The last poverty assessment for Rwanda
was conducted in 1997. Three years after the genocide, the
country was characterized by deep and widespread poverty,
rock-bottom health indicators, and pervasive hunger and food
insecurity. In real terms, gross domestic product (GDP) per
capita was lower than it had been in 1960. In real terms,
the economy quadrupled between 1995 and 2013. Enrolment in
primary school is near universal and infant and child

The contribution of women to labor in
African agriculture is regularly quoted in the range of 60
to 80 percent. Using individual-disaggregated, plot-level
labor input data from nationally representative household
surveys across six Sub-Saharan African countries, this study
estimates the average female labor share in crop production
at 40 percent. It is slightly above 50 percent in Malawi,
Tanzania, and Uganda, and substantially lower in Nigeria (37

This document presents the Systematic
Country Diagnosis (SCD) for Mali. The SCD was prepared
following a consultative process within and outside the
World Bank. It identifies constraints and opportunities for
achieving the twin goals of ending poverty and improving
shared prosperity by 2030 while acknowledging (i) the need
for selectivity in pro-poor interventions, and (ii) the many
competing ‘binding’ reasons for poverty in Mali. The

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 note is a summary of a report that
considers urban areas as the complement to rural areas that
will allow the Plurinational State of Bolivia to achieve the
goals set forth in its Patriotic Agenda for the Bicentennial
2025. The report uses data available at the national level
from censuses and household surveys from the National
Statistics Institute (INE) and the Social and Economic
Policy Analysis Unit of the Ministry of Development Planning

This report is the result of a World
Bank mission that visited Paraguay in June 2013 at the
request of the Government of Paraguay. The mission’s
objective was to identify, quantify, and prioritize
agriculture risks that determine the volatility of
agriculture gross domestic product (GDP), based on a
methodology to assess sector risks developed by the World
Bank. The methodology stipulates a two-phase process. The

This report assesses the impact of
participation in farmer organizations (FOs) on food security
of rural households in Cambodia. The study is particularly
set out to following: (1) examine FOs’ roles and operation
and challenges for improving household’s food security; (2)
analyze household’s characteristics that determine
participation in FOs; (3) assess the impact of FOs on food
security and livelihood of the rural poor; and (4) provide

This paper uses evidence from three
Indian states, one of which amended inheritance legislation
in 1994, to assess first- and second-generation effects of
inheritance reform using a triple-difference strategy.
Second-generation effects on education, time use, and health
are larger and more significant than first-generation
effects even controlling for mothers' endowments.
Improved access to bank accounts and sanitation as well as

Between 2008 and 2012 the urban/rural poverty divide substantially narrowed
down, which was the result of relatively stable rural and rising urban poverty rates. Over the same period, food inflation spiked, whereby strong links between domestic and global price movements were observed owed to major import dependence on food. The high shares of consumption that households dedicate to food, especially among the poor, leave limited scope to deal with food price surges by economizing on non-food

This paper examines the determinants of
agricultural productivity and its link to poverty using
nationally representative data from the Nigeria General
Household Survey Panel, 2010/11. The findings indicate an
elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to agricultural
productivity of between 0.25 to 0.3 percent, implying that a
10 percent increase in agricultural productivity will
decrease the likelihood of being poor by between 2.5 and 3

The Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
will succeed the Myanmar interim strategy note (FY13-14) and
be the first full country strategy for Myanmar since 1984.
This CPF comes at a time of great opportunity for Myanmar;
over the three year period covered in this CPF, the reforms
initiated in 2011 have the potential to bring Myanmar into a
new era of peace and prosperity. Myanmar s history, ethnic
diversity, and geography combine into a unique set of

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