Governments around the world are struggling to put together policy packages aimed at addressing the variety of impacts which result from crisis – food, fuel, financial, environmental, and the ones we haven’t experienced yet. Their ability to design and implement effective policy responses will depend, to a large extent, on the quality and timeliness of information on social impacts of the crisis. World Bank teams are working closely with government counterparts to gather and/or produce this type of information using a multiplicity of sources and approaches. Their experiences are extremely varied and reflect existing cross-country differences in terms of institutions, statistical capacity and other factors.
On June 11, 2009, the Human Development Network, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network and the Social Development Department organized a conference on Monitoring the Social Impacts of Crises with the objective of promoting knowledge sharing and coordination across World Bank teams involved in crisis monitoring activities. The conference aimed at presenting an overview of the rapidly evolving monitoring tools and strategies being pursued, as well as promoting discussion on the way forward. Sessions focused on: (i) review of monitoring tools menu and discussion of appropriateness and applicability in different contexts; (ii) discussion of implementation challenges through country examples; and (iii) implications for World Bank work in MICs and LICs. Some of key issues and challenges that emerged included: - The value of drawing on multiple data sources and using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to meet demands for rapid, reliable information on the social impacts of a range of crises and transmission mechanisms.
- How to balance the need to invest in long-term capacity building for monitoring systems versus meeting short-term needs of policy makers and donors for to get information on crisis impacts.
- How to fill data gaps e.g. better exploiting a wide range of existing administrative data while building non-state monitoring capacity and utilizing newer information technologies such as cell phones and text messaging to generate new data.
- The need for greater access to information to build a stronger information base and promote greater accountability.
- Agenda (16kb PDF)
- Summary (96kb PDF)
- Overview matrix of ongoing monitoring-related work (forthcoming)
Presentations - Monitoring Tools
- Country Experiences
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