Search results

Despite HIV being reported as one of the major global health issues, availability and accessibility of HIV services and supplies remain limited, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The effective and efficient operation of HIV supply chains is critical to tackle this problem. The purpose of this paper is to give an introduction to HIV supply chains in low- and middle-income countries and identify research opportunities for the operations research/operations management (OR/OM) community.

First, the authors review a combination of the scientific and grey literature, including both qualitative and quantitative papers, to give an overview of HIV supply chain operations in low- and middle-income countries and the challenges that are faced by organizing such supply chains. The authors then classify and discuss the relevant OR/OM literature based on seven classification criteria: decision level, methodology, type of HIV service modeled, challenges, performance measures, real-life applicability and countries covered. Because research on HIV supply chains in low- and middle-income countries is limited in the OR/OM field, this part also includes papers focusing on HIV supply chain modeling in high-income countries.

The authors conclude this study by identifying several tendencies and gaps and by proposing future research directions for OR/OM research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first literature review addressing this specific topic from an OR/OM perspective.

The Traffic Safety Culture (TSC) approach has been applied primarily in high-income countries (HICs), yet the great majority of the burden of road trauma falls on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where it constitutes a humanitarian crisis. The UN Decade of Action for Road Safety established road safety in LMICs as a priority issue and launched a plan to address it. Road safety has subsequently been incorporated into the international development agenda via the Sustainable Development Goals. Characteristics of road user behavior, governance, infrastructure, enforcement, and health services in LMICs have led to assertions that many lack a “safety culture” or, more specifically, a “traffic safety culture.” While this invites the suggestion that a TSC approach would have value in LMICs, the question raised in this chapter is whether a psychosocial approach like TSC, developed and applied in HICs, is transferable to LMICs. This is first explored by examining the critique of the assumption that commonly studied psychological processes are universal, noting examples that are relevant to road safety. Cross-cultural psychology studies show that some of the psychological processes commonly studied in HICs differ in important ways in LMICs, while broader comparative research based on anthropology and sociology demonstrates the important influence of religious and cultural factors, economic and infrastructure conditions, institutional capacity and governance. The sociological construct of governmentality provides insight into why public compliance with traffic safety law may be lower in LMICs, and why this situation is likely to take a protracted period of time to change. Given the broader context of road safety in LMICs, the Road Safety Space Model (RSSM) provides a useful framework for identifying the economic, institutional, social, and cultural factors that influence a particular road safety issue in a particular country. This has implications for methodological approaches to TSC in LMICs, as less structured, more ethnographic methods are arguably more appropriate. An analysis of a typical TSC model, drawing on research from LMICs, demonstrates that the model assumes a particular hierarchy of elements (values, behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, prototypical image, control beliefs), and relationships between them, which may not be true in LMICs. It is therefore more challenging to apply TSC in LMICs, particularly making the transition from identification of the TSC values and beliefs that lead to behavior to the development of an intervention to bring about changes in behavior. TSC is undoubtedly a promising approach in LMICs; however, its first steps should incorporate qualitative approaches and recognize the wide range of factors that are relevant to TSC; use of the RSSM would facilitate such a process. There is scope for further research to refine models of TSC, to determine the best mix of methods to use, and to explore the role of governmentality and its implications for TSC. In the interim, practitioners should strive to understand and take into account the broader social and cultural factors that influence behavior in the particular LMIC where they are working.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, analyze and describe the novel approaches that affect vaccine development in lower-middle income countries (LMICs).

The vaccine market in LMICs currently focuses on traditional Expanded Program for Immunization vaccines instead of new ones. Unlike the successful introduction of those traditional vaccines, the introduction of new vaccines appears to be very slow, mainly due to financial issues. This paper systematically reviews a set of published papers on vaccine development and analyzes them against a specific region-setting framework.

Public–private partnership alone could not ensure long-term vaccine sustainability. Several factors that encourage domestic vaccine development were identified. The findings demonstrate that the regulatory approach of hybrid collaboration and market opportunity strategies can be a major breakthrough for domestic vaccine development in LMICs.

Further research is required to include qualitative and quantitative methods for policy analysis, as all of the discussion in this research focused on literature reviews. The authors did not discuss how strategic decisions are affected from a political perspective and this needs to be specified in future research. Think tanks, considerably and fundamentally, affect policy ideas and decisions. However, important breakthroughs continue to be made at the same time.

The development of vaccines in LMICs is expected to be a mechanism to overcome the inadequate access to vaccines in those countries, as solving this problem requires tackling issues from both the supply and demand sides.

This is a literature review that creates recommendation and approaches for domestic vaccine development in LMICs. This review aims to encourage LMICs to produce their own vaccines for sustainability of the vaccine access through vaccine development lifecycle, instead of expecting donor that provides funding and vaccines (vaccine access) in certain period of time. Donor is not always the solution for the problem, since vaccine development requires finance to function infrastructure. There are many efforts in revoking this, including World Health Organization through several reports; however, this effort still has many doubts. Therefore, the article would like to try to see this as a viable solution from the policy perspectives, with several examples to make recommendations more practical.

This study aims to review social marketing interventions reported in peer-reviewed literature from 2010 to 2019 that were conducted in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This paper seeks to further contribute to understanding on the health of the social marketing field, synthesising studies to examine the extent of use of social marketing’s core principles.

A total of 17 interventions, discussed in 31 papers, were identified in the review. Social marketing interventions were assessed against eight elements (social marketing benchmark criteria): behavioural objectives, customer orientation, theory, insight, exchange, competition, segmentation and methods mix.

Evidence in this review found that most interventions yielded positive outcomes. This supports social marketing’s efficacy in addressing the United Nations sustainable development goals within LMIC contexts. None of the social marketing interventions used all eight benchmark criteria. The study found that there was limited use of insight, competition and segmentation principles followed in social marketing interventions in LMICs. Finally, although present in a number of studies, theory and customer orientation were not applied to the full extent needed.

Findings indicate the social marketing field will greatly benefit from capacity building and training. Too few interventions labelled as social marketing are able to clearly apply and report application of social marketing’s fundamental principles, which is limiting programme effectiveness.

To date evidence reviews draw on interventions applied in high-income countries demonstrating extent of application of fundamental social marketing principles positively linked to behaviour change. This study extends the assessment of social marketing principles, delivering assessment of eight benchmarks encompassing insight and theory in an LMIC setting, demonstrating gaps in application and clear examples of application across all benchmarks to deliver a guide that people new to the social marketing field can follow.

In the last two decades, the fashion value chain traveled to developing parts of the world. To these nations, it paved a path for socio-economic development initially but lately, the aftermath has costed more. This article visualizes the gains and losses of fast fashion to these countries.

An in-depth systematic literature review was performed to analyze the secondary data from academic journals and reports from international organizations. The authors have compiled their empirical journeys in academia, research and industry from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) based on Schon's (1983, 1990) theory of reflective practice. Further on, the article is structured using the value chain analysis (VCA) method which visualizes the aftermath of mass-producing fashion for the developed countries.

In this research it was found that LMICs have made substantial economic progress in the past two decades, however at a high social and environmental cost. It is the right time to find a balance between economic development and harm caused to the citizens of these nations.

At the moment the existing academic literature talks about unsustainable practices in the fashion sector around the world. This research precisely targets the LMICs where the aftermath is supposed to be much more severe. Further, it provides solutions and urges these nations to bring a substantial change throughout the value chain for a robust future.

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 outlines sustainability as associated with peace, good governance and justice. The perception of international tourists about security measures and risks is a key factor affecting destination choices, tourist flow and overall satisfaction. Thus, we investigate the impact of armed forces personnel, prices, economic stability, financial development and infrastructure on tourism.

This research used data from 130 countries from 1995 to 2019, which were divided into four income groups. This study employs a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) technique and a novel tourism index comprising five relevant indicators of tourism.

A 1% increase in armed forces personnel expands tourism in all income groups – 0.369% High Income Countries (HICs), 0.348% Upper Middle Income Countries (UMICs), 0.247% Lower Middle Income Countries (LMICs) and 0.139% Low Income Countries (LICs). The size of the tourism-safety coefficient decreases from high to low-income groups. The impact of inflation is significantly negative in all panels, excluding LICs. The reduction in tourism was 0.033% in HICs, 0.049% in UMICs and 0.029% in LMICs for a 1% increase in prices. The increase in the global tourism index is more in LICs (0.055%), followed by LMICs (0.024%), UMICs (0.009%) and HICs (0.004%) for a 1% expansion in the gross domestic product (GDP)/capita growth. However, the magnitude of the growth-led tourism impact is greater in developing countries. A positive impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow was found in all panels like 0.016% in HICs, 0.050% in UMICs and 0.119% in LMICs for a 1% increase in FDI inflow. The rise in the global tourism index is 0.097% (HICs), 0.124% (UMICs) and 0.310% (LMICs) for a 1% rise in the financial development index. The increase in the global tourism index is 0.487% (HICs), 0.420% (UMICs) and 0.136% (LICs) for a 1% rise in the infrastructure index.

Empirical analysis infers important policy implications such as (a) establishment of a peaceful environment via recruitment of security personnel, use of safe city cameras, modern technology and law enforcement; (b) provision of basic facilities to tourists like sanitation, drinking water, electricity, accommodation, quality food, fuel and communication network and (c) price stability through different tools of monetary and fiscal policy.

First, it explains the effect of security personnel on a comprehensive index of tourism instead of a single variable of tourism. Second, it captures the importance of economic stability (i.e., economic growth, financial development and FDI inflow) in the tourism–peace nexus.

This chapter reviews successful pedagogical interventions in teaching literacy in languages of teaching and learning in the upper primary grades in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and explores how researchers and teachers decolonized classroom spaces to ensure student achievement of learning outcomes. Themes emerging from the analysis of data are biliteracy interventions, interventions in official and national languages, teacher professional development, and ecological interventions. Results of the review indicate that researchers decolonized classroom spaces by using student linguistic repertoires, evidence-based pedagogical strategies student cultural capital and engaging families and communities. The review also reveals that more research needs to be conducted on teaching and learning in upper primary grades. The linguistic diversity of LMICs provides rich contexts for more research in bilingual education and L2 acquisition which could be useful worldwide as stakeholders in the education process explore the best ways to improve learning outcomes in schools.

The use of pay for performance (P4P) as an instrument to incentivise quality improvements in health care is at a crossroads in high-income countries but has remained a commonly used tool in low- and middle-income countries. The authors aimed to take stock of the evidence on effectiveness and design from across income settings to reveal insights for the future design of performance payment across income contexts.

The authors identified Cochrane literature reviews of the use of P4P in health care in any income setting, tracked the development in the quantity and quality of evidence over time, and compared the incentive design features used across high-income countries compared to low- and middle-income countries.

The quantity and quality of the evidence base have grown over time but can still be improved. Scheme design varies across income settings, and although some design choices may reflect differences in context, the authors find that incentive designers in both income settings can learn from practices used in the other setting.

The research and literature on P4P in high-, low- and middle-income countries largely operate in silos. By taking stock of the evidence on P4P from across income settings, the authors are able to draw out key insights between these settings, which remain underexplored in the literature.

This paper aims to explore whether there is a “low financing trap” that results in underfunding of education systems in low and lower middle income countries (LICs and LMICs). It shows public investment in education has not increased over the last two decades despite extensive advocacy and has equilibrated at about 4% of GDP. More than 6% of GDP is needed to achieve the sustainable development goals.

This research uses large scale data from the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and the World Bank to analyse patterns of investment across sub-Saharan Africa. The most recent data downloaded in 2022 are used for each country. The analysis uses time series analysis to show how flows of resources for education have evolved and illustrates the limits to growth.

The research develops a taxonomy of countries and identifies three bands of effort for investment in education. Individual countries tend to remain in the same band of expenditure level and only the highest band countries are likely to be able to finance their development goals from their own resources between now and 2030. Escape from the low financing trap is critical for future educational development.

Innovative approaches to external assistance are needed which recognise that domestic revenues are at the heart of sustainable financing and that greater efficiency and effectiveness are critical to sustainable solutions. The priority is to accelerate the development of fiscal states, which can finance public goods from domestic revenue and make good use of concessionary assistance.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the main factors influencing willingness to pay for health insurance and pension schemes among informal workers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Historically, informal economy workers have been excluded from social protection coverage. There is a growing need, interest and policy discourse in LMICs to extend social security to informal economy workers. However, little is known about informal workers' willingness to pay (WTP) for social security services in different LMIC settings.

The authors conducted a systematic review and searched five databases from 1987 to 2017. Included papers focused on “social security”, “social insurance”, “pension”, “informal economy”, “informal sector” and “informal workers” in LMICs. Authors conducted independent data appraisal and data extraction. A total of 1790 papers were identified. After exclusion, 34 papers were included in the analysis. Given the heterogeneous results, the authors performed a narrative synthesis to consolidate the findings of the different studies.

In total, 34 studies from 17 countries were included in the review, out of which 23 studies focused on health insurance, 7 studies on pension schemes and 4 studies on social security in general. The study showed that income and trust were associated with WTP for both health insurance and pension schemes. In addition, family size, age, education and residential area were common factors for both forms of social security. For health insurance, experience of sickness, attitude and presence of medical doctors as well as distance from the healthcare facility all played a role in determining WTP. For pension schemes, low and flexible contribution rates, benefit package, government subsidies and quality of administration of the schemes influenced enrolment and contributions.

More evidence is needed for WTP for pensions among informal workers.

The findings show that socio-economic differences, scheme-type (health or pension) and level of trust influence WTP for health insurance or pension among informal sector workers. The review results suggest that the factors influencing WTP for health insurance and pensions interplay in a complex web of relations. More evidence is needed on WTP for pensions among informal workers.

Further studies are particularly needed on the interrelationship of the influences to WTP, including gender issues, access barriers and socioeconomic factors, among program design issues for social security.

This paper is based on a systematic review methodology and contributes to the discourse on extending social security to informal economy workers based on evidence from various countries.