The objective of the Agricultural Development Support Project for Myanmar is to increase crop yields and cropping intensity in the target irrigated areas.
... See More + This will be achieved through improved provision of irrigation and farm advisory and technical services. Negative impacts include: air pollution, dust, water pollution, soil erosion, noise pollution, waste management, and loss of ecology. Mitigation measures include: good engineering practice and maintenance of vehicles would be required according Irrigation manual, occupational health safety instruction and World Banks guideline; dust from handling or transportation of aggregates, cement, etc., should be minimized by sprinkling or other appropriate method; i.e. limit of excessive truckload, use of cover sheet; restoration of borrow [its and disposal; raise people awareness through meeting and communication materials before boundary delineation between adjacent farmland and drainage system to avoid confusion and dispute; consult with farmers for identifying working zone of civil work (including damping site) and developing operational time schedules adjusting to farming seasons. Also, agree upon grievance procedures, compensation and communication channel as necessary; assess local access route and consult with villagers for arrangement of temporary path if required; use warning signboard, prior notice, and announcement whenever heavy traffic is to be occurred; and develop or implement health and safety guidelines.
See Less -
This paper assesses inequality of opportunity in educational achievement using the Human Opportunity Index methodology on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment.
... See More + The findings suggest that there are large inequalities in learning outcomes as measured by demonstrated proficiency in Programme for International Student Assessment test scores in math, reading, and science. Differences in wealth, parental education, and area of residence explain a bulk of this inequality in most of the countries in the sample. Consistent with what has been documented previously in the literature, the paper also finds a strong and stable correlation between inequality of opportunity and public spending on school education. An exploration of the changes in inequality of opportunity between the 2009 and 2012 rounds of the Programme for International Student Assessment, using parametric and nonparametric techniques, suggests that there has been little progress.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7152 JAN 01, 2015
Balcazar, Carlos Felipe; Narayan, Ambar; Tiwari, Sailesh
This paper assesses the link between democracy and inequality. Inequality is measured at the cohort level with pseudo-panel data built from nine Latin American countries' household surveys (1995-2009, biannual).
... See More + Democracy is measured as a stock during long periods of time both before and after each cohort's year of birth. The paper presents evidence that long-run historical patterns in the degree of democracy relate to income inequality. However, this relationship is non-monotonic: inequality ?rst increases with the stock of democracy before falling. The paper also presents evidence that education may be a mechanism explaining this result.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7153 JAN 01, 2015
Does research add value to aid? Specifically, does impact evaluation research help or hinder the delivery of development projects? This paper analyzes the question by constructing a new data set of 100 impact evaluations and 1,135 projects approved by the World Bank between 2005 and 2011.
... See More + The analysis finds that the delivery of projects with impact evaluation is significantly timelier: common delays are avoided and the gap between planned and actual disbursements is reduced by half. Evidence-based mid-course corrections, a clearer implementation road map, strengthened capacity on the ground, and observer effects are possible channels to explain the results. Hopefully, this analysis will stimulate discussion over the optimal balance between project financing and the impact evaluation research needed to deliver development outcomes.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7157 JAN 01, 2015
Papua New Guinea has experienced strong, resource-led, economic growth over the past 10 years, yet basic development outcomes have remained the same or improved only marginally over the same period.
... See More + Efforts from the government and key partners to improve systems and capabilities are helpful but are yet to reach the local-level government (LLG) and ward levels where the most basic services are needed. Often the lowest levels of government do not have the resources or staff to provide regular or adequate social and economic services to the community.
See Less -
The majority of Papua New Guinea's population lives in rural areas, largely dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Coffee and cocoa are the main cash crops, with half of the country's total workforce involved in their production, processing, and sale.
... See More + Despite its importance, the quality and productivity of Papua New Guinea's coffee has been declining, largely due to a lack of replanting, limited incentives for smallholder farmers, and poor access to markets. The cocoa industry has been experiencing similar issues in addition to the threat posed by the cocoa pod borer. The Productive Partnerships in Agriculture Project (PPAP) aims to combat these problems in order to improve the livelihoods of smallholder cocoa and coffee producers, and promote rural development and poverty reduction more broadly.
See Less -
The Integrating Nutrition Promotion and Rural Development (INPARD) Project aims to implement and evaluate nutrition promotion activities through the on-going World Bank financed Community Livelihoods in Conflict Affected Areas Project - popularly known as Reawakening Project (RaP) - in two districts of Sri Lanka.
... See More + The project focuses on identifying the pathways to promote nutrition with multiple stakeholders. This project also aims to explore the pathways and quantifying their relative contributions on food security and nutrition related outcomes. It is believed that rural development programs have an impact on multiple health related behaviors and outcomes. The study focuses primarily on nutritional outcomes, but includes several others. In addition, this project aims to provide evidence on understanding the best ways to operationalize multi-sectoral approaches and innovative multi-sectoral delivery strategies. Generating this new evidence could attract more local and national level policy makers to consider health impacts when they make decisions. The output of this study will solidify the call for inter-sectoral collaborations and whole of government approaches to improve nutrition and health, in particular in developing countries.
See Less -
This brief describes a small pilot designed to leverage the women's self-help group platform of a World Bank-supported livelihoods project (that is, a non-health sector project) to: (a) promote positive nutrition and health behaviors; and (b) improve, especially amongst poor and vulnerable households, the demand for and utilization of public services across many sectors to improve nutrition outcomes.
... See More + This pilot is based on using a Bank-supported project platform in a non-health and nutrition sector to leverage entry points and opportunities to improve nutrition. The pilot provides a unique opportunity to build the capacity of community institutions of poor rural women to improve maternal and child nutrition. It promotes behavior change to adopt positive maternal and child health and nutrition, health, hygiene and sanitation practices, improve food security, and leverage public services to generate demand and utilize services that will ultimately improve nutrition outcomes through a community based, gender sensitive approach. Lessons learned from the full implementation of the pilot will need to be incorporated before the effort can be scaled up.
See Less -
Malnutrition is one of India's most serious and persistent problems. While nutrition outcomes across India are poor, they are typically worse in tribal and backward areas.
... See More + The South Asia food and nutrition security initiative (SAFANSI) has provided funding to the national rural livelihoods mission (NRLM) to strengthen the capacity of government and or communities to deliver effective food and nutrition security interventions in tribal and conflict-affected areas. This study seeks to examine how the NRLM can enhance the effectiveness of the program's core livelihoods focus, while strengthening the capacity of the Government of India (GoI) to deliver (or support) effective food and nutrition security (FNS) interventions in tribal and backward areas. In order to make sustainable and positive changes going forward, it will be critical to support FNS as a core approach for tribal areas. Empowered self-help groups can bridge service delivery gaps, increase awareness and utilization of programs, or advocate for improved coverage and service quality.
See Less -
Social policy in Mexico has focused on identifying and supporting chronically poor households. Yet, Mexico has a significant number of households that are just above the poverty line who are not eligible, by definition, for antipoverty programs and are at risk of falling back into poverty in the event of an economic crisis or shocks like loss of employment and natural disasters.
... See More + These shocks can have serious negative effects on welfare in the absence of social safety nets targeted to these households. This study uses household survey data to better understand these "vulnerable" households, including their profile and risk exposure and, more importantly, to document the extent to which these households are covered by public transfers and insurance mechanisms. The analysis shows that until 2010 most social programs, including the few with productive components, such as vocational training and productive investment grants, barely covered the vulnerable. The study concludes that public policies need to pay attention to the vulnerable households and find the right policy mix between targeted interventions and universal insurance schemes to serve this economic group.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7165 JAN 01, 2015
de la Fuente, Alejandro; Ortiz-Juarez, Eduardo; Rodriguez-Castelan, Carlos
During the early 2000s, Moldova experienced strong economic growth and poverty and inequality reductions. This paper aims at uncovering the patterns behind these poverty trends by looking at economic mobility and its associated factors in Moldova.
... See More + The findings build on the synthetic panel approach and allow for a non-anonymous view of the process of poverty reduction. The data used for this country study on Moldova come from the Household Budget Survey, which is conducted on a yearly basis. The paper presents transition matrices to look at the patterns of economic mobility across selected consumption thresholds, as well as descriptive statistics and a linear probability model aimed at identifying correlates of economic mobility. The findings show that the observed poverty reductions happened with little churning, and highlight the importance of education and employment on upward economic mobility in Moldova in the 2000s, as well as the role of public and private transfers.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7167 JAN 01, 2015
Himachal Pradesh has the reputation of being stable, inclusive, cohesive and well-governed and it stands apart in many respects from its neighbors in northern India.
... See More + It has additionally, achieved remarkable growth, especially in the last two decades, which has been accompanied by very good human development outcomes. Despite being a predominantly rural society, educational attainment in Himachal Pradesh for instance, is among the best in the country; poverty headcount is nearly one-third of the national average; life expectancy is 3.4 years longer than the number of years an average Indian expects to live; and, per capita income is the second highest in India. Underlying its strong economic and social development outcomes is Himachal Pradeshs commitment to expand access to public services to the remotest areas, across tough, hilly terrain and its strong institutional foundations. Inter-group disparities are low in a state where traditionally disadvantaged groups such as the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) make up a solid 30 percent of the population.
See Less -
Working Paper 93729 JAN 01, 2015
Bordia Das, Maitreyi; Kapoor-Mehta, Soumya; Oktay Tas, Emcet; Zumbyte, Ieva
In this paper the authors analyze the evolution and the determinants of in-work poverty in Poland, according to three poverty lines: relative, absolute, and the 1998-adjusted poverty line.
... See More + The authors find that behind moderately high in-work poverty incidence in Poland there is very high in-work poverty in agriculture and modest in-work poverty in all other sectors. Workers are much less likely to be poor than jobless individuals, especially the unemployed. In fact, the share of adults out of employment is a much stronger predictor of households' risk of poverty than the level of wages at which they work. Moreover, the share of jobless adults or of agricultural workers has become an increasing determinant of in-work poverty over time. The risk of in-work poverty is also inversely related to the educational attainment and the stability of employment of an individual, which is especially important considering that the incidence of temporary contracts in Poland is the highest across both European Union (EU) and Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Existing fiscal and benefit policies have not been sufficient to address in-work poverty and some of its underlying causes in the labor market: the author presents four policy recommendations aimed at tackling in-work and total poverty, and at increasing labor market participation and employment.
See Less -
This paper uses cross-section data for 107 countries to explore the relationship between gender inequality and economic growth. The paper departs from the literature by using a broad measure of gender inequality that goes well beyond gender inequality in education, which has been the focus of most studies.
... See More + Another novelty of the paper lies in exploring heterogeneity in the growth-gender inequality relationship. The results confirm that greater gender inequality is strongly associated with lower economic growth. However, this negative relationship between gender inequality and growth is entirely due to the relatively poor countries, with the relatively rich countries showing no such relationship. The findings have important implications for the design and targeting of gender-specific policies.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7172 JAN 01, 2015
Amin, Mohammad; Kuntchev, Veselin; Schmidt, Martin
Substantial upward economic mobility in the majority of countries in Europe and Central Asia in the 2000s translated into achievements in reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity.
... See More + Although factors associated with upward mobility vary significantly by country, education and jobs undoubtedly play an important role in lifting households out of poverty and helping them to improve their living standards. This study finds there is a puzzling mismatch between the objective economic mobility patterns observed in survey data and people's subjective perception of their mobility. A majority of people in the region perceives they are worse off economically than in the past and voice frustration over limited opportunities to improve their lives. This disconnect is partly explained by increased inequality in the region, an increasing sense of unfairness in the processes to move up, and a more marked sense of insecurity and vulnerability. Although the region has been making headway in lifting households out of poverty, ensuring sustainable progress toward poverty reduction and shared prosperity requires policies that promote human capital accumulation, foster job creation, and offer adequate protection to improve households' resilience to shocks.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7173 JAN 01, 2015
This paper uses a three-step Bayesian cross-entropy estimation approach in an environment of noisy and scarce data to estimate behavioral parameters for a computable general equilibrium model.
... See More + The estimation also measures how labor-augmenting productivity and other structural parameters in the model may have shifted over time to contribute to the generation of historically observed changes in the economic arrangement. In this approach, the parameters in a computable general equilibrium model are treated as fixed but unobserved, represented as prior mean values with prior error mass functions. Estimation of the parameters involves using an information-theoretic Bayesian approach to exploit additional information in the form of new data from a series of social accounting matrices, which are assumed were measured with error. The estimation procedure is "efficient" in the sense that it uses all available information and makes no assumptions about unavailable information. As illustration, the methodology is applied to estimate the parameters of a computable general equilibrium model using alternative data sets for the Republic of Korea and Sub-Saharan Africa.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7174 JAN 01, 2015
Although there is fast-growing policy interest in offering financial products to help rural households manage risk, the literature is still scant as to which products are the most effective.
... See More + This paper uses a randomized field experiment in Senegal and Burkina Faso to compare male and female farmers who are offered index-based agricultural insurance with those who are offered a variety of savings instruments. The paper finds that female farm managers were less likely to purchase agricultural insurance and more likely to invest in savings for emergencies, even controlling for access to informal insurance and differences in crop choice. It is hypothesized that this finding results from the fact that, although men and women are equally exposed to yield risk, women face additional sources of lifecycle risk -- particularly health risks associated with fertility and childcare -- that men do not. In essence, the basis risk associated with agricultural insurance products is higher for women. Purchasing insurance increased input spending and use more than savings. Those who purchased more insurance realized higher average yields and were better able to manage food insecurity and shocks. This finding suggests that gender differences in demand for financial products can have an impact on productivity, resilience, and welfare.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7176 JAN 01, 2015
Delavallade, Clara; Dizon, Felipe; Hill, Ruth Vargas; Petraud, Jean Paul
Although resilience has become a popular concept in studies of poverty and vulnerability, it has been difficult to obtain a credible measure of resilience.
... See More + This difficulty is because the data required to measure resilience, which involves observing household outcomes over time after every exposure to a shock, are usually unavailable in many contexts. This paper proposes a new method for measuring household resilience using readily available cross section data. Intuitively, a household is considered resilient if there is very little difference between the pre- and post-shock welfare. By obtaining counterfactual welfare for households before and after a shock, households are classified as chronically poor, non-resilient, and resilient. This method is applied to four countries in the Sahel. It is found that Niger, Burkina Faso, and Northern Nigeria have high percentages of chronically poor: respectively, 48, 34, and 27 percent. In Senegal, only 4 percent of the population is chronically poor. The middle group, the non-resilient, accounts for about 70 percent of the households in Senegal, while in the other countries it ranges between 34 and 38 percent. Resilient households account for about 33 percent in all countries except Niger, where the share is around 18 percent.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS7170 JAN 01, 2015