Despite remarkable economic growth in
the past decade, undernutrition remains a serious public
health problem in Angola. High rates of child stunting and
micronutrient deficiencies are contributing to an under-five
mortality rate of 161 deaths per 1,000 live births, limiting
the growth and development of children, hindering
productivity, and preventing the country from reaching
millennium development goals one and four. In response to

Government of Azerbaijan (GoA) and the
World Bank have a long history of partnership in addressing
the needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the
country. The purpose of this study was to start identifying
gaps and areas for further engagement. The report would not
have been possible without the support of GoA counterparts.
The report pursues the argument that in order to expand the
choice of IDP livelihoods it is possible to build upon and

A well-maintained road network that
provides the level of service required by road-users is an
important element of Azerbaijan's development strategy
to accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty. As part of
this strategy, the Government of Azerbaijan (Government) has
undertaken major capital improvements on the major arterial
road network. However, the secondary and local roads
continue to be underfunded, and a large rehabilitation

This paper examines the role of social
safety-net programs in Bangladesh run by the government and
nongovernmental organizations to mitigate seasonal
deprivation in the country's highly vulnerable
northwest region. Specifically, the paper explores whether
social safety nets are limited to averting seasonal
deprivation or can also address seasonality of income and
employment more generally. Using a recent survey from the

This report presents an analysis of
the Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs and policies
which affect young children in Sierra Leone. This report is
part of a series of reports prepared by the World Bank using
the SABER-ECD framework. The country report includes
analysis of early learning, health, nutrition and social and
child protection policies and interventions in Sierra Leone,
along with regional and international comparisons. The

Fourteen years of civil conflict
(1989-2003) have destroyed Liberia's social and
economic infrastructure and brought the economy nearly to a
halt. Workers who came of age during the conflict are
largely unskilled, and the supply of workers exceeds demand
by a substantial margin. The negative effects of
unemployment, underemployment, and low productivity on
economic growth have made employment the most urgent demand

This report provided the Government of
Peru with a comprehensive strategic assessment of three key
infrastructure sectors: water/sanitation, transport and
electricity, and to propose selected recommendations on how
the Government could improve the performance of these
sectors. Peru's public expenditure framework shows some
rigidities, a number of which were introduced when fiscal
resources were scarce or, more recently, because of concerns

As the financial crisis has spread
through the world, the lack of real-time data has made it
difficult to track its impact in developing countries. This
paper uses a micro-simulation approach to assess the poverty
and distributional effects of the crisis in the Philippines.
The authors find increases in both the level and the depth
of aggregate poverty. Income shocks are relatively large in
the middle part of the income distribution. They also find

In this issue: the impact of migration
on rural poverty and inequality in China; how would a global
expansion of biofuel production effect developing countries?
How resilient were emerging economies to the global crisis?
Small but effective: India's targeted unconditional cash
transfers; good countries or good projects? Fiscal policies
for growth in Africa in light of the crisis; and
employability and skills of newly graduated engineers in India.

This study represents a collaborative
initiative by the World Bank and the Department of Animal
Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Ministry of Agriculture,
Government of India, to review the marine fisheries
sub-sector, within a broader sector that also includes
aquaculture and inland fisheries. The policy note provides a
major step forward in understanding current issues and
future opportunities facing the marine fisheries sub-sector.

The Romanian government recognizes that
there are current and future problems related to the risk of
old-age poverty among elderly farmers, and has been working
on sustainable solutions to avert this risk. The main
objective of this report is to provide recommendations to
the policy makers in Romania in designing a non-contributory
program for poor elderly, including farmers. To this end,
the report (i) evaluates the current semi-subsistence

This paper examines whether and to what
extent amendments in inheritance legislation impact
women's physical and human capital investments, using
disaggregated household level data from India. The authors
use inheritance patterns over three generations of
individuals to assess the impact of changes in the Hindu
Succession Act that grant daughters equal coparcenary birth
rights in joint family property that were denied to