54
Public Works as a Safety Net
Table 4.1 Share of Domestic Contribution to Public Works Program Funding Share of funding contribution (%) 0.5–5.0 6–10 11–20 21–30 31–40 41–50 50 51–75 Total
Number of countries 7 4 1 1 0 1 3 3 20
Note: Data from 32 countries implementing a total of 40 public works programs; see appendix A.
carried out by a combination of government, private contractors, and donors. Four separate delivery mechanisms in all were identified: • Traditional model financed and implemented by government • Government financed, implemented by government or others • Government and donor financed, implemented by government or others • Donor financed, implemented by government or others. Broad cross-country analysis of these models reveals some interesting patterns by country income group (figure 4.4). The data from 62 countries show that delivery models in almost one-third of programs have joint government and donor financing and are implemented by government or other local partners. In 29 percent of cases programs were exclusively donor financed, with government and/or others implementing. The former model is found more typically in lower-middle-income countries, and the latter in low-income countries. One reason for this pattern is that lower-middle-income countries such as Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka have their own resources to combine with donor finance; most very lowincome countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, rely almost exclusively on donor finance. Neither model is observed among upper-middle and high-income countries. These findings confirm that, broadly speaking, as the level of income increases, governments are more inclined to fund and implement their own programs. Low-income countries depend heavily on donors to