Effectively addressing grievances
from people impacted by World Bank projects is a core
component of managing operational risk and improving a
project s results. Grievance redress mechanisms (GRMs) can
be an effective tool for early identification, assessment,
and resolution of complaints on projects. Understanding when
and how a GRM may improve project outcomes can help both
project teams and beneficiaries improve results. However,

The paper explores whether one of the
largest programs in the world for women's empowerment
and rural livelihoods, the Indira Kranti Patham in Andhra
Pradesh, India, has had an impact on the economic and social
wellbeing of households that participate in the program. The
analysis usespanel data for 4,250 households from two rounds
of a survey conducted in 2004 and 2008 in five districts.
Propensity score matching was used to construct control

In the past dozen years, a literature
has developed arguing that urbanization has unfolded
differently in post-independence Sub-Saharan Africa than in
the rest of the developing world, with implications for
African economic growth overall. While African countries are
more urbanized than other countries at comparable levels of
income, it is well-recognized that total and sector gross
domestic product data are of very low quality, especially in

This paper develops a dynamic model that
explains the pattern of population and production allocation
in an economy with an urban location and a rural one.
Agglomeration economies make urban dwellers benefit from a
larger population living in the city and urban firms become
more productive when they operate in locations with a larger
labor force. However, congestion costs associated with a too
large population size limit the process of urban-rural

Strong boy-bias and its consequences for
young and unborn girls have been widely documented for Asia.
This paper considers a country in Sub-Saharan Africa and
finds that parental gender preferences do affect fertility
behavior and shape traditional social institutions with
negative effects on adult women's health and
well-being. Using individual-level data for Nigeria, the
paper shows that, compared to women with first-born sons,

Urban agriculture contributes to local
economic development, poverty alleviation, the social
inclusion of the urban poor and women, as well as to the
greening of the city and the productive reuse of urban
wastes. Urban agriculture encompasses a wide variety of
production systems in both urban as well as peri-urban
areas. This study examines the contribution of urban
agriculture to livelihoods, food security, health, and the

This report was produced for the Global
Program on Forced Displacement and describes why and how to
conduct political economy analysis (PEA) of forced
displacement. It also illustrates how PEA may contribute to
understanding forced displacement crises with nine case
studies: Casamance (Senegal), Colombia, Cote dapos;Ivoire,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, the Philippines,
Somalia, South Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Forced displacement is

The paper uses harmonized household
survey micro-data to assess the levels and determinants of
economic inequality in 12 Arab countries. It focuses on the
sources of rural-urban, as well as
metropolitan-nonmetropolitan, inequalities and applies the
unconditional quantile regression decomposition technique to
analyze the welfare gaps across the entire distribution. The
analysis finds moderate inequality levels, with the Gini

Urbanization is the single most
important transformation that the African continent will
undergo this century. More than half of Africa's
population will live in its cities by 2040. In the face of
rapid urbanization, there is a narrow window of opportunity
to harness the potential of cities as engines of economic
growth, and use this as a powerful leverage to achieve
sustainable development and poverty reduction. Despite its

This publication is part of a series
aimed at promoting good policies and practices on rural
transport in Africa. A recent review of the status of Rural
Transport Knowledge Products and Practice (Riverson, 2012)
identified a number of knowledge gaps and recommended the
production of working papers to address these. One of these
gaps was the absence of robust tools, including relevant
indicators and instruments, to measure the impact of rural

This paper examines the employment
growth of Indian districts from 2000 to 2010 in the
manufacturing and services sectors. Specialization and
diversity metrics that combine industries in both sectors
are calculated and related to subsequent job growth. The
analysis finds robust and consistent evidence that the
diversity of industries in the district across the two
sectors links to subsequent job growth. Somewhat

This paper employs decomposition methods
to analyze differences in agricultural productivity between
male and female land managers in Ethiopia. It employs data
from the 2011-2012 Ethiopian Rural Socioeconomic Survey. An
overall 23.4 percent gender differential in agricultural
productivity is estimated at the mean in favor of male land
managers, of which 10.1 percentage points are explained by
differences in land manager characteristics, land