Bhutan and Botswana share a number of
similarities. The two countries, land locked small states,
have grown rapidly over the past few decades, boosted by
sustained, large-scale inflows of foreign exchange.
Botswana’s annual real growth rate averaged 9 percent over
the past 40 years, driven by diamond exploration, whereas
Bhutan has taken full advantage of generous foreign aid
inflows to achieve an average growth rate of 8 percent per

Since the early 2000s, Tanzania has seen
remarkable economic growth and strong resilience to external
shocks. Yet these achievements were overshadowed by the slow
response of poverty to the growing economy. Until 2007, the
poverty rate in Tanzania remained stagnant at around 34
percent despite a robust growth at an annualized rate of
approximately 7 percent. This apparent disconnect between
growth and poverty reduction has raised concerns among

Horizontal inequalities (HIs) within a
country, or inequalities among groups, have been shown to be
an important source of violent conflict. Relevant group
categorizations include religion, ethnicity, and region. HIs
can also be measured in different ways. Ethnicity, language,
religion, race, and region are examples of potentially
relevant and salient group categorizations. In this paper
the authors will review the prevailing HIs and their

Cambodia continues to enjoy robust
growth, albeit at a slightly slower pace. Real growth in
2014 is estimated to have reached 7.0 percent. The garment
sector, together with construction and services, in
particular finance and real estate, continues to propel
growth. However, there are signs of weaknesses in garment
and agricultural production that are slightly slowing
growth. Overall macroeconomic management remains

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

Women comprise 50 percent of the
agricultural labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa, but manage
plots that are reportedly on average 20 to 30 percent less
productive. As a source of income inequality and aggregate
productivity loss, the country-specific magnitude and
drivers of this gender gap are of great interest. Using
national data from the Uganda National Panel Survey for
2009/10 and 2010/11, the gap before controlling for

The report starts with an overview of
poverty and inequality estimates in chapter one, focusing on
the trends in poverty and the distributional pattern of
growth between 2002-3 and 2012-13. Chapter two then provides
a description of the poverty profile by geographical and
household characteristics, both in terms of the levels of
poverty and its rate of change. Consumption patterns are
presented in chapter three, and other socio-economic

Since the early 2000s, Tanzania has seen
remarkable economic growth and strong resilience to external
shocks. Yet these achievements were overshadowed by the slow
response of poverty to the growing economy. Until 2007, the
poverty rate in Tanzania remained stagnant at around 34
percent despite a robust growth at an annualized rate of
approximately 7 percent. This apparent disconnect between
growth and poverty reduction has raised concerns among

The international development community
is increasingly demanding better evidence on the
effectiveness of policies and programs across different
sectors. The forest sector is no exception. Governments and
donor agencies explicitly seek to link investment to proven
impact. Yet the evidence base necessary to inform
interventions in the forest sector that can successfully
enhance the livelihoods of the forest-dependent poor, foster

This paper provides new empirical
insights on the joint distribution of consumption, income,
and wealth in three of the poorest countries in the world —
Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda — all located in Sub-Saharan
Africa (SSA). The first finding is that while income
inequality is similar to that of the United States (US),
wealth inequality is barely one-third that of the US.
Similarly, while the top of the income distribution (1 and

Although weather shocks are a major
source of income fluctuation, most of the world's poor
lack insurance coverage against them. Absence of formal
insurance contributes to poverty traps, as investment
decisions are conflicted with risk management ones:
risk-averse farmers tend to underinvest and produce lower
yielding yet safer crops. In the past few years, weather
index insurance has gained increasing attention as an

The objective of this review is to
synthesize existing evaluative evidence and generate new
evidence on the quality of the Results Frameworks (RFs) of
development policy operations (DPOs). The study is organized
around a number of evaluative questions on various aspects
of DPO design, implementation, reporting, and evaluation.
Its focus is on the quality of RF, taking objectives and
coverage for granted. The study does not cover the scope and