This report assesses the challenges and
opportunities for the development of the Khatlon oblast in
Tajikistan. The report argues that the rise in the strategic
significance of Khatlon must be matched by responses in
public policy and a strong upturn in private investment to
strengthen economic prospects. The report identifies four
key reform imperatives for stimulating growth in the oblast.
These are: (i) promoting cities and internal connectivity to

The paper provides an up-to date and
selective review of the literature on how social safety nets
contribute to growth. The evidence is carefully chosen to
show how safety nets have the potential to overcome
constraints on growth linked to market failures, and is
organized into 4 distinct pathways: i) encouraging asset
accumulation by changing incentives and by addressing
imperfections in financial markets caused by constraints in

This report presents the outcome of the
World Bank's analytical and advisory work to assess the
status of water resources development and the key water
issues and challenges facing the country. The Bank has also
reviewed its history of cooperation with the Government of
China in recent decades, and notes the remarkable
achievements China has made in developing the water sector.
The report proposes solutions for tackling the enormous

The objective of this study is to help
the government to decide what role safety net and transfer
programs should play in the coming 5 to 10 years. It seeks
to answer following three questions: (i) can increased
spending on transfers accelerate poverty reduction in the
medium to long term?; (ii) which groups and aspects of
poverty will it make sense to target with transfers?; and
(iii) which programs will have the greatest impact at an

One area of weakness in current
agricultural policy work in Vietnam is the lack of a clear
understanding of both the private profitability of farmers
for different crop activities and the social profitability
of such activities. Agricultural performance is thus gauged
in physical terms (i.e. yields and the volume of aggregate
output) rather than in financial or economic terms. This has
hampered efforts to compare and contrast the impacts and

Agriculture plays an important role in
the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Most of its production
depends on small family-owned farms, which are greatly
exposed to climatic and price shocks. In order to help small
farmers to manage risks, the federal and state governments
have been carrying out several programs and measures to
reduce and transfer agricultural risks. Santa Catarina ranks
seventh out of 26 Brazilian states in terms of agricultural

Diversification into high-value cash
crops among smallholders has been propagated as a strategy
to improve welfare in rural areas. However, the extent to
which cash crop production spurs projected gains remains an
under-researched question, especially in the context of
market imperfections leading to non-separable production and
consumption decisions, and price shocks to staple crops that
might be displaced on the farm by cash crops. This study is

Burkina Faso's Poverty Reduction
Strategies (PRS) of the 2000s, which were implemented as
annually rolled-over Priority Action Programs, focused on
four pillars: a) accelerating broad based growth; b)
expanding access to social services for the poor; c)
increasing employment and income-generating activities for
the poor; and d) promoting good governance. Increased public
expenditure and targeted social service provision also led

In countries ravaged by a history of
civil war and genocide, the overarching goal for local
government and international donors alike is to promote
social cohesion, stability and community reconstruction. In
Sierra Leone, reconstruction programs emphasize a
decentralized approach to: (i) rapidly build market
institutions; (ii) enhance community decision making; and
(iii) strengthen intra and inter-community tolerance and

As countries develop, the demand for
water increases while water supply becomes less certain and
is often not enough to meet demand. In general, pressures
from both environment and human activities can increase the
likelihood of water scarcity. Such pressures include
increased socio-economic development and population growth,
change in people's diets, competition for available
water among different user sectors and growing climate

In the standard model of corruption, the
rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's
education, reflecting higher ability to pay. This prediction
is, however, driven by the assumption that the probability
of punishment for bribe-taking is invariant across
households. In many developing countries lacking in rule of
law, this assumption is untenable, because the enforcement
of law is not impersonal or unbiased and the poor have

This paper provides an overview of
research on income inequality in China over the period of
economic reform. It presents the results of two main sources
of evidence on income inequality and, assisted by various
decompositions, explains the reasons income inequality has
increased rapidly and the Gini coefficient is now almost
0.5. This paper evaluates the degree of income inequality
from the perspectives of people's subjective well-being