This study was carried out in three
stages during 2009 through April 2011. The main objective
of the study is to determine, on the basis of usage of
qualitative data collection methods, impact of the economic
crisis on the most vulnerable population groups, as well as
to monitor dynamics of changes in the lives of the
respondents by consistently comparing the results of each of
the consecutive stages of the project study. The study

This Investment Climate Survey Report
(ICSR) for Cote d'Ivoire evaluates the country's
business environment by (i) analyzing barriers to private
sector investment and growth and how they vary among
different types of firms, (ii) benchmarking the Ivorian
investment climate and firm performance to that of other
countries and (iii) providing recommendations to promote and
strengthen the private sector. The ICSR is supported by the

This document proposes a set of
generally applicable recommendations and good practices for
creating a Mineral Rights Cadastre (MRC), an administrative
body responsible for overseeing the process of granting and
managing mineral licenses throughout a country. The document
reviews lessons learned from World Bank-funded projects
aimed at reforming mineral rights management and assesses
the impacts and benefits of the implemented changes. The

Brazil low carbon country case study was
two years in the making based on a study by the World Bank
assisted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
and the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP).
It supports Brazil's integrated effort towards reducing
national and global-emissions GHG while promoting long-term
development. It builds on the best available knowledge and
is underpinned by a broad consultative process and survey of

The theme of the 2011 Philippines
development report is 'generating inclusive growth,
uplifting the poor and vulnerable'. This theme is
follows from the priorities set in President Aquino's
Social Contract and the emerging 2011-2016 Philippines
Development Plan (PDP). The PDP details the vision of
inclusive growth and poverty reduction that underlies the
social contract (chapter one). Accordingly, the PDP focuses

Twenty years of rapid economic
development in Ghana has done little, if anything, to reduce
the historical North, South divide in standards of living.
While rural development and urbanization have led to
significant poverty reduction in the South, similar dynamics
have been largely absent from Northern Ghana (or
equivalently the North, defined as the sum of the
administrative regions Upper West, Upper East, and the

Although many studies have explored the
impacts of political quotas for females, often with
ambiguous results, the underlying mechanisms and long-term
effects have received little attention. This paper uses
nation-wide data from India spanning a 15-year period to
explore how reservations affect leader qualifications,
service delivery, political participation, local
accountability, and individuals willingness to contribute

This paper investigates the impact of
remittances on financial inclusion. This is an important
issue given recent studies showing that financial inclusion
can have significant beneficial effects on households. Using
household-level survey data for El Salvador, the authors
examine the impact of remittances on households' use of
savings and credit instruments from formal financial
institutions. They find that although remittances have a

This paper studies a transmission
mechanism through which pro-vulnerable income transfers may
affect individual decision-making of non-beneficiaries in an
extreme poverty context, leading to labor supply contraction
and the so-called dependency syndrome. The argument is based
on the distributional distortion this transfer may provoke
to the relative quality of leisure, enjoyed by the
population in an extreme poverty scenario. Assuming the

This paper reviews empirical findings
from economic analyses of the role of gender equality and
women's empowerment in reducing poverty and stimulating
growth. Going beyond the large literature documenting the
impact of female education on a range of development
outcomes, the paper presents evidence on the impact of
women's access to markets (labor, land, and credit) and
women's decision-making power within households on

The East Asia region is highly prone to
the impacts of natural disasters. Situated in the ring of
fire, countries in the region are regularly hit by typhoons,
earthquakes, floods, and other events. Natural disasters can
have major impacts on the social and economic welfare of a
population, and often pose serious obstacles in the
achievement of sustainable social and economic development.
Moreover, impacts from disasters are not uniformly

Under the Vanuatu constitution, the
'rules of custom shall form the basis of ownership and
use of land.' Implementing this principle after decades
of land alienation, however, has proved to be challenging.
While the leasing arrangement was originally intended to
restore investor confidence and maintain agricultural
development in newly independent Vanuatu, it soon evolved
into the method of acquiring new leases over previously