The authors use evidence from a survey of about 1200 beneficiaries of South African land reform to assess the performance of the initial phase of the land reform program. They find that the program has not lived up to the quantitative goals set, but did successfully target the poor. It has led to a significant number of economically successful projects that already generate sustainable revenues.

In 2013 the World Bank set itself two
ambitious goals: to end extreme poverty within a generation
and to boost the prosperity of the bottom 40 percent of the
population worldwide. In Latin America, the significance of
both goals cannot be overstated. Indigenous people account
for about 8 percent of the population, but represent 14
percent of the poor and over 17 percent of all Latin
Americans living on less than United States (U.S.) $2.50 a

The Malawi Urbanization Review aims to
provide fresh perspectives on urbanization in Malawi, by
analyzing the current and potential contribution of
urbanization to long-term national development and the
current institutional and financial capacity of local
governments to manage the process. Analyses presented in
this report are particularly timely as Malawi is planning
for the coming half decade through the Malawi Growth and

Weather risk and incomplete insurance
markets are significant contributors to poverty for rural
households in developing countries. Weather index insurance
has emerged as a possible tool for overcoming these
challenges. This paper provides evidence on the impact of
weather index insurance from a pioneering, large-scale
insurance program in Mexico. The focus of this analysis is
on the ex-post effects of insurance payments. A regression

This report is comprised of two volumes:
(i) volume one: risk assessment; and (ii) volume two: risk
management strategy. Volume one continues with chapter one,
which characterizes the recent performance of the
agriculture sector, including agro-climatic and market
conditions. It also identifies the productive systems used
for this analysis. Chapter two describes the main risks in
the agricultural sector, capturing market, production, and

The present study is part of an effort
by the World Bank and the State of Bahia to assess
agriculture sector risks as a contribution to the strategic
economic development and poverty reduction agenda of the
state government. It is composed of two phases: an
agricultural sector risk identification and prioritization
(volume one) and a risk management strategy and action plan
(volume two). The study provides practical elements for the

Policy makers in developing countries,
including India, are increasingly sensitive to the links
between spatial transformation and economic development.
However, the empirical knowledge available on those links is
most often insufficient to guide policy decisions. There is
no shortage of case studies on urban agglomerations of
different sorts, or of benchmarking exercises for states and
districts, but more systematic evidence is scarce. To help

Policies that enable rural communities
to participate in expanding economic opportunities can be
central to inclusive growth in Myanmar. Rural communities
are home to the majority of Myanmar’s population, the
majority of its many ethnic groups, and 70 percent of its
poor. Development in rural areas is constrained by low
returns to agriculture, and significantly lower levels of
public service delivery and human development outcomes

Over the last 20 years, poor rural
farmers in Nigeria have seen the benefits of community
organization as a tool for local economic development under
the National Fadama Development Project series. They have
witnessed improvements in rural areas that have embraced a
more inclusive and participatory model of local economic
decision making. Many communities have come together under
the umbrella of new institutional arrangements for

The Government of Uzbekistan (GoU) has
recently adopted a policy to mechanize the cotton harvest as
part of its drive to modernize the agricultural sector.
Under Uzbekistan’s state-order system it is compulsory for
many farmers to grow cotton. They are contractually
obligated to produce stipulated quantities that are annually
set by the government, and must sell these to the GoU at a
price fixed by the government. Almost all cotton in

The World Bank Group in 2013 made the elimination of extreme poverty by 2030 a central institutional focus and purpose. This evaluation examines how, and how well, the Bank Group has focused its support on poverty reduction over the past decade, and what lessons to draw from this moving forward. The lessons aim to strengthen the Bank’s country diagnostics, improve the design of country strategies, and build greater learning opportunities from program experience.

This systematic country diagnosis (SCD)
for Chad aims to identify how to achieve the twin goals of
ending poverty and improving shared prosperity. It
acknowledges both: (i) the need for selectivity in pro-poor
interventions, and (ii) the inherent difficulty to do so
given the many competing binding reasons for poverty.
Selectivity means the identification of principal
opportunities for sustainable poverty reduction in the next