... In 2014, Myanmar(Burma)confounded industry analysts by emerging to become the World's third biggest tin producer, experiencing a 5-year tin production increase of ca.4900%. This surprise emergence of Myanmar as a major tin producer is a possible Black Swan event that potentially has significant re-percussions both for the future of global tin production, and for the economic development of Myanmar. This is a disruptive event that has likely contributed to a substantial drop in tin prices in 2015. The

Myanmar is undergoing a major transition, opening space for significant change for the first time in decades. Secure land tenure for smallholder farmers and rural communities is essential in a heavily agrarian nation like Myanmar, where millions in the rural population – nearly 70% of the country – depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

The preservation, development and sustainable use of agricultural land are of vital importance to ensure longterm food security in South Africa. These principles of food security as well as an integrated, inclusive rural economy underpin the core focus areas of the National Development Plan, Vision 2030 (NDP).

The authors have assembled 1960–2012
infrastructure stock data from 145 countries to estimate the
demand for infrastructure services in emerging markets and
developing economies. This paper identifies that the
required resource flows to satisfy new demand while
maintaining service for existing infrastructure amounts to
$836 billion or 6.1 percent of current gross domestic
product per year over the period 2014–20. The annual

Over the past two decades,
community-based approaches to project delivery have become a
popular means for governments and development agencies to
improve the alignment of projects with the needs of rural
communities and increase the participation of villagers in
project design and implementation. This paper briefly
summarizes the results of an impact evaluation of the
National Solidarity Program, a community-driven development

Self-help groups (SHGs) are the most
common form of microfinance in India. The authors provide
evidence that SHGs, composed of women only, undertake
collective actions for the provision of public goods within
village communities. Using a theoretical model, this paper
shows that an elected official, whose aim is to maximize
re-election chances, exerts higher effort in providing
public goods when private citizens undertake collective

This report assesses the impact of
participation in farmer organizations (FOs) on food security
of rural households in Cambodia. The study is particularly
set out to following: (1) examine FOs’ roles and operation
and challenges for improving household’s food security; (2)
analyze household’s characteristics that determine
participation in FOs; (3) assess the impact of FOs on food
security and livelihood of the rural poor; and (4) provide

The purpose of this note is to provide the monetary cost of various social safety net
targeting schemes that can be deployed to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience. It is
believed that gradually switching to the provision of social safety nets can reduce the chronic
dependency on humanitarian (mainly food) aid. At the same time, it could help to alleviate reliance
on patronage networks and switch a portion of the public spending from unproductive uses (e.g.,

Horizontal inequalities (HIs) within a
country, or inequalities among groups, have been shown to be
an important source of violent conflict. Relevant group
categorizations include religion, ethnicity, and region. HIs
can also be measured in different ways. Ethnicity, language,
religion, race, and region are examples of potentially
relevant and salient group categorizations. In this paper
the authors will review the prevailing HIs and their

Since early 2012, the World Bank’s High Frequency South Sudan Survey has collected a panel data set to monitor the welfare and perceptions of citizens in a
selected number of state capitals in South Sudan. This note presents the findings of all six rounds of the survey on the topics of (1) Security, (2) Economic
Conditions, (3) Assets and Consumption, and (4) Access to Services. The results are based on 143 households in Juba, Wau and Rumbek revisited six times.

The World Bank Group in 2013 made the elimination of extreme poverty by 2030 a central institutional focus and purpose. This evaluation examines how, and how well, the Bank Group has focused its support on poverty reduction over the past decade, and what lessons to draw from this moving forward. The lessons aim to strengthen the Bank’s country diagnostics, improve the design of country strategies, and build greater learning opportunities from program experience.

Natural resources offer opportunities,
but also bring challenges. They have generally been linked
to a series of negative outcomes like economic decline,
corruption, and conflict. Oil and minerals reserves, in
particular, are often very spatially concentrated, and their
discovery becomes a potential source of conflict between the
governments, the people of the producing areas, and those of
the rest of the country. But can this increased risk of