"While ample evidence documents that urban children generally have better nutritional status than their rural counterparts, recent research suggests that urban malnutrition is on the rise. The environment, choices, and opportunities of urbanites differ greatly from those of rural dwellers' from employment conditions to social and family networks to access to health care and other services.

This paper explores the diversity of the experience of migrants to rural, peri–urban, and urban areas using a unique longitudinal data set from the Philippines. In 2003 and 2004, the Bukidnon Panel Study followed up with 448 families in rural Mindanao who were previously interviewed in 1984/85 by the International Food Policy Research Institute and the Research Institute for Mindanao Culture, Xavier University, and surveyed both a sample of their offspring living in the same area as well as a sample of those who had moved away to different locations.

The paper examines the possible impact of Doha agreement on Philippine poverty. Using a detailed CGE analysis, the agreement is observed to depress world demand for Philippine agricultural exports, and thus slightly increase poverty, especially among rural households. However, an ambitious full trade liberalization scenario, which involves free world trade and domestic liberalization, leads to increased industrial exports that favor urban households.

The form and function of many cities are increasingly marred by congestion, sprawl and socioeconomic segregation, preventing them from experiencing expected productivity gains associated with urbanization. We operationalize these insights by creating a stylized agent-based model of a theoretical city, inspired by social complexity theory and the new urban literature.

In 1997, CARE-Bangladesh undertook a livelihood security assessment of urban slum households in the cities of Tongi, Khulna and Bogra. Based on the findings of that study and a review of secondary literature, the SHAHAR (Supporting Household Activities for Health, Assets and Revenue) project was conceptualized and designed.

Zambia is one of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Almost three-quarters of the population were considered poor at the start of the 1990s, with a vast majority of these people concentrated in rural and remote areas. This extreme poverty arose in spite of Zambia's seemingly promising prospects following independence. To better understand the failure of growth and poverty-reduction this paper first considers the relationship between the structure of growth and Zambia's evolving political economy.

Zambia is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Despite substantial reform during the 1990s, the economy has remained heavily dependent on urban-based mining. Copper's long-standing dominance led to a strong bias against agriculture, which undermined the sector's growth and export potential. Consequently poverty has remained concentrated within marginalized rural areas. Recent volatility in copper exports and growing foreign debt indicate the need for further economic diversification and pro-poor growth.

In this paper we analyze the effect on output, employment and poverty of two (2) alternative versions of further trade liberalization -- one representing free trade world wide (WTO) and the other a Western hemisphere free trade bloc (FTAA). The paper introduces international commodity price changes derived from a world model into national Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) and microsimulation models for fifteen (15) Latin American countries to estimate how FTAA and WTO would affect sectoral output, employment, wages and poverty levels at the national level for each of the countries.

The programme has a substantial positive impact on the diet of children. It also complements the basic livelihood strategies of poor urban women working outside the home.; Urban Challenges to Food and Nutrition Security

Can private-sector participation (PSP) in the urban piped water sector improve child
health? The author uses child-level data from 39 African countries during 1986–2010 to show that
introducing PSP decreases diarrhea among urban dwelling children under five years of age by 5.6
percentage points, or 35 percent of its mean prevalence.

This paper examines determinants and consequences of migration from urban slums using panel data from two Nairobi slums. We analyze migration behavior of both adults and children. First, empirical analysis of labor market dynamics shows that schooling is complementary with experience (measured by duration in Nairobi) in slums jointly increasing the probability of migration to non-slum urban areas, and that labor-market returns to schooling and experience are low within slums.

Perú: Redimensionando la población rural
Fernando Eguren*
1 de diciembre de 2008