Institutional features of the African
setting -- large extended families and imperfect credit and
land markets -- matter to the equity and efficiency roles
played by intergenerational linkages. Using original survey
data on Senegal that include an individualized measure of
consumption, this paper studies the role played by land
inheritance, other bequests and parental background as
influences on an adult's economic welfare and economic

The World Bank Group has a unique
opportunity to match the increases in financing for
agriculture with a sharper focus on improving agricultural
growth and productivity in agriculture-based economies,
notably in Sub-Saharan Africa. Greater effort will be needed
to connect sectoral interventions and achieve synergies from
public and private sector interventions; to build capacity
and knowledge exchange; to take stock of experience in

World development indicators 2011, the
15th edition in its current format, aims to provide
relevant, high-quality, internationally comparable
statistics about development and the quality of
people's lives around the globe. Fifteen years ago,
World development indicators was overhauled and redesigned,
organizing the data to present an integrated view of
development, with the goal of putting these data in the

Migration has historically been a source
of opportunities for people to improve their lives and those
of their families. Today, the large differences in income
between places-particularly countries-continue to motivate
individuals to escape poverty through migration. The
potential advantages of migration for sending countries are
numerous. Through remittances, migration provides a means of
improving income and smoothing consumption; it enables

This report is part of a series produced
by the World Bank's Africa Finance and Private Sector
Development Unit (AFTFP). This report explores the potential
contribution that the copper mining industry could make to
jobs and prosperity in Zambia, and what it will take to
achieve this potential. Copper has for many years played an
important role in Zambia's economy, and the performance
of the economy has followed the fortunes of copper mining

There have been numerous episodes of
widespread adoption of improved seed and long-term
achievements in the development of the maize seed industry
in Sub-Saharan Africa. This summary takes a circumspect view
of technical change in maize production. Adoption of
improved seed has continued to rise gradually, now
representing an estimated 44 percent of maize area in
Eastern and Southern Africa (outside South Africa), and 60

In broad terms, the sources of economic
growth are well understood, but relatively few countries
have succeeded in effectively harnessing this knowledge for
policy purposes so as to sustain high rates of growth over
an extended period of time. Among the ones that have done
so, China stands out. Its gross domestic product (GDP)
growth rate, which averaged almost 10 percent between 1978
and 2008, is unmatched. Even more remarkable is the

Structural change is a key driver of
rapid growth: countries diversify into new industries, firms
learn new things, people move to new locations. Anything
that slows this structural change is also likely to slow
growth. Because urbanization is one of the most important
enabling parallel processes in rapid growth, making it work
well is critical. Urbanization's contribution to growth
comes from two sources: the difference between rural and

Government of Azerbaijan (GoA) and the
World Bank have a long history of partnership in addressing
the needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the
country. The purpose of this study was to start identifying
gaps and areas for further engagement. The report would not
have been possible without the support of GoA counterparts.
The report pursues the argument that in order to expand the
choice of IDP livelihoods it is possible to build upon and

Fourteen years of civil conflict
(1989-2003) have destroyed Liberia's social and
economic infrastructure and brought the economy nearly to a
halt. Workers who came of age during the conflict are
largely unskilled, and the supply of workers exceeds demand
by a substantial margin. The negative effects of
unemployment, underemployment, and low productivity on
economic growth have made employment the most urgent demand

This paper explores the reduction of
food insecurity in Bolivia, adopting a supply side approach
that analyzes the role of agricultural spending on
vulnerability. Vulnerability to food insecurity is captured
by a municipal level composite -- developed locally within
the framework of World Food Program food security analysis
-- that combines welfare outcomes, weather conditions and
agricultural potential for all 327 municipalities in 2003,

The aim of this paper is to study the
short and long-term fertility effects of mass violent
conflict on different population sub-groups. The authors
pool three nationally representative demographic and health
surveys from before and after the genocide in Rwanda,
identifying conflict exposure of the survivors in multiple
ways. The analysis finds a robust effect of genocide on
fertility, with a strong replacement effect for lost