Central place theory predicts that
agglomeration can arise from external shocks. This paper
investigates whether gold mining is a catalyst for
proto-urbanization in rural Ghana. Using cross-sectional
data, the analysis finds that locations within 10 kilometers
from gold mines have more night light and proportionally
higher employment in industry and services and in the wage
sector. Non-farm employment decreases at 20–30 kilometers

This assessment presents a broad picture
of the main gender disparities in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(BiH) in endowments, economic opportunities, and agency. The
report builds on the framework of the 2012 World Bank World
Development Report 2012 on gender and development and the
World Bank’s regional gender report on Europe and Central
Asia: opportunities for men and women, that focuses on the
household and individual members’ bargaining power and their

This paper decomposes the gender gap in
pay in the Russian Federation along the earnings
distribution for the period 1996–2011. The analysis uses a
reweighted, recentered influence function decomposition that
allows estimating the contribution of each covariate on the
wage structure and composition effects along the earnings
distribution. The paper finds that women are in flat career
paths compared with men; the importance of observable

This paper hypothesizes that labor and
credit market imperfections—by discouraging off-farm
income-generating activities and restricting access to
inputs, respectively—affect female farm productivity more
deeply than male productivity. The paper develops a
theoretical model that decomposes the contribution of
various market imperfections to the gender productivity gap.
The paper shows empirically that agricultural labor

This paper defines economic inclusion as
the ability of all people, including the disadvantaged, to
share in economic gains, that is, the conditions that allow
for broadly shared prosperity. Beyond the “right” to access
consumption in cities, and beyond relatively standardized
safety net policies that support economic security,
inclusion demands intentional, flexible, context-appropriate
strategies aimed at shifting the dynamics of local land and

Horizontal inequalities (HIs) within a
country, or inequalities among groups, have been shown to be
an important source of violent conflict. Relevant group
categorizations include religion, ethnicity, and region. HIs
can also be measured in different ways. Ethnicity, language,
religion, race, and region are examples of potentially
relevant and salient group categorizations. In this paper
the authors will review the prevailing HIs and their

Women and girls often risk being left
behind in development, not being fully informed or involved
in decision making about issues that can have a real impact
on their lives. Sometimes, they are already disadvantaged by
cultural and legal norms that affect their rights to
resources. Working together to develop the Nile resource,
the 10 countries involved in the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI)
are making it ‘business as usual’ to ensure gender equality

Millions of coffee farmers and coffee
trading enterprises lack sufficient credit. This is partly
due to myriad challenges and considerable costs that formal
lending institutions face serving rural, often isolated
markets. A better understanding of coffee sector risks is
needed to respond with strategies, training, and tools that
can help farmers and enterprises, mitigate their exposure to
risk, and strengthen their resilience against inevitable

African governments and international
development groups see boosting productivity on smallholder
farms as key to reducing rural poverty and safeguarding the
food security of farming and non-farming households.
Prompting smallholder farmers to use more fertilizer has
been a key tactic. Closing the productivity gap between male
and female farmers has been another avenue toward achieving
the same goal. The results in this paper suggest the two are

Women comprise 50 percent of the
agricultural labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa, but manage
plots that are reportedly on average 20 to 30 percent less
productive. As a source of income inequality and aggregate
productivity loss, the country-specific magnitude and
drivers of this gender gap are of great interest. Using
national data from the Uganda National Panel Survey for
2009/10 and 2010/11, the gap before controlling for

The development community is
increasingly accepting the importance of evidence, feedback,
and learning. Some of which is generated through research,
monitoring, and self-evaluation during policy-making,
program design, and implementation. Others come from
feedback from people directly affected by interventions who
have gained a greater voice, be it through third-party
feedback mechanisms, social media, beneficiary surveys, or

Regional trade in Africa can play a
vital role in diversifying economies and reducing dependence
on the export of a few mineral products, in delivering food
and energy security, in generating jobs for the increasing
numbers of young people, and in alleviating poverty and
promoting a shared prosperity. Women play a key role in
trade in Africa and will be essential to Africa's
success in exploiting its trade potential. In many countries