Since its recovery of macroeconomic
stability in 1991, the Dominican Republic has experienced a
period of notable economic growth. Poverty has declined in
the 1990s. Nevertheless, a segment of the population-mainly
in rural areas-does not seem to have benefited from this
growth. Poverty in this country in 1998 is less than that of
other countries if one adjusts for the level of economic
development. The principal poverty characteristics are the

This report is part of an ongoing
project to understand poverty, growth, and human development
in Pakistan. It argues that if the country does not close
its social gap, its long-term ability to grow economically,
alleviate poverty, and sustain its debt will be
fundamentally compromised. Spanning social, economic, and
fiscal difficulties, the country's current predicament
is not rooted in a discrete set of policies amenable to

This report provides an integrated view
of Sri Lanka's long term development challenges for
sustainable growth and poverty reduction. Sri Lanka's
substantial achievements in human development are well
known. In several dimensions - such as universal primary
enrollment, gender equality, infant and maternal mortality -
the country is well positioned to meet the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). In addition, housing conditions

Considerations of risk and vulnerability
are key to understanding the dynamics of poverty. This study
conceives vulnerability as expected poverty and illustrates
a methodology to empirically assess household vulnerability
using pseudo panel data derived from repeated cross sections
augmented with historical information on shocks. Application
of the methodology to data from rural Kenya shows that in
1994 rural households faced on average a 40 percent chance

This review systematically assesses the
focus of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) on
environment-related issues. A total of 40 Interim and full
PRSPs from countries in Africa, Latin America and Eastern
Europe, the Middle East, Central and East Asia are reviewed.
Four major questions: are posed: (i) What issues of
environmental concerns and opportunities are identified in
the PRSPs?; (ii) To what extent are poverty-environment

This paper examines the effects of
men's and women's participation in group-based
micro-credit programs on a large set of qualitative
responses to questions that characterize women's
autonomy and gender relations within the household. The data
come from a special survey carried out in rural Bangladesh
in 1998-99. The results are consistent with the view that
women's participation in micro-credit programs helps to

Vulnerability is an important aspect of households' experience of poverty. Many households, while not currently in poverty, recognize that they are vulnerable to events - a bad harvest, a lost job, an illness, and unexpected expense, an economic downturn - that could easily push them into poverty. Most operational measures define poverty as some function of the shortfall of current income, or consumption expenditures from a poverty line, and hence measure poverty only at a single point in time. The authors propose a simple expansion of those measures to quantify vulnerability to poverty.

The authors examine the impact of migration on educational attainment in rural Mexico. Using historical migration rates by state to instrument for current migration, they find evidence of a significant negative effect of migration on schooling attendance and attainment of 12 to 18 year-old boys and 16 to 18 year-old girls. IV-Censored Ordered Probit results show that living in a migrant household lowers the chances of boys completing junior high school and of boys and girls completing high school.

This povert y update finds the
following: Between 1997 and 2000, poverty has increased
unambiguously, for a full set of poverty lines and
definitions of poverty measures. Poverty has increased
because over the period, consumption fell and inequality
rose. Living standards have not risen despite growth in
Gross Domestic Product because growth was too weak, too
concentrated in a narrow set of sectors, and there were no

The present study describes, and
quantifies the provision of basic urban services to the
poor, in three Central American cities in El Salvador,
Honduras, and, Panama. It also identifies priority areas for
government intervention, using specialized household surveys
to quantify current deficits, and to rank households from
poor to rich, using aggregate consumption as the measure of
welfare. The urban poverty profile is examined in each city,

This article assesses the impact of the
East Asian financial crisis on farm households in two of the
region's most affected countries, Indonesia and
Thailand, using detailed household level survey data
collected before and after the crisis began. Although the
natures of the shocks in the two countries were similar, the
impact on farmers' income (particularly on
distribution) was quite different. In Thailand, poor farmers

Structural reforms are often designed to
change the prices of key goods and services. Since the
overall intention of such reforms is the reduction of
poverty, it is important to understand how the resulting
price changes affect the poor. However, organizations
seeking to provide timely advice to policymakers in
developing countries often do not have the data and
resources needed to undertake the most sophisticated