The measurement of inequality of
opportunity has hitherto not been attempted in a number of
countries because of data limitations. This paper proposes
two alternative approaches to circumventing the missing data
problems in countries where a demographic and health survey
and an ancillary household expenditure survey are available.
One method relies only on the demographic and health survey,
and constructs a wealth index as a measure of economic

This report deals with medium and
long-term growth issues rather than the challenges posed by
the world financial crisis, the structural policy options
presented in the report become even more important in that
context, and can help to partially mitigate the impact of
the crisis on Macedonia. Section B looks at poverty and
inequality issues. Section C examines Macedonia's past
growth in terms of total factor productivity analysis,

Despite the popularity and unique nature
of women's self-help groups in India, evidence of their
economic impacts is scant. Based on two rounds of a 2,400
household panel, the authors use double differences,
propensity score matching, and pipeline comparison to assess
economic impacts of longer (2.5-3 years) exposure of a
program that promoted and strengthened self-help programs in
Andhra Pradesh in India. The analysis finds that longer

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
is the third most populous county in Sub Saharan Africa and
has many natural advantages that would enable it to
experience rapid sustained economic growth and rapid poverty
alleviation. These include rich and diverse natural
resources, such as mining and hydroelectric potential,
abundant fertile land, and a large domestic market. The
country is emerging from conflict and democratic election,

We conduct an empirical analysis of the geographic, economic, and social factors that contributed to the spread of civil war in Nepal over the period 1996-2006. This within-country analysis complements existing cross-country studies on the same subject. Using a detailed dataset to track civil war casualties across space and over time, several patterns are documented.

Large numbers of agricultural labor moved from the countryside to cities after the economic reforms in China. Migration and remittances play an important role in transforming the structure of rural household income. This article examines the impact of rural-to-urban migration on rural poverty and inequality in a mountainous area of Hubei province using the data of a 2002 household survey. Since migration income is a potential substitute for farm income, we present counterfactual scenarios of what rural income, poverty, and inequality would have been in the absence of migration.

The case studies in this book were
developed as part of a year-long learning process initiated
by the World Bank in 2003-4 to examine large scale poverty
reduction programs in a wide range of developing countries
around the world. This volume presents 12 of the case
studies from South Asia. . The last two decades saw
substantial change in the countries of South Asia. All
countries of the subcontinent experienced more rapid growth

Delivering on the Promise of Pro-Poor
Growth contributes to the debate on how to accelerate
poverty reduction by providing insights from eight countries
that have been relatively successful in delivering pro-poor
growth: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia,
Tunisia, Uganda, and Vietnam. It integrates growth analytics
with the microanalysis of household data to determine how
country policies and conditions interact to reduce poverty

Funding for the reproductive health
agenda agreed at the 1994 International Conference on
Population and Development has fallen short of estimated
requirements. In the changed funding environment, stronger
evidence on the links between reproductive health and
poverty reduction is needed. This paper reviews the evidence
base on three reproductive health outcomes: early
childbearing, maternal survival, and unintended pregnancy.

This report aims to assist the
Government of the Maldives in designing and implementing
social protection reforms, in particular for pensions and
safety nets. The report gives an overview of poverty, risk
and vulnerability in Maldives and analyzes the role and
effectiveness of pensions and social assistance policies in
helping poor households mitigate and cope with risks. Based
on the analysis, the study delineates a menu of options for

A decade and a half of relative peace and political stability, broad economic reforms, and far-reaching political decentralization have brought Ethiopia back from one of its lowest levels of income per capita to one of its highest levels over the past forty years. At the same time, Gross Domestic Product per capita today is still only slightly above the levels reached in the early 1970 underscoring the deep-rooted and complex nature of poverty in Ethiopia.

By using long-term panel data sets of rural households in the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India and cross-sectional data sets in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia, the roles of labor markets in long-term poverty reduction in Asia is compared with the current situation in East Africa. The study finds that the reliance on agricultural labor markets alone will not reduce poverty to a significant extent, in view of the declining share of agricultural wage income in Asia and its negligibly low level in East Africa.