Publication database

The report takes customer-led view of the impact of the off-grid energy sector, as well as the relative performance of the sub-sectors within it.

The Bhungroo system helps smallholder farmers harvest rainwater throughout the monsoon season so they can use it during the dry season. This report details monitoring and evaluation of the recent installation of 52 Bhungroo systems among the poorest smallholder farmers of Harij in Gujarat’s Patan district.

This report presents findings and best practices from idh's innovating partners with regards to empowering farmers through service delivery, while generating sustainable returns to their businesses. Learn more about their models’ drivers of farmer resilience, cost reduction and financial sustainability.  And get inspired, by service models helping millions of smallholder farmers out of poverty, in often remote areas and developing economies around the globe.

According to the Startup India Action Plan, 2016, one of the major challenges is the failure of most startups during the initial five years due to lack of either funds or management skills. Therefore, developing a conducive environment becomes crucial to support start-ups during their initial years of operations. This handbook is an endeavour to provide insight on several models that could be explored to set up a fund to promote start-ups, contributions to which would qualify as CSR spend under the Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013.

National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) of Pakistan participated in the ILO’s Microfinance for Decent Work (MF4DW) action research programme from 2008-2012. As part of this experimental research, NRSP launched and tested an extended microinsurance product (health and accidental death) covering extra-nuclear family members of the same household in order to see if there was a positive impact on the reduction of child labour among 2,097 client households, using a target versus control group methodology.

The paper reviews the pilot experiments conducted from 2011 onwards in eight districts across six states to test the provision of outpatient (OP) benefits under RSBY, India’s Social Health Insurance Scheme for low income populations. Administrative data on enrolment, empanelment of care providers and outpatient claims was analysed for the review. The paper also discusses the status of primary care in India and outpatient care provision in similar schemes in other developing nations (Vietnam, Ghana, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand).

Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) is a programme that needs no introduction. Launched in 2008 to provide secondary care to below poverty line (BPL) households, the scheme has expanded rapidly. Today, it covers nearly 38 million households and is present in 512 districts (out of a total 640) across all 28 states and union territories. This paper analyses key performance indicators (KPIs) for the programme, so as to identify ways of improving the scheme’s performance. 

The study focuses on three KPIs:

Enrolment ratio, measuring the percentage of eligible households enrolled, so as to estimate outreach;
Hospitalization ratio, to estimate utilisation;
Claims ratio, one of the key metrics that determines whether the scheme is profitable for the insurers.

The objective of this study was to conduct a community-based retrospective analysis of primary, secondary and tertiary care utilization over a 12 month period by 5000 urban slum dwellers in the context of an integrated health insurance plan (outpatient and inpatient) that was introduced by Naya Jeevan into Sultanabad (an urban slum in Karachi) during the 2013 calendar year.

Research paper #40 evaluates the financial viability of CARE Foundation’s rural primary-health-care delivery model, which includes an outpatient insurance product. The model is aimed at providing access to affordable primary health care in rural areas. The paper assessed the value proposition of the programme to clients and reviewed the performance of the outpatient insurance product, taking into account the contextual factors affecting the product and the model. Since technology plays an important role and is considered key to contributing greater efficiency, the programme’s use of technology and the impact of this are analysed in detail.  

Microfinance institutions have started to bundle their basic loans with other financial services, such as health insurance. Using a randomized control trial in Karnataka, India, Research Paper #37 evaluated the impact on loan renewal from mandating the purchase of actuarially-fair health insurance covering hospitalization and maternity expenses. Bundling loans with insurance led to a 16 percentage point (23%) increase in drop-out from microfinance, as many clients preferred to give up microfinance than pay higher interest rates and receive insurance. There was no adverse selection in insurance enrollment, but only because there was a total absence of demand for health insurance. Further, the decrease in microfinance loan renewal reduced clients' access to credit and had negative impacts on their businesses.