Moldovan GDP growth rose and the poverty
rate fell steeply following the end of the Russian financial
crisis in 1999. Since late 2002, GDP has continued to grow
vigorously, however there has been little progress in
reducing poverty. In short, GDP growth is no longer reducing
poverty. The national poverty rate is broadly stable while
the rural poverty rate is on a modest upward trend. Analysis
of data from the household budget surveys shows that the

The authors empirically estimate the
impact of social capital on household welfare in
Bolivia--where they found 67 different types of local
associations. They focus on household memberships in local
associations as being especially relevant to daily decisions
that affect household welfare and consumption. On average,
households belong to 1.4 groups and associations: 62 percent
belong to agrarian syndicates, 16 percent to production

The authors compare changes in gender
roles and women's empowerment in China, India, and the
Republic of Korea. Around 1950, these newly formed states
were largely poor and agrarian, with common cultural factors
that placed similar severe constraints on women's
autonomy. They adopted very different paths of development,
which are well known to have profoundly affected development
outcomes. These choices have also had a tremendous impact on

The Country Opinion Survey for FY2013 in Namibia assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Namibia perceive the WBG.

Beginning in the mid-1970s through to the 1980s, Tanzania experienced a severe socio-economic crisis. In an attempt to turn things around the abating economy and accelerate economic growth, the government embarked on a broad range of radical policy, legislation, and institution reforms, which opened doors for foreign direct investments (FDIs) and further initiatives have been taken to create an enabling environment for investments to flourish in the country.

Contains 6 chapters: introduction, accountability issues in urban land management, transparency and accountability in communal land management, corruption and land reform programmes, accountability issues in large scale land deals, gender, youths and land corruption. The findings show that land governance is fragmented creating opportunities for corruption in and across institutions.

This policy note assesses the potential
of foreign direct investment (FDI) to diversify Lesotho s
exports. Lesotho must preserve capacity to produce more and
better goods, seek new markets, preserve existing
manufacturing jobs, undertake structural and institutional
reforms, and take advantage of its location inside South
Africa. Given the low savings in the country, as well as
major fiscal challenges arising from declines in SACU

The World Bank's revised forest
policy came into being in 2002 and covers all types of
forests. It has the following key objectives: (i) harnessing
the potential of forests to reduce poverty in a sustainable
manner; (ii) integrating forests effectively into
sustainable development; and (iii) protecting vital local
and global environmental services and values. The policy
enables the bank to fully engage in forestry throughout the

The Malagasy land reform, ongoing since 2005, belongs to the new generation of land reforms. It promotes the legal recognition of existing landholders’ rights (through certification) and the decentralization of land management. Despite the change of paradigm underlying this new wave of reforms, premises and expectations remain unchanged: a) rights legalization is justified by large tenure insecurity and b) rights formalization is a prerequisite to reduce conflicts over land rights, improve access to credit, boost productive investments and stimulate land markets.

Successive policies of the Government of
Vietnam for economic reform and modernization have helped
Vietnam to emerge as one of the world's fastest growing
economies. The report provides continued recommendations on
improving land policies to ensure efficiency of their
practical implementation and to target at both economic
development and social sustainability. Policies with regard
to voluntary benefits sharing, promoting the participation

The goal of this report is to take stock
of the existing evidence on the impact of the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) on poverty, to examine the
current challenges that an extension of CARP would face, and
to suggest directions toward achieving progress on land
reform given the financial and policy constraints faced by
the program. The report starts by examining the nature and
relevance of the challenges that an extension of the land