The Lao PDR economy continues to grow, but at a relatively slower pace as the impacts of the global financial turmoil are starting to be felt. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to slow in 2008 to about 7 percent as result of the impacts of the global financial crisis. GDP growth is also projected to slow to between 5 and 6 percent in 2009. However, growth remains fairly strong and still driven by the ongoing hydropower projects as well as agro processing industries, construction and other services.

This report focuses on the dimensions of poverty, and how to create a better world, free of poverty. The analysis explores the nature, and evolution of poverty, and its causes, to present a framework for action.

This paper analyses the effect of a set of irrigation rehabilitation projects conducted over the last 10 years in Peru. The projects were conducted without the aim or the tools for a full-fledged impact evaluation. Nevertheless, this paper attempts an evaluation through the use of alternative data sources such as household surveys and geographic information, a strategy of identification of beneficiaries and control households based on spatial proximity to the projects' sites, and an econometric approach consisting of a double-differencing technique.

As a largely rural society, most people in Nepal still depend upon agriculture as their major livelihood strategy. Therefore, it is important to improve the allocation efficiency of limited public expenditures to promote agricultural growth and poverty reduction. However, evaluating the returns of public investment is limited by methodological challenges. We use hedonic and panel data methods to examine the returns to different types of rural public investments including roads, irrigation and extension advice.

Lao PDR's economic outlook remains favorable, with continued strong growth. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth remained at above 7 percent in 2007. Output expanded in mining, newly emerging processing industries, agriculture, and new construction of hydropower projects, tourism and other services. Non-resource sectors contributed over 5 percent to this growth, and the resource sector around 2.5 percent.

Women make essential contributions to agriculture in developing countries, where they constitute approximately 43 percent of the agricultural labor force. However, female farmers typically have lower output per unit of land and are much less likely to be active in commercial farming than their male counterparts. These gender differences in land productivity and participation between male and female farmers are due to gender differences in access to inputs, resources, and services. In this paper, we review the evidence on productivity differences and access to resources.

Like many organizations working in the tourism sector, the authors believe that private sector investment is one of the key drivers of development. Over the past few years, the private sector has been a central innovator in forging business partnerships with local communities for tourism purposes around the world. Having demonstrated some extraordinary development results, joint ventures increasingly need to demonstrate their commercial viability over the long term.

Secure property rights are considered a key determinant of economic development. However, evaluation of the causal effects of land titling is a difficult task. Since 2004, a program called "Papel Passado'" has issued titles to more than over 85,000 families and has the goal to reach 750,000. This paper examines the direct impact of securing a property title on child labor force participation. This study uses a comparison between two close and similar communities in the City of Osasco case. The key point of this case is that some units participate in the program and others do not.

While early attempts at land titling in Africa were often unsuccessful, factors such as new legislation, low-cost methods, and increasing demand for land have generated renewed interest. A four-period panel allows use of a pipeline and difference-indifferences approach to assess impacts of land registration in Ethiopia. We find that the program increased tenure security, land-related investment, and rental market participation and yielded benefits significantly above the cost of implementation.

This paper offers a new theoretical approach to urban squatting, reflecting the view that squatters and formal residents compete for land within a city. The key implication is that squatters "squeeze" the formal market, raising the price paid by formal residents. The squatter organizer ensures that squeezing is not too severe, since otherwise, the formal price will rise to a level that invites eviction by landowners. Because eviction is absent in equilibrium, the model differs from previous analytical frameworks, where eviction occurs with some probability.

While the need for land-related investment for sustainable land management and increased productivity is well recognized, quantitative evidence on agricultural productivity effects of secure property rights in Africa is scant. Within-household analysis of investments by owner-cum-occupants in Uganda points toward significant and quantitatively large investment effects of full ownership. Registration is estimated to have no investment effects, whereas measures to strengthen occupancy rights attenuate investment disincentives.

Impact and desirability of land transfers in post-socialist-transition economies have been subject of considerable debate. We use data from Vietnam to identify factors conducive to the development of land markets and to assess potentially differential impacts of rental and sales. Results show that both rental and sales transfer land to more productive producers but that rental is more important for the poor to access land that becomes available as the non-farm economy develops.