Although there is ample support for the causal link between home visit parenting programs and child development outcomes, few studies have explored what it is that drives this relationship -to what extent home visit programs are implemented as designed in terms of the content and strategies used by home visitors. To our knowledge, comparable data on the quality and fidelity of implementation in home visit programs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) does not exist.

Development programs that use financial incentives to motivate better performance are increasingly used by governments, multilaterals and private donors as alternatives to traditional input-based financing. One class of results-based financing programs uses pre-defined outcomes, or targets, to measure and reward performance. If established targets are met, then the implementing agency receives a financial bonus. In this paper, we propose a simple cost-benefit framework for setting targets.

Whilst there is an interest in recent surveys in understanding the impact of disruptive technologies on employment and the way in which skills might be a constraint on their take-up, this tends to be at an aggregate level with little consideration given to the types of job that may be affected or the specific skill needs that may arise. This report develops a set of suite of questions about: (i) how specific disruptive technologies may affect the demand of skills, occupations and employees; and, (ii) how the on-demand labour, crowd sourcing and other flexible forms of labour is undertaken.

The Colombian 2012 tax reform reduced payroll taxes and employer contributions to health insurance by 13.5%, while also increasing corporate income taxes, and leaving untouched the benefits to workers financed through these taxes. Shifting taxation from formal employment to other business activities is a policy recipe under heated discussion in Latin America. In this context, the reform offers an ideal laboratory to study empirically the potential distortions against formal employment associated with payroll taxes in contrast to other taxes to firms.

International headlines often focus on the drama of U.S.- Mexico border, but the borders of Latin America are becoming more active transit points for work across the region. Today, migration officials are noting labor movements inconceivable as little as 15 years ago: Hondurans and Guatemalans crossing to El Salvador for agriculture and construction work; Bolivians and Paraguayans working in large numbers in Argentina; Mexicans from the state of Chiapas moving to the Yucatan for work, with Guatemalans replacing them to harvest local crops.

This document provides an inventory of available national census and household survey questions on race and ethnicity in Latin America while sharing a methodology for harmonizing data on race and ethnicity across countries over time. By contributing to the understanding of how to harmonize race and ethnicity variables, we hope to increase the pool of researchers who can use race and ethnicity data to undertake cross-country analysis that will inform development policy-making to reduce socio-economic gaps between indigenous peoples, African descendants, and the rest of the population.

Chronic diseases have risen in prominence in recent years and are now the major cause of morbidity and mortality globally. The rise in rates of obesity and aging populations are two primary drivers of this global trend, which is predicted to continue to rise in the absence of effective interventions. Notably, much of this disease burden is due to individual behaviors such as physical inactivity, tobacco use, poor eating habits, and lack of proper preventive care.

Belize is participating in the Salud Mesoamerica 2015 Initiative (SM2015), a regional public-private partnership administered by the Inter-American
Development Bank (IADB) and implemented by the eight Mesoamerican
countries, which utilizes a results-based financing model with external

This study develops a composite measure of primary care experience, using the Commonwealth Fund's 2010 International Health Policy Survey (IHP), applied on eleven high income OECD countries, and based on user self-report. The multidimensional measure is composed of answers regarding specific primary care domains, including: accessibility, continuous care, coordination of care, and provider communication and cultural competence. The overall measure of primary care experience is tested and validated, including an exploration of population characteristics (e.g.

This technical note presents a comparative analysis of Latin America's fragmented health systems. It provides a detailed account of health system fragmentation along six dimensions (organizations, risk pooling, eligibility, benefits, premium/contributions, payments) and the effects of historical reforms in Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile, as well as examples of successful integration in Spain and Turkey.