Supporting Communities in Transition: The Impact of the Armenian Social Investment Fund

Autor: Robert S. Chase
Rok vydání: 2002
Předmět:
Economic growth
REHABILITATIONS
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
WASTE
EDUCATION LEVELS
INCLUSION
Recession
Transition economy
Economics
EMPLOYMENT
CENTRAL GOVERNMENTS
SOCIETIES
ROADS
health care economics and organizations
media_common
Investment fund
JOBS
Investment (macroeconomics)
FEMALE
CENTRAL AUTHORITIES
IMPROVEMENTS IN HEALTH
HOUSEHOLDS
INTERVENTION
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
RURAL COMMUNITIES
INTERVENTIONS
Social capital
REHABILITATION
Economics and Econometrics
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
Community organization
media_common.quotation_subject
SOCIETY
Water industry
Development
COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE
SCHOOL SERVICE
COMMUNITY PROJECTS
SCHOOLS
SANITATION
Accounting
BENEFICIARY ASSESSMENTS
RURAL AREAS
SOCIAL FUNDS
HOMES
business.industry
Planned economy
BIASES
WATER SUPPLY
HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION
COMMUNITY CENTERS
SOCIAL CAPITAL
SCHOOL SERVICES
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
URBAN AREAS
COMMUNITIES
business
Finance
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Zdroj: The World Bank Economic Review. 16:219-240
ISSN: 1564-698X
DOI: 10.1093/wber/16.2.219
Popis: The Armenian Social Investment Fund supports communities’ efforts to improve local infrastructure during Armenia’s economic transition away from central planning, financing community-designed and -implemented projects to rehabilitate primary schools, water systems, and other infrastructure. This article considers the targeting, household impact, and community effects of the social fund’s activities. It relies on a nationally representative household survey, oversampled in areas where the social fund was active. Using propensity and pipeline matching techniques to control for community self-selection into the social fund, it evaluates the household effects of rehabilitating schools and water systems. The results show that the social fund reached poor households, particularly in rural areas. Education projects increased households’ spending on education significantly and had mild effects on school attendance. Potable water projects increased household access to water and had mild positive effects on health. Communities that completed a social fund project were less likely than the comparison group to complete other local infrastructure projects, suggesting that social capital was expended in these early projects. By contrast, communities that joined the social fund later and had not yet completed their projects took more initiatives not supported by the social fund. In centrally planned economies, national governments exerted tremendous economic control. This control extended to investment in local infrastructure, including building and maintaining roads, schools, and water systems. When these economies collapsed, governments became bereft of resources. Systems for maintaining local infrastructure began to fail; as deep economic recession took hold, schools and water systems fell into disrepair. Local public services deteriorated, compounding other hardships for people living in postcommunist conditions. But because communities were accustomed to relying on central authorities to meet local needs, they often were unable to address their problems.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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