The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme is one of the world’s largest programmes for early childhood care and development. Now, a new study suggests that nutrition and health counselling delivered under the programme’s auspices is one of the best possible investments that can be made by any government. This timely, non-partisan report is by India Consensus, a partnership between Tata Trusts and Copenhagen Consensus, which has undertaken a first-of-its-kind analysis of 100 government programmes. These were identified by NITI Aayog for their role in supporting India’s efforts to...

Transparency, fair competition and accountability are three defining features of an efficient public procurement system. Until 2011, the Bangladesh procurement process was paper-based and plagued by corruption and malpractices. Short bidding periods, nondisclosure of the selection criteria, pre-tender negotiation with bidders were some of the defining features of guiding Bangladesh’s public procurement activities. Although the World Bank recommended introducing e-Government Procurement (e-GP) system in 2002, it was not until the current government’s Digital Bangladesh agenda that gave fresh...

Increasing access to justice at the grassroot level can directly protect human rights of the rural poor. It is estimated that nearly 4 billion poor around the world cannot access the protection of the law and justice system. A study by the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) and BRAC Human Rights and Legal Aid Services found that on average, 31 million people, mostly belonging to rural areas, experience legal problems every year.

New Zealand is being lauded for introducing the world’s first Wellbeing Budget, which aims to shift the focus from GDP toward the “wellbeing of people.” Those with a grudge against the GDP indicator – in particular greens, who blame economic growth for harming the environment – see this as an exciting new opportunity to stop chasing dollars and start caring about people. The pursuit of higher GDP is easy to malign. The measure was invented during the industrial era, and includes many things that are obviously not beneficial. As Robert F. Kennedy pointed out a half-century ago, GDP “counts...

Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan to reduce plastic pollution, which will include a ban on single-use plastics as early as 2021. This is laudable: plastics clog drains and cause floods, litter nature and kill animals and birds. Of course, plastic also makes our lives better in a myriad of ways. In just four decades, plastic packaging has become ubiquitous because it keeps everything from cereals to juice fresher and reduces transportation losses, while one-use plastics in the medical sector have made syringes, pill bottles and diagnostic equipment safer. Going without...

Chancellor Phillip Hammond was slapped down by Downing Street last week for warning that reaching net zero carbon emissions could cost the UK £1 trillion and require cuts to funding for schools, hospitals and the police force. Climate change needs a response, but Mr Hammond is right to highlight the cost – and in fact, he is likely to be underestimating the real price-tag. Almost all signatories to the Paris Agreement on climate change are failing to live up to their promises. This is nothing new, countries have been failing to deliver ever since the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit was held back...

Of all of the things that a government can do to influence the lives of citizens, immunisation is one of the most effective, cost-efficient investments. And a new, non-partisan report shows that expanding India’s immunisation programme would be a phenomenal investment. This is according to new research undertaken by India Consensus at the behest of the NITI Aayog.

You’ve probably seen the latest alarming headlines: Rising sea levels from climate change could flood 187 million people out of their homes. Don’t believe it. That figure is unrealistic—and it isn’t even new. It appears in a new scholarly paper, whose authors plucked it from a paper published in 2011. And what the earlier paper actually found was that 187 million could be forced to move in the unlikely event that no one does anything in the next 80 years to adapt to dramatic rises in sea level. In real life, the 2011 paper explained, humans “adapt proactively,” and “such adaptation can...