This Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) identifies the binding constraints to reducing extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity in Ethiopia. Achieving those goals requires a two pronged strategy of building on the strengths of past performance as well as introducing new elements. Progress in rural livelihoods drove poverty reduction in the past and will likely do so in the future. In addition, faster, and more inclusive, private sector-led structural change and ‘getting urbanization right’ are essential going forward.

Moldova has experienced rapid economic growth in the past decade, which has been accompanied by reductions in poverty and good performance in shared prosperity. Nonetheless, Moldova remains one of the poorest countries in Europe and faces challenges in sustaining the progress. The challenges for progress include spatial and cross-group inequalities, particularly because of unequal access to assets, services and economic opportunities.

This report summarizes the results, lessons and recommendations to the Government of Lao PDR from two Technical Assistance projects (TA) “Supporting Demand Creation for Sanitation through Community Led Total Sanitation” and “Sanitation Marketing in Lao PDR” carried out by the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program between October 2012 and December 2015. The development objective of the TAs was to increase improved sanitation and hygiene practices and change community behavior to achieve Open Defecation Free (ODF) status at the village level.

Romania aims to be a country in which all citizens are provided with an equal opportunity toparticipate in society, where their basic needs are met and their differences respected, and whereall people feel valued and can live in dignity.Our society is still far from this ideal. One in every five Romanian people is income poor. Most of the people living in relative poverty in Romania are in persistent poverty, meening that they have been in poverty for at least the last three years.

The agricultural and food production sector plays a key role in fighting poverty and food insecurity in Moldova, but is facing critical challenges to modernize and integrate into the international market. This paper focuses on smallholder farms, which make up 95 percent of all farms, and explores their potential for growth and the poverty links. Findings reveal that structural change is slow and smallholder farm growth in Moldova is an exception, not the rule.

This work summarizes background papers prepared for the World Bank Group with significant input from government counterparts and other development partners. It takes stock of major recent developments and argues that a lot has been achieved in the last decade in terms of production of commodities for export and food consumption, with favorable impact on rural poverty reduction. It also argues that the two factors driving the recent agricultural performance, namely favorable international prices and expansion of the agricultural frontier, have reached their limits.

Uganda’s progress in reducing poverty from 1993 to 2006 is a remarkable story of success that has been well told. The narrative of Uganda’s continued, albeit it slightly slower, progress in reducing poverty since 2006 is less familiar. This was a period in which growth slowed as the gains from reforms years earlier had been fully realized, and weak infrastructure and increasing corruption increasingly constrained private sector competitiveness (World Bank 2015). This report examines Uganda’s progress in reducing poverty, with a specific focus on the period 2006 to 2013.

This study discusses the impact of economic geography and (low) population density on development outcomes in Mali and explores how policies to reduce poverty can be made more effective by taking these two factors into account. The crisis in north Mali which started in 2012 and continues to date has brought questions of economic geography to the center of attention.

Because agriculture is the economic backbone of most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia, any meaningful sustainable development program in the continent must therefore be anchored in the sector. The concept for this study on agribusiness indicators was based on the vital role that agribusiness plays in agricultural development. The study focuses on agribusiness indicators (ABI) to identify and isolate the determining factors that lead private investors and other stakeholders to participate in agribusiness and to engage in discourse regarding its development.

Mozambique, the only Lusophone country covered in the agribusiness indicators initiative, has had a turbulent history since independence. Civil unrest over some 20 years and frequent drought in southern Mozambique, coupled with floods near the many waterways that transect the country (mainly east-west), have inhibited an agricultural transformation. Even so, Mozambique could be a regional breadbasket. The country has much potentially usable arable land, along with access to river water for irrigation in many agricultural production zones, particularly in central and northern Mozambique.

Dzud is the Mongolian term for a winter weather disaster in which deep snow, severe cold, or other conditions render forage unavailable or inaccessible and lead to high livestock mortality. Dzud is a regular occurrence in Mongolia, and plays an important role in regulating livestock populations. However, dzud, especially when combined with other environmental or socio-economic stresses and changes, can have a significant impact on household well-being as well as local and national economies.

In 2008, when food prices rose precipitously to record highs, international attention and local policy in many countries focused on safety nets as part of the response. Now that food prices are high again, the issue of appropriate responses is again on the policy agenda. This note sets out a framework for making quick, qualitative assessments of how well countries' safety nets prepare them for a rapid policy response to rising food prices should the situation warrant.