This paper addresses the deceptively simple question: What is the rural population of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)? It argues that rurality is a gradient, not a dichotomy, and nominates two dimensions to that gradient: population density and remoteness from large metropolitan areas. It uses geographically referenced population data (from the Gridded Population of the World, version 3) to tabulate the distribution of populations in Latin America and in individual countries by population density and by remoteness.

This report presents an update on the
economic challenges facing Ethiopia with a focus on the
shared goal of accelerating equitable growth. The starting
point is the Government's own Plan for Accelerated and
Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), which is in
the process of finalization, and is designed to cover the
period 2005-2010. This report proposes that the growth
strategy should more explicitly adopt a

This publication offers crucial lessons
for policy makers and development experts who may be
considering using small area poverty maps as tools of
economic development and helps add to our array of tools for
dealing with the political economy issues of poverty. It
represents a major contribution to a little understood
aspect of the well-known adage "location, location,
location," demonstrating that the conceptualization of

"From Vision to Action", the
Bank's previous rural development strategy launched in
1997, had a decisive influence on global thinking - but
disappointing results on the ground. In 2001, lending for
agricultural projects was the lowest in the Bank's
history. The new strategy is results oriented:
"Reaching the Rural Poor" stresses practice,
implementation, monitoring, and empowerment of the people it

This report is part of the Armenia
Programmatic Poverty Assessment work. It is jointly produced
by the National Statistics Service (NSS) of the Republic of
Armenia and the World Bank. Armenia has achieved impressive
economic growth and poverty reduction since the late 1990s.
The country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown at
an astounding annual rate of over 11 percent since 2002. The
main objectives of Armenia poverty are: (i) to inform policy

Linking growth and poverty is a crucial element for evaluating the effectiveness of government policies under the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process. Burkina Faso has benefited from more than 3 percent growth in per-capita incomes since the devaluation in 1994, while the steady increase in incomes, albeit from a very low level, should over time have lifted some Burkinabe above the poverty line, and led to a reduction in poverty rates. Growth during 1998-2003 was driven by a large expansion of the primary sector, following the 1997-98 drought.

This report examines the implications of
spatial heterogeneity - the uneven distribution of poverty,
growth, and environmental assets - for policy. Its goal is
to inform a wide set of policies that are either explicitly
spatially targeted or may have unanticipated spatial
implications. These include poverty alleviation policies
targeted on poor municipios; demand-driven poverty
alleviation policies; territorial development policies aimed

Recovering from three decades of conflict, over this last decade, Cambodia has undergone dramatic economic, political, and social transitions. Cambodia experienced rapid institutional changes as it restored peace, moved from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy, and moved from isolation to regional and global integration. Cambodia has achieved political and macroeconomic stability, and has initiated key structural reforms. Nevertheless, Cambodia's economy remains vulnerable, and economic growth has not translated into widespread poverty reduction.

The Government of Kenya adopted in 2004
an Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment
Creation (ERSWEC), which recognizes three main pillars for
economy recovery namely: (i) strengthening economic growth;
(ii) enhancing equity and reducing poverty; and (iii)
improving governance. The ERSWEC reiterates that the
achievement of the three pillars is dependent on adequate
and reliable access to least-cost energy. Since agriculture

A decade and a half of relative peace and political stability, broad economic reforms, and far-reaching political decentralization have brought Ethiopia back from one of its lowest levels of income per capita to one of its highest levels over the past forty years. At the same time, Gross Domestic Product per capita today is still only slightly above the levels reached in the early 1970 underscoring the deep-rooted and complex nature of poverty in Ethiopia.

This paper addresses labor markets in
Haiti, including farm and nonfarm employment and income
generation. The analyses are based on the first Living
Conditions Survey of 7,186 households covering the whole
country and representative at the regional level. The
findings suggest that four key determinants of employment
and productivity in nonfarm activities are education,
gender, location, and migration status. This is emphasized

This regional study encompasses three
Central American countries: Nicaragua, Guatemala, and
Honduras. The focus of this report is Honduras. The
objective of the study is to understand how broad-based
economic growth can be stimulated and sustained in rural
Central America. The study identifies "drivers" of
sustainable rural growth and poverty reduction. Drivers are
defined as the assets and combinations of assets needed by