This report for public comment presents and analyses key issues arising from extensive interviews
conducted with workers on and off farm, individual employers, representatives of organised
agriculture, trade unions, NGOs, worker support organisations, municipal councillors and officials
together with representatives from provincial government departments. It sets out options for a
strategy to address farm worker housing and related needs.

Mali is a vast, land-locked country in
West Africa with a population of approximately 14.9 million,
and a GDP per capita of USD480. The economy is largely
rural, with over two-thirds of the population living off
agriculture, notably cotton. Gold is the country’s largest
export, though production has been declining and the
industry faces an uncertain future as proven reserves are
limited. The service sector, which represents 40 percent of

This issue includes the following
headings: Changes in Poverty and Female-Headed Households in
Africa; Growth and Capital Inflows in Africa; Growth and
Capital Inflows in Africa; Vulnerability to Climate Change
in Coastal Bangladesh; Improving Agricultural Data for
Better Policies; Enhancing Transparency of Large-Scale Land
Acquisition; Explaining the Gender Gap in Agricultural
Productivity; Changing Patterns of Growth and Poverty

To explain persistent gender gaps in
market outcomes, a lab experimental literature explores
whether women and men have innate differences in ability (or
attitudes or preferences), and a separate field-based
literature studies discrimination against women in market
settings. This paper posits that even if women have
comparable innate ability, their relative performance may
suffer in the market if the task requires them to interact

There is no doubt that the poorest
people are already and will continue to be most severely
impacted by climatic changes, including shifting trends as
well as more frequent and severe extreme events. Yet, new
insights on the dynamics and distribution of poverty point
to the need to comprehend where the poor and poorest are,
how they are poor, and why their poverty constrains their
abilities to cope with and adapt to occurring and predicted

Over the last 20 years, poor rural
farmers in Nigeria have seen the benefits of community
organization as a tool for local economic development under
the National Fadama Development Project series. They have
witnessed improvements in rural areas that have embraced a
more inclusive and participatory model of local economic
decision making. Many communities have come together under
the umbrella of new institutional arrangements for

The rural economy in Bangladesh has been
a powerful source of economic growth and has substantially
reduced poverty, especially since 2000, but the remarkable
transformation and unprecedented dynamism in rural
Bangladesh are an underexplored, underappreciated, and
largely untold story. The analysis identifies the key
changes occurring in the rural economy, the principal
drivers of rural incomes, the implications for policy, and

Since 2013 The World Bank Group has
partnered with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction
and Recovery and the U.K. Department for International
Development to address some of these gaps in evidence and
methodologies. The Disaster Risk Finance Impact Analytics
Project has made significant contributions to the
understanding of how to monitor and evaluate existing or
potential investments in disaster risk finance from a

The Government of Uzbekistan (GoU) has
recently adopted a policy to mechanize the cotton harvest as
part of its drive to modernize the agricultural sector.
Under Uzbekistan’s state-order system it is compulsory for
many farmers to grow cotton. They are contractually
obligated to produce stipulated quantities that are annually
set by the government, and must sell these to the GoU at a
price fixed by the government. Almost all cotton in

The regional gender newsletter serves as a means to share relevant information and lessons amongst Country Offices in the regional as well as an advocacy tool. It contains 'stories' from projects in the region as well as more general information related to gender equality.

The reform of China's collectively owned forest land, began in 2008, is arguably the largest land-reform undertaking in modern times in terms of area and people affected. Under the reform, forest lands have been contracted to rural households, allowing them more independence in exercising their rights and interests in the forest lands, giving them more opportunities to improve family incomes, and creating incentives for them to cultivate, conserve, and manage forests. These lands are home to some 610 million people, many of them poor.

This report responds to a request from the Government of Timor-Leste (GoTL) and Dr. Mari Alkatiri. The request was for World Bank assistance to collaborate on a range of studies relating to opportunities in the special economic zone, including community development, trade and competitiveness, and regional integration. The analysis builds on a situation analysis prepared by the Zona Especial de Economia Social de Mercado (ZEESM) authority in March 2014.