Using information on asset ownership, housing quality, and access to services to construct an indicator of household wealth, the author estimates the share of inequality among prime-age Turkish women that can be attributed to unequal opportunities. Both parametric and non-parametric estimation methods are used, and robustness to some sample redefinitions is verified. The author find that at least one-third (one-fourth) of overall wealth (imputed consumption) inequality in Turkey is associated with morally irrelevant, pre-determined circumstances.

A well-functioning land administration and management system is crucial for Madagascar's economic and social future. Land is implicated in Madagascar's ongoing economic development and social transformation in many important ways, as key a factor in its quest for economic growth, urbanization, transparent decision-making on land-related foreign investments, environment protection, vibrant and sustainable rural communities, political stability, and social cohesion.

Backed by sound economic policies and until the global crisis, a buoyant global economy, many developing countries made significant movement toward achieving the 2015millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly those for poverty reduction, gender parity in education, and reliable access to safe water. But even before the global economic crisis, progress in achieving some MDGs, especially those on child and maternal mortality, primary school completion, hunger, and sanitation, was lagging. The global food, fuel and economic crises have set back progress to the MDGs.

In the last two decades, across a range of countries high growth rates have reduced poverty but have been accompanied by rising inequality. This paper is motivated by this stylized fact, and by the strong distributional concerns that persist among populations and policy makers alike, despite the poverty reduction observed in official statistics where growth has been sufficiently high. This seeming disconnects frames the questions posed in this paper. Why the disconnect, and what to do about it?

Bangladesh has made good progress in reducing poverty over the past decade despite the series of external shocks which have routinely affected the country. Poverty fell from 49 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2005, propelled by respectable economic growth and relatively stable inequality. These statistics are reflected in tangible improvements in poor people's lives, such as a sharp reduction in those living under flimsy straw roofs in rural areas.

This paper addresses the potential effects of world agricultural trade liberalization on poverty and regional income distribution in Brazil, using an inter-regional applied general equilibrium (AGE) and a micro-simulation model of Brazil tailored for income distribution and poverty analysis by using a detailed representation of households. The model distinguishes 10 different labor types and has 270 different household expenditure patterns. Income can originate from 41 different production activities located in 27 different regions in the country.

This paper explores how a 'conflict and violence sensitive' framework in project assessment, design and implementation facilitates early identification and mitigation of negative consequences of competition and dispute, and promotes sustainable development over the longer term. It discusses the role of renewable resources in perpetuating conflict and violence, and distills lessons from selected development programming experiences in managing conflict risks associated with these dynamics.

Local and Community Driven Development (LCDD) is an approach that gives control of development decisions and resources to community groups and representative local governments. Poor communities receive funds, decide on their use, plan and execute the chosen local projects, and monitor the provision of services that result from it. It improves not just incomes but people's empowerment and governance capacity, the lack of which is a form of poverty as well. LCDD operations have demonstrated effectiveness at delivering results and have received substantial support from the World Bank.

Although Mozambique has considerable agricultural potential, rural poverty remains extremely high. This paper examines the extent to which global and domestic price distortions affect agricultural production and national poverty. The author develops a computable general equilibrium (CGE) and micro-simulation model of Mozambique that is linked to the results of a global model. This framework is used to examine the effects of eliminating global and national price distortions.

South Africa has rapidly reduced trade barriers since the end of Apartheid, yet agricultural production and exports have remained sluggish. Also, poverty and unemployment have risen and become increasingly concentrated in rural areas. This paper examines the extent to which remaining price distortions, both domestic and foreign, are contributing to the underperformance of the agricultural sector vis-a-vis the rest of the economy. The author draws on a computable general equilibrium (CGE) and micro-simulation model of South Africa that is linked to the results of a global trade model.

Although economic reform has brought remarkable progress in poverty reduction in Vietnam, the scale and depth of ethnic minority poverty in Vietnam presents one of the major challenges to achieving the targets for poverty reduction set out in the Socio-Economic Development Plan, as well as the millennium development goals. The authors first review a series of monetary and non-monetary indicators which show the living standards of the ethnic minorities are improving but still lag seriously behind those of the majority Kinh-Hoa.

Using recent estimates of industry assistance rates, the effects of trade liberalization in the rest of the world and in Pakistan alone are analyzed using a global and a Pakistan computable general equilibrium (CGE) model under two tax replacement schemes: a direct income tax and an indirect tax replacement. The results indicate that the distributional and poverty effects in Pakistan of a unilateral liberalization of all traded goods are significantly greater than the effects of trade liberalization in the rest of the world.