Branchless banking has great potential to broaden and deepen access to financial services for poor people in both urban and rural areas, and mobile money transfer (MMT) is at the leading edge of branchless banking. As in any field characterised by fast moving technological innovation, it is important for service providers and regulators to engage in continuing and constructive dialogue. This presentation, delivered at the MMT Africa Conference in Johannesburg in May 2009, provides advice to service providers on how to approach that dialogue.

This note develops a model to assess progress in child welfare system reform, and applies it to the case of Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic highlighting the way in which advancements and blockages in the delivery of family-based care can be identified through the evolution of child welfare policies.

This note assesses how effective the way in which donor support to statistical capacity building in developing countries has been, and makes recommendations on what needs to be done if donor support is to be more effective for results based management.

This note presents a preliminary analysis of the channels of negative influence of the global financial crisis on the developing countries. It suggests ways in which the negative impacts could be mitigated so as to preserve, or at least prevent a reversal, in poverty reduction.

Medium Term Budgetary Framework (MTBF) reforms in developing countries have often been over-ambitious and have thus fallen short of expectations. This note suggests ways in which MTBF reform can be made simple, and easier to achieve.

As part of a new series of working papers, OPM asked Mike Williams (former CEO of the UK Debt Management Office) to produce a working paper on cash management. The paper examines the importance of cash management, its relationship to debt management, monetary policy and budget execution, and the process for implementing reforms of cash management in developing countries.