David de Ferranti

• PhD in Economics
• Chair at Results for Development Institute, Washington, DC

Countries have reached universal health coverage by different paths and with varying health systems. Nonetheless, the trajectory toward universal health coverage regularly has three common features. The first is a political process driven by a variety of social forces to create public programmes or regulations that expand access to care, improve eq...

The exploding cost of health care in the United States is a source of widespread alarm. Similarly, the upward spiral of college tuition fees is cause for serious concern. In this concise and illuminating book, the well-known economist William J. Baumol explores the causes of these seemingly intractable problems and offers a surprisingly simple expl...

At present, there exists no widely agreed upon set of study-design selection criteria for systematic reviews of health systems research, except for those proposed by the Cochrane Collaboration's Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) review group (which comprises randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, controlled befor...

As the global HIV/AIDS pandemic nears the end of its third decade, the challenges of efficient mobilisation of funds and management of resources are increasingly prominent. The aids2031 project modelled long-term funding needs for HIV/AIDS in developing countries with a range of scenarios and substantial variation in costs: ranging from US$397 to $...

Because of its potential impact, and, in some cases, the harm it has brought, foreign aid is under the microscope. Donor countries, who don't want simply to give money away; recipient nations, who need to make the most of what they have and get; and analysts, policymakers, and writers are all scrutinizing how much is spent and where it goes. Perhap...

The AIDS pandemic will enter its fiftieth year in 2031. Despite much progress, there are thirty-three million infected people worldwide, and 2.3 million adults were newly infected in 2007. Without a change in approach, a major pandemic will still be with us in 2031. Modeling carried out for the AIDS 2031 project suggests that funding required for d...

China's current strategy to improve how health services are paid for is headed in the right direction, but much more remains to be done. The problems to be resolved, reflecting the setbacks of recent decades, are substantial: high levels of out-of-pocket payments and cost escalation, stalled progress in providing adequate health insurance for all,...

Improving global health - and, in particular, achieving better health outcomes for the world's poor people, including the more than 3 billion (half the planet's total population) who live on less than US$2 a day - has become a prominent priority in development agendas. Heightened search for more effective ways to accelerate progress has spawned int...

Human resources are crucial for the provision of health care and represent the largest single use of public spending on health in developing countries. Yet countries face an ongoing challenge when it comes to financing human resources for health (HRH) sufficiently to sustain an adequate supply of health workers and stimulate greater productivity an...

* Can innovative approaches to mobilizing and utilizing financial resources make a difference in the fight against global poverty? Potentially yes, this chapter argues; however, there is no silver bullet in the offing. New approaches can be useful additions to the current array of instruments and activities for helping developing countries, but wil...

The paper draws on recent studies at the W odd Bank and elsewhere to highlight four aspects of Latin America's current challenges. First, high inequality, partly related to historical relations between Europeans, indigenous and Afro-descendants, but reinforced by continuing dualism between the formal and informal sectors. Second, education, where t...

THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES AND COMMUNITIES IS PIVOTAL TO national well-being. In Latin American and Caribbean history, rural societies have been at the center of both the origins of prosperity and of social upheaval. Rural communities have access to a wealth of natural resources, including arable land and forests, yet they face th...

From p. 1-2: "Most LAC countries are preoccupied about the state of their rural economy, particularly the competitiveness of rural economic activities, poverty, and environmental degradation. While the majority of LAC countries have in place trade policies, sector-specific government support policies, social intervention policies, infrastructure de...

Incl. bibl.

This document examines the gap between the Latin America and Caribbean region and the world's developed nations in the areas of education and technology. It also examines policies and strategies to close the gap. The following are among the specific topics discussed: (1) skills upgrading and innovation policies (the major actors; the role of govern...

Oportunidades y riesgo en un mundo globalizado -- La inseguridad económica en América Latina y el Caribe: hechos estilizados -- El diseño de una política social para enfrentar el riesgo: marco conceptual -- La volatilidad macroeconómica en América Latina y el Caribe: causas y soluciones -- La respuesta de los hogares de América Latina y el Caribe a...

There is a vast gap between methodology and practice in the analysis and assessment of health programs. This presents an acute problem in developing countries where resource allocation decisions at the tight budgetary margin have important practical consequences. The prospects for improving this primitive situation depend critically on progress in...

For many countries, formulating and implementing better policies to pay for health services will not be easy. Yet the stakes are high, and governments that fail to face the choices before them risk missing opportunities to achieve unprecedented progress in health care before the end of the century.

Present financing policies typically have not been designed with much consideration of the incentives they create or reinforce, or of the ensuing impact on the behaviour of service providers, users (households), and government agencies. This is especially the case with respect to containing costs, utilizing cost-effective technologies, and minimizi...

T he World Bank's role in middle income developing countries needs to change. Not to end lending to them, or adopt the other proposals from extremists on the right or left. But rather to modernize both what the Bank does and how it does it, so as to respond more effectively to the changed circumstances, needs, and preferences of this group of count...

Traducción de: Closing the Gap in Education and Technology Informe del Banco Mundial sobre la interacción entre la tecnología y las destrezas en relación con el crecimiento económico. Con la tesis de que los países del norte han seguido generando nuevas tecnologías, las que como consecuencia explican por lo menos la mitad del crecimiento económico....