have a reasonable chance of working in the situational contexts of developing countries, with their traditions and resources.

Bilingual Education --- Class Size --- Cognitive Development --- Control Groups --- Curriculum --- Decision Making --- Education --- Educational Sciences --- Enrollment Rates --- Gender --- Kindergarten --- Leadership --- Nutrition --- Primary Education --- Problem Solving --- Reading --- Schools --- Speech --- Teacher Training --- Teachers --- Textbooks --- Tutoring --- Workbooks

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper evaluates small and medium enterprise (SME) support programs in Chile using a firm-level panel for the 1992-2006 period on two groups of firms - a treatment group that participated in SME programs and a control group that did not. These unique panel data provide an unprecedented opportunity to address several issues that have plagued impact evaluations of SME programs - selectivity bias from observed and unobserved firm heterogeneity, identification of an appropriate control group, and inability to track firms over a long enough period of time for performance outcomes to be realized. Using difference-in-differences models combined with propensity score matching methods, the paper finds evidence that participation in SME programs in Chile is associated with improvements in intermediate outcomes (training, adoption of new technology and organizational practices), and causally with positive and statistically significant impacts on sales, production, labor productivity, wages and exports. The mixed results of previous studies may be attributable in part to the confounding effects of unobserved heterogeneity motivating selection into programs of firms with relatively low productivity levels, and in part to time-effects of program participation occurring in years after the time horizon of most impact evaluation studies.

Beneficiaries --- Business development --- Business development services --- Control groups --- Economic sectors --- ICT Policy and Strategies --- Impact Evaluation --- Industrial Enterprises --- Industry association --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Information systems --- Innovations --- Intermediate outcomes --- Labor Policies --- Matching methods --- Microfinance --- Poverty Impact Evaluation --- Poverty Monitoring and Analysis --- Poverty Reduction --- Programs --- Research centers --- Social Protections and Labor --- Targeting --- Technology transfer --- Training activities --- Training institutes --- Training programs

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Public transfer programs that allow beneficiaries to choose the transferred good may be more efficient, but the poorest beneficiaries may not participate if the good chosen is too costly. A model shows that program targeting and consumption impacts are tied to selected quality of the provided good. Evidence from a randomized trial in rural India in which groups of beneficiaries choose the variety of rice to be offered as a subsidized loan confirms that choosing lower cost goods self-targets the program towards the poorest beneficiaries. Consumption impacts are biggest for wealthiest households and may be negative for moderately poor households.

Agriculture --- Consumers --- Consumption --- Control Groups --- Cooking --- Corruption --- Credit --- Debt --- Expenditures --- Food Consumption --- Food Security --- Food Subsidies --- Grains --- Inflation --- Interest Rates --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Maize --- Measurement --- Participation Rates --- Poverty --- Poverty Monitoring & analysis --- Poverty Reduction --- Rice --- Social Protections & Assistance --- Social Protections and Labor --- Staple Foods --- Surplus --- Surveys --- Wheat

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

For the 2014-2020 programming period, the Government of Romania (GoR) is considering a new approach presented by the European Commission (EC) - community-led local development (CLLD). Through CLLD, empowered communities have the opportunity to directly shape and own the process of local development, during all stages of EU - funded interventions, from concept design through implementation. If Romania ultimately pursues CLLD, the critical task facing the government is to design an optimal implementation framework for the new approach - this is precisely the focus and scope of the current integrated intervention tool (IIT). The preparation of this IIT entailed a number of steps, including extensive field work to define relevant subtypes of urban marginalized communities and to review past experiences with urban integration in Romania. This summary covers multiple sections, in line with the key chapters of the main IIT report. It first reviews CLLD's main features and best practice principles at the EU level. It focuses on Romania, making some recommendations for where CLLD can apply and what it will require in terms of coordinating different sources of funding. It also covers the main six stages of operationalizing CLLD in Romania, as follows: launch: preparations through capacity building and information campaigns; call for expressions of interest regarding the potential submission of local integration strategies (LISs); mobilization of the community for the establishment of local action groups (LAG) and development of LIS by each LAG; selection of strategies to be financed; implementation of LISs approved for financing, including selection and implementation of individual projects under these strategies; and phase-out activities and evaluation.

Audits --- Best Practices --- Business Development --- Capacity Building --- Cities --- Communities --- Community Involvement --- Control Groups --- Crime --- Decision Making --- Housing --- Housing & Human Habitats --- Human Capital --- Human Resources --- Information Campaigns --- Interest Groups --- Labor Market --- Lessons Learned --- Nongovernmental Organizations --- Participation and Civic Engagement --- Poverty Monitoring & analysis --- Poverty Reduction --- Poverty Strategy, analysis and Monitoring --- Project Management --- Rural Development --- Slums --- Social Dev/Gender/Inclusion --- Social Inclusion --- Social Protection and Risk Management --- Transparency --- Urban Areas --- Urban Development --- Urban Economic Development --- Urban Population --- Urban Poverty --- Urban Services and Housing For the Poor

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Clinical trials --- Clinical Trials. --- Études cliniques --- Clinical trials. --- Périodiques. --- Controlled clinical trials --- Patient trials of new treatments --- Randomized clinical trials --- Trials, Clinical --- Clinical Trials --- periodicals. --- Clinical Trials as Topic. --- Clinical medicine --- Human experimentation in medicine --- Research --- Clinical Trial as Topic --- Clinical Protocols --- Drug Evaluation --- Drugs, Investigational --- Clinical Trials Data Monitoring Committees --- Therapies, Investigational --- Research Design. --- Data Adjustment --- Data Reporting --- Design, Experimental --- Designs, Experimental --- Error Sources --- Experimental Designs --- Matched Groups --- Methodology, Research --- Problem Formulation --- Research Methodology --- Research Proposal --- Research Strategy --- Research Technics --- Research Techniques --- Scoring Methods --- Experimental Design --- Adjustment, Data --- Adjustments, Data --- Data Adjustments --- Design, Research --- Designs, Research --- Error Source --- Formulation, Problem --- Formulations, Problem --- Group, Matched --- Groups, Matched --- Matched Group --- Method, Scoring --- Methods, Scoring --- Problem Formulations --- Proposal, Research --- Proposals, Research --- Reporting, Data --- Research Designs --- Research Proposals --- Research Strategies --- Research Technic --- Research Technique --- Scoring Method --- Source, Error --- Sources, Error --- Strategies, Research --- Strategy, Research --- Technic, Research --- Technics, Research --- Technique, Research --- Techniques, Research --- methods --- Clinical Trials as Topic --- Periodicals. --- Controlled Clinical Trials as Topic. --- Clinical Trials, Controlled as Topic --- Control Groups --- Controlled Clinical Trials as Topic