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

The rural economy in Bangladesh has been
a powerful source of economic growth and has substantially
reduced poverty, especially since 2000, but the remarkable
transformation and unprecedented dynamism in rural
Bangladesh are an underexplored, underappreciated, and
largely untold story. The analysis identifies the key
changes occurring in the rural economy, the principal
drivers of rural incomes, the implications for policy, and

This review of the on-budget expenditure
of the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR)
in Egypt describes the broad outline of the MARL's
expenditures and identifies key themes and issues. The
report examines how the context of the agricultural sector
has changed, and the adjustment challenge that such change
poses for the MALR. It explains how the MALR is thinking
about the future, describes the structures of the MALR, and

This issue includes the following
headings: Changes in Poverty and Female-Headed Households in
Africa; Growth and Capital Inflows in Africa; Growth and
Capital Inflows in Africa; Vulnerability to Climate Change
in Coastal Bangladesh; Improving Agricultural Data for
Better Policies; Enhancing Transparency of Large-Scale Land
Acquisition; Explaining the Gender Gap in Agricultural
Productivity; Changing Patterns of Growth and Poverty

An extensive review of literature on the
determinants of adoption and impacts of land management
technologies in the Ethiopian highlands was undertaken to
guide policy makers and development agencies in crafting
programs and policies that can better and more effectively
address land degradation in Ethiopia. Several
generalizations emerge from the review: 1) the profitability
of land management technologies is a very important factor

The Malawi Urbanization Review aims to
provide fresh perspectives on urbanization in Malawi, by
analyzing the current and potential contribution of
urbanization to long-term national development and the
current institutional and financial capacity of local
governments to manage the process. Analyses presented in
this report are particularly timely as Malawi is planning
for the coming half decade through the Malawi Growth and

Since 2013 The World Bank Group has
partnered with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction
and Recovery and the U.K. Department for International
Development to address some of these gaps in evidence and
methodologies. The Disaster Risk Finance Impact Analytics
Project has made significant contributions to the
understanding of how to monitor and evaluate existing or
potential investments in disaster risk finance from a

There is no doubt that the poorest
people are already and will continue to be most severely
impacted by climatic changes, including shifting trends as
well as more frequent and severe extreme events. Yet, new
insights on the dynamics and distribution of poverty point
to the need to comprehend where the poor and poorest are,
how they are poor, and why their poverty constrains their
abilities to cope with and adapt to occurring and predicted

This study analyzes the long-term
impacts of large-scale expansion of biofuels on land-use
change, food supply and prices, and the overall economy in
various countries or regions using a global computable
general equilibrium model, augmented by a land-use module
and detailed representation of biofuel sectors. The study
finds that an expansion of global biofuel production to meet
currently articulated or even higher national targets in

Myanmar is going through a critical transformation
in its development path - from isolation and
fragmentation to openness and integration; and
from pervasive state control, exclusion, and individual
disengagement, to inclusion, participation,
and empowerment. This dual shift is happening
against a backdrop of broader political reforms that
started in 2011 when a new administration took office.
The country’s transition after the planned elections in
2015 will be a major test of the progress on political

The project ( 1996-2001 - US$22 million
credit ) was uniquely designed as a risk management
instrument - it conceived the establishment of a viable,
government-run system of drought management, through early
warning systems, contingency plans, mitigation and quick
response. The design also devolved responsibility to the
district and community level, encouraging civil servants and
other district development actors to empower local

In 2013 the World Bank set itself two
ambitious goals: to end extreme poverty within a generation
and to boost the prosperity of the bottom 40 percent of the
population worldwide. In Latin America, the significance of
both goals cannot be overstated. Indigenous people account
for about 8 percent of the population, but represent 14
percent of the poor and over 17 percent of all Latin
Americans living on less than United States (U.S.) $2.50 a