This summary report is the culmination
of a comprehensive, more than a year-long, collaboration
between the World Bank, Fiji Department of Social Welfare
(DSW), Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics (FIBOS) and AusAID.
It reflects various activities undertaken under the work
program that was agreed upon with the Government of Fiji
(GOF), with financial support provided by AusAID under the
Externally Funded Output (EFO) agreement with the World

Europe and Central Asia have suffered a
setback in economic growth because of the recent global
crisis, which revealed fundamental structural weaknesses
previously hidden by the prosperity before the crisis. The
major weaknesses are the large savings deficits, the lagging
reforms in the social sectors, and the deterioration in
competitiveness. Policies can address these weaknesses by
taking into account the role of the behavior of firms,

This paper analyzes the trends and
evolution of public spending in the agriculture sector in
Indonesia, as well as the impact of public spending on
agricultural growth. It finds that, in line with empirical
work undertaken in other countries, public spending on
agriculture and irrigation during the period 1976-2006 had a
positive impact on agricultural growth, while public
spending on fertilizer subsidies had the opposite effect.

Climate change is believed to represent
a serious challenge to poverty reduction efforts around the
globe. This paper conducts an up-to-date review of three
main strands of the literature analyzing the poverty impacts
of climate change : (i) economy-wide growth models
incorporating climate change impacts to work out consistent
scenarios for how climate change might affect the path of
poverty over the next decades; (ii) studies focusing on the

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

Global warming is expected to heavily
impact agriculture, the dominant source of livelihood for
the world's poor. Yet, little is known about the
distributional implications of climate change at the
sub-national level. Using a simple comparative statics
framework, this paper analyzes how changes in the prices of
land, labor, and food induced by modest temperature
increases over the next three decades will affect

When deciding who should receive welfare
benefits with the aim to increase household well-being, it
is necessary to understand the effects of the distribution
of power within the households at which the aid is directed.
Two primary household models have been used to study
intra-household bargaining and decision making: the unitary
model and the collective model. The unitary model seems to
fit Pakistan's context because the prevailing

International migration has increased
rapidly in recent decades and this has been accompanied by a
remarkable increase in transfers made by migrants to their
home countries. This paper investigates the effect of the
rural economic growth brought about by migration and
remittances on Nepal's Himalayan forests. The authors
assemble a unique village-panel dataset combining remote
sensing data on land use and forest cover change with data

Services are failing poor urban and
rural people in the developing world, and poverty remains
concentrated in rural areas and urban slums. This state of
affairs prevails despite prolonged efforts by many
governments to improve rural and urban services and
development programs. This book focuses on how communities
and local governments can be empowered to contribute to
their own development and, in the process, improve

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

Twenty years of rapid economic
development in Ghana has done little, if anything, to reduce
the historical North, South divide in standards of living.
While rural development and urbanization have led to
significant poverty reduction in the South, similar dynamics
have been largely absent from Northern Ghana (or
equivalently the North, defined as the sum of the
administrative regions Upper West, Upper East, and the

The theme of the 2011 Philippines
development report is 'generating inclusive growth,
uplifting the poor and vulnerable'. This theme is
follows from the priorities set in President Aquino's
Social Contract and the emerging 2011-2016 Philippines
Development Plan (PDP). The PDP details the vision of
inclusive growth and poverty reduction that underlies the
social contract (chapter one). Accordingly, the PDP focuses