A quick inspection of the data suggests that the magnitude of absolute decline in IMR (13 per thousand) between 1984 and 1985 had been surpassed in earlier periods, though large absolute changes in earlier periods occurred before a firm declining trend was established. If we focus on relative decline, the 20 percent change in IMR between 1984 and 1985 is unparalleled for the period considered. The same points hold when we focus on diarrhea associated mortality. The magnitude of absolute change has been surpassed in earlier periods, though the magnitude of the 1984-85 change is the largest from 1975 onwards. The relative change in diarrhea associated mortality is higher between 1984-85 than for any other one year period in the series.Diarrheal mortality change contributed to 61 % of the decline in mortality between 1984-85. It should be emphasized that the share of diarrheal decline in the overall change in mortality has surpassed 61% in several earlier years. With the exception of the changes from 1974 to 1975 and from 1982 to 1983 (in which periods diarrhea mortality change was responsible for 82% and 66% of the overall change, respectively), the decline in diarrheal mortality was accompanied by an increase in mortality from other causes. A graphical insp 4ion suggests a change in intercept starting in 1985 and continuing up to 1988, with no change in the speed of decline.

The results of regression discontinuity analysis at the national level are presented in Tables 7 to 9 for different dependent variables (IMR, post-neonatal mortality, diarrhea associated infant mortality) and for both models (1) and (2), using a forward selection technique. In all applications the regression discontinuity analysis rejects the hypothesis of no change in intercept and does not reject the hypothesis of no change in slope. Thus it seems that, from 1985 onwards, infant mortality rates in Egypt moved to a lower base (a change in the constant in the models) keeping the same rate of annual change (no change in the slopes of the relationships) n operatio. ie 1975. **T1e** ana1ysis estim At%cs ar. avc.age declinc in IMR, post-raonatal mortality and diarrhea associated infant mortality following NCDDP activities of around eight, nine and seven percent respectively. The change is significantly different from what could have occurred by chance based on time series information from 1975 up to 1984. Table 10 summarizes the expected level of mortality (based on earlier trends) and the estimated new level after smoothing out erratic variations.

The analysis so far has revealed that from 1985 onwards a certain unexpected absolute decline has occurred in infant mortality, particularly diarrhea associated mortality. The level of the decline is consistent with to what would have been expected given the levels of current ORS utilization in Egypt, if the use were of very high quality (general high level and efficient utilization of ORS, at least insofar as utilization for children who would otherwise have died is concerned). However, the estimated impact is much higher than what would have been anticipated based on the few available pieces of information on quality of use.

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