This report summarizes and consolidates the findings of three Bank studies on poverty issues in Mexico, written as part of the second phase of this work: Urban Poverty, Rural Poverty, and Social Protection. It also expands on how Mexico will seek to use social protection policy as a vehicle for redistribution. Discussed in Chapter 1, the state has a clear role in providing risk-pooling mechanisms where private insurance markets fail (e.g., old age and health insurance), but the role of social protection policy in promoting redistribution is more an issue of national choice.

Economic geography has become a mantra for many economists, geographers, and regional scientists. Previous studies have tested the importance of economic geography for production activities and found a significant association between them. Most of these studies, however, have not taken into account that economic geography influences location decisions at the firm level. The authors show a potential bias that can arise when firm location choices are not considered in estimating the contribution of economic geography to industry performance.

How effective are public interventions in addressing significant regional disparities in formal manufacturing concentration in a developing economy? The authors examine the aggregate and sectoral geographic concentration of manufacturing industries for Indonesia, and estimate the impact of factors influencing location choice at the firm level. They distinguish between natural advantage, including infrastructure endowments, wage rates, and natural resource endowments, and production externalities, arising from the co-location of firms in the same or complementary industries.

How do differences in the local business environment influence location of industry within countries? How do the benefits of a good business environment compare with those from good market access and agglomeration economies from industry clustering? The authors examine these questions by analyzing location decisions of individual firms. Using data from a recently completed survey of manufacturing firms in India, they find that both the local business environment and agglomeration economies significantly influence business location choices across cities.

The asset-based approach considers links between households' productive, social, and locational assets; the policy, institutional, and risk context; household behavior as expressed in livelihood strategies; and well-being outcomes. For sustainable poverty reducing growth, it is critical to examine household asset portfolios and understand how assets interact with the context to influence the selection of livelihood strategies, which in turn determine well-being. Policy reforms can change the context and income-generating potential of assets.

Although China has made impressive progress in economic development and improving social well-being, it is facing many daunting challenges while transforming toward a knowledge and service-based economy and further opening up to international competition after its WTO accession in the context of knowledge revolution. One of the biggest challenges is how to create 100-300 million new jobs in the coming decade to absorb the millions of laid-offs, rural emigrants and newly added labor force.

This paper examines the various ways in which migrant settlers have gained and maintained access to land in the informal urban settlements of Wewak, the provincial capital of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Urban population growth in PNG and in Pacific Island states more generally is predicted to grow rapidly over the next two decades. Given the limited availability of formal housing for lower income people, it is likely that many will live in informal urban settlements on land owned by customary landowners.

China's success in addressing food problems after adopting the reforms in 1978 has been nothing less than remarkable. Grain output (rice, wheat and maize) has almost doubled and most hunger has been eliminated. Ever since China embarked on its reform agenda more than 30 years ago, its economic growth and poverty reduction have been nothing less than remarkable. Agriculture has been an important contributor to these developments.

Urban growth throughout the developing
world has created a challenge for financing infrastructure.
Investment in infrastructure is needed to provide basic
services for newly developed parts of urban areas. It is
needed to meet the demand for a safer and more reliable
water supply, higher standards for the removal and treatment
of wastewater and solid waste, and the transportation
requirements of a population whose expectations of mobility

This paper provides an overview of land reform in South Africa from 1994 to 2011, with the focus on the land redistribution. The government policies and associated implementation since 1994 have not generated expected social and economic results for a number of reasons. Even where land has been transferred, it appears to have had minimal impact on the livelihoods of beneficiaries, largely because of inappropriate project design, a lack of necessary support services and shortages of working capital, leading to widespread underutilization of land.

This study analyzes the difficulties a
poor community experienced in accessing peri-urban land in
South Africa. This community, composed largely of laid-off
farm workers, wanted to buy their own farm in a peri-urban
area west of Johannesburg to establish a mixed-use
settlement. The Ethembalethu 250 families started their own
savings scheme to make their dream a reality. Millions of
black South Africans live in the peri-urban areas. However,

* Fernando Eguren
En Sudamérica, mientras los discursos políticos de varios presidentes acuden de forma permanente a los imaginarios de la integración regional, hay procesos económicos que trascienden el contenido simbólico y, de hecho, lo contradicen o le plantean las inquietudes emergentes de la propia realidad. En el presente artículo el destacado sociólogo peruano Fernando Eguren desmenuza las intersecciones entre un contexto turbulento y las vías, reales e ideales, de una posible integración regional.