Making evidence accessible

There are few rigorous impact evaluations of climate change interventions. But some examples in the field of conservation stand out. A number of recent studies evaluate the impact of protected areas, payment for environmental services and decentralized forest management.

Conditional cash transfers, exemption of school fees and school feeding programmes have generally been found to have a positive impact on primary school enrolment rates. But these programmes have had a limited and a varied effect in different contexts on keeping children in education.

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCTs) programmes provide cash to poor households who meet certain health and education conditions such as regular school attendance and health check-ups for children at the clinic.

In Mozambique, only 4 out of 100 children go to preschool and very few programmes are available in rural areas where poverty is more acute. Existing evidence shows that investment in education early in life gives children a head start, and has effects on their immediate well-being and future prospects.

Over one-third of the 2.5 billion people worldwide who do not have access to improved sanitation live in India. Nearly 69 per cent of the population practise open defecation. Typically, the government of India’s national sanitation schemes have focused on building more latrines for reducing open defecation, health-related illness and child malnutrition.