Madagascar has an impressive array of
biodiversity, natural beauty and cultural resources to
support tourism. Surprisingly, of the 200,000 visitors the
island per year, only about 60,000 come expressly for
tourism, the rest traveling for other reasons but which
could include some tourism activity. Madagascar has the
potential to welcome many more tourists if the sector's
growth is well planned in a broad, multi-sectoral way -

The objective of this study is to analyse the impact of various types of
government spending on growth and poverty reduction, using provincial level data over
the last decade. Government spending reduces poverty through many channels such as
agricultural growth and improved nonfarm employment. We will try to capture all these
different effects in the analysis if the data allow. This paper opens with a review of
Vietnam’s economic reforms and growth over the past decade. We then sketch Vietnam’s

A major objective of this report is to provide a deeper, more policy relevant understanding of the welfare impacts of the coffee crisis - including the effects of the crisis on household income, consumption, poverty, as well as on basic human development outcomes, such as education and child nutrition. To do this, the study has generated a body of new empirical evidence, drawing from an unusually rich collection of household survey data from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

The objective of this report is to
design an integrated strategy for rural poverty reduction in
Brazil. It contains an updated and detailed profile of the
rural poor in the northeast and southeast regions of Brazil;
identifies key determinants of rural poverty in these
regions; and proposes a five-pronged strategic framework and
a tentative set of policy options. The latter were
identified via an analysis of rural poverty determinants

This book is organized as follows:
Introduction: Is Geography Destiny? Chapter 1 discuses The
Channels of Influence of Geography: Latin America from an
International Perspective. Chapter 2 discusses The Other
Side of The Mountain: The Influence of Geography Within
Countries. Chapter 3 discusses Policies to Overcome the
Limitations of Geography

The report provides detailed information
on the geographical distribution of poverty and
vulnerability throughout the country - i.e. regions,
provinces and communes. The information presented is
essential to understand poverty at the local level, and to
address it with appropriate sectoral or cross-sectoral
strategies. Further, when local poverty rates are analyzed
alongside public expenditure data, an initial assessment for

The Investment Climate Study is a
evaluation of the Operations Evaluation Department (OED).
The OED report reviews the Bank’s investment climate lending
and non-lending activities during fiscal years 1993 through
2002-03. The report presents the collected findings of
several evaluative exercises: a literature review; an
analysis of investment climate themes in country assistance
strategies and sector strategies; an analysis of lending

From what was historically known as
'Arabia Felix', a land of prosperity and
happiness, Yemen has become the most impoverished among the
Arab countries. The government of the united Yemen, formed
in 1990, has launched so far three five-year economic reform
plans with the goal of restoring Yemen's prosperity.
Have these efforts succeeded? What policies are needed to
further reduce poverty? The poverty assessment report aims

This report analyzes some key aspects of
food security, namely production, trade, markets and food
aid at the national level, and consumption at the household
level. In doing so it aspires to make a contribution to the
on-going work in Afghanistan regarding the attainment of the
poverty and hunger Millennium Development Goal. The major
findings of the report can be summarized as follows: Food
security (at the national level) does not necessarily

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.

By using long-term panel data sets of rural households in the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India and cross-sectional data sets in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia, the roles of labor markets in long-term poverty reduction in Asia is compared with the current situation in East Africa. The study finds that the reliance on agricultural labor markets alone will not reduce poverty to a significant extent, in view of the declining share of agricultural wage income in Asia and its negligibly low level in East Africa.

This report aims to assist the
Government of the Maldives in designing and implementing
social protection reforms, in particular for pensions and
safety nets. The report gives an overview of poverty, risk
and vulnerability in Maldives and analyzes the role and
effectiveness of pensions and social assistance policies in
helping poor households mitigate and cope with risks. Based
on the analysis, the study delineates a menu of options for