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While it may be feasible to target those receiving relief after a natural disaster, it is difficult to differentiate the amount of relief provided among beneficiaries. This is because much of the relief consists of food, clothing, and medicine, all goods for which the absorptive capacity of households is limited. Empirical tests using data from Honduras following Hurricane Mitch confirm this hypothesis. The probability of receiving relief was negatively correlated with wealth and positively correlated with assets losses (with a higher weight placed on losses than pre-disaster wealth) and the fact that households suffered damage to their dwelling. By contrast, controlling for whether households suffered damage to their dwelling, the amount of relief received was related neither to pre-Mitch wealth, nor to assets losses. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Compares the performance of targeting indicators to identity the poor, using of Relative Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve. Background information on the technique; Information on how the analysis is applied; What was observed with the use of the ROC curve.

Summary: This paper analyzes the distributional impacts of recent debt relief initiatives among four groups of countries: the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs), the other IDA-eligible countries, the non-IDA developing countries, and the industrialized countries. The distributional impacts are subject to two major questions: (a) is debt relief additional to donors’ traditional aid budgets? and (b) will donors make reallocations of their traditional aid budgets to HIPCs due to debt relief provided to them? The paper’s analytical framework then establishes certain benchmark scenarios for the two previous questions which allows to approximate some realistic outcomes and to draw some policy recommendations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of three child-health outcomes related to the Millennium Development Goals: the infant mortality rate, the child mortality rate, and the prevalence of malnutrition. Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys, the paper goes beyond traditional crosscountry regressions by exploiting the variability in outcomes and explanatory variables observed within countries between asset quintiles. The findings suggest that apart from traditional variables (income, assets, education, and direct health interventions), better access to basic infrastructure services has an important role to play in improving child-health outcomes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Assesses the extent to which Hurricane Mitch affected the rural poor in Honduras on October 26 and 27, 1998 and whether national and international aid efforts succeeded in providing relief. Characteristics of survey households by pre-Mitch quintile of wealth; Assets depleted as a result of Hurricane Mitch; Costs incurred as a result of Hurricane Mitch.