This publication offers crucial lessons
for policy makers and development experts who may be
considering using small area poverty maps as tools of
economic development and helps add to our array of tools for
dealing with the political economy issues of poverty. It
represents a major contribution to a little understood
aspect of the well-known adage "location, location,
location," demonstrating that the conceptualization of

"From Vision to Action", the
Bank's previous rural development strategy launched in
1997, had a decisive influence on global thinking - but
disappointing results on the ground. In 2001, lending for
agricultural projects was the lowest in the Bank's
history. The new strategy is results oriented:
"Reaching the Rural Poor" stresses practice,
implementation, monitoring, and empowerment of the people it

This report is part of the Armenia
Programmatic Poverty Assessment work. It is jointly produced
by the National Statistics Service (NSS) of the Republic of
Armenia and the World Bank. Armenia has achieved impressive
economic growth and poverty reduction since the late 1990s.
The country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown at
an astounding annual rate of over 11 percent since 2002. The
main objectives of Armenia poverty are: (i) to inform policy

This book is designed to contribute to
the government's thinking on how best to translate
broad MKUKUTA (the government of Tanzania's National
Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty) policy
objectives into practical tactics and programs well suited
to Tanzania's economic priorities and to the removal of
key institutional and infrastructure bottlenecks. The book
aims to respond to three fundamental questions: (a) what

What happened to poverty in India in the
1990s has been fiercely debated, both politically and
statistically. The debate has run parallel to the wider
debate about globalization and poverty in the 1990s and is
also an important part of that debate. The economic reforms
of the early 1990s in India were followed by rates of
economic growth that were high by historical standards. The
effects on poverty remain controversial, however. The

Recovering from three decades of conflict, over this last decade, Cambodia has undergone dramatic economic, political, and social transitions. Cambodia experienced rapid institutional changes as it restored peace, moved from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy, and moved from isolation to regional and global integration. Cambodia has achieved political and macroeconomic stability, and has initiated key structural reforms. Nevertheless, Cambodia's economy remains vulnerable, and economic growth has not translated into widespread poverty reduction.

The Government of Kenya adopted in 2004
an Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment
Creation (ERSWEC), which recognizes three main pillars for
economy recovery namely: (i) strengthening economic growth;
(ii) enhancing equity and reducing poverty; and (iii)
improving governance. The ERSWEC reiterates that the
achievement of the three pillars is dependent on adequate
and reliable access to least-cost energy. Since agriculture

A decade and a half of relative peace and political stability, broad economic reforms, and far-reaching political decentralization have brought Ethiopia back from one of its lowest levels of income per capita to one of its highest levels over the past forty years. At the same time, Gross Domestic Product per capita today is still only slightly above the levels reached in the early 1970 underscoring the deep-rooted and complex nature of poverty in Ethiopia.

This paper addresses labor markets in
Haiti, including farm and nonfarm employment and income
generation. The analyses are based on the first Living
Conditions Survey of 7,186 households covering the whole
country and representative at the regional level. The
findings suggest that four key determinants of employment
and productivity in nonfarm activities are education,
gender, location, and migration status. This is emphasized

This regional study encompasses three
Central American countries: Nicaragua, Guatemala, and
Honduras. The focus of this report is Honduras. The
objective of the study is to understand how broad-based
economic growth can be stimulated and sustained in rural
Central America. The study identifies "drivers" of
sustainable rural growth and poverty reduction. Drivers are
defined as the assets and combinations of assets needed by

This Poverty report is aimed at improving the understanding of poverty in Ukraine, and providing linkages between growth, the evolution of economic sectors, and poverty. The main findings can be summed up as follows: An absolute poverty line and a revised consumption aggregate -- jointly developed with Ukraine experts -- indicate that around 19 percent of the population lived in poverty by 2003. While in 1999 Ukraine had a poverty incidence higher than Poland, Russia, Lithuania, or Bulgaria, by 2003 it was the lowest compared with these countries.

Tanzania's National Strategy for
Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP) sets an ambitious
target of 6 to 8 percent annual economic growth to achieve
rapid reduction in poverty. This report focuses on three
issues that are central to the success of Tanzania's
poverty reduction efforts: 0 what factors explain
Tanzania's recent acceleration in economic growth; has
the accelerated economic growth translated into reduced