Linking growth and poverty is a crucial element for evaluating the effectiveness of government policies under the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process. Burkina Faso has benefited from more than 3 percent growth in per-capita incomes since the devaluation in 1994, while the steady increase in incomes, albeit from a very low level, should over time have lifted some Burkinabe above the poverty line, and led to a reduction in poverty rates. Growth during 1998-2003 was driven by a large expansion of the primary sector, following the 1997-98 drought.

Recovering from three decades of conflict, over this last decade, Cambodia has undergone dramatic economic, political, and social transitions. Cambodia experienced rapid institutional changes as it restored peace, moved from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy, and moved from isolation to regional and global integration. Cambodia has achieved political and macroeconomic stability, and has initiated key structural reforms. Nevertheless, Cambodia's economy remains vulnerable, and economic growth has not translated into widespread poverty reduction.

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.

This Poverty report is aimed at improving the understanding of poverty in Ukraine, and providing linkages between growth, the evolution of economic sectors, and poverty. The main findings can be summed up as follows: An absolute poverty line and a revised consumption aggregate -- jointly developed with Ukraine experts -- indicate that around 19 percent of the population lived in poverty by 2003. While in 1999 Ukraine had a poverty incidence higher than Poland, Russia, Lithuania, or Bulgaria, by 2003 it was the lowest compared with these countries.

The relative contribution of a sector to poverty reduction is shown to depend on its direct and indirect growth effects as well as its participation effect. The paper assesses how these effects compare between agriculture and non-agriculture by reviewing the literature and by analyzing cross-country national accounts and poverty data from household surveys. Special attention is given to Sub-Saharan Africa.

The 2006 edition of the little green
data book coincides with a wave of renewed attention to the
energy sector coming out of the group of eight summit at
Gleneagles, Scotland. While energy demand is rising along
with gross domestic product (GDP) in the developing world,
many poor countries still lack the basic infrastructure that
sustains everyday needs. Electric power consumption per
capita is 25 times lower in low-income countries than in

The 2007 edition of the little green
data book includes a new focus section, four introductory
pages that focus on a specific issue related to development
and the environment in this edition, carbon dioxide
emissions. The reports deem human causation of climate
change to be very likely. Late 2006 saw the publication of
the Stern review on the economics of climate change, which
emphasizes the major economic costs of climate change under

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 sets out a new poverty line methodology for Turkey, as the basic measure of poverty in the country. However, several poverty lines are calculated for the purpose of international comparability, and comparability to the Bank's poverty measures, using the 1987 and 1994 data. The basic data used in Volume One are from the official 2002 Household Budget Survey (HBS). The analysis refers generally to the new poverty line methodology that results in 27 percent poor. This line is called "complete" poverty line, and is referred to as "Total poverty" in statistical tables.

Over the medium time horizon, skill upgrading, differentials in sectoral technological progress, and migration of labor out of farming activities are some of the major structural adjustment factors shaping the evolution of an economy and its connected poverty trends. The main focus of the authors is understanding, for the case of Brazil, how a trade shock interacts with these structural forces and ascertaining whether it enhances or hinders medium-term poverty reduction.

This paper analyzes the distributional impacts of trade reforms in rural areas of Bangladesh. The liberalization of trade in irrigation equipment and fertilizer markets during the early 1990s has led to structural changes in the agricultural sector and a significant increase in rice productivity. A resulting increase in output has been associated with a decline in producer and consumer rice prices of approximately 25 percent.

Using cross-country and panel regressions, the authors show that financial sector development significantly reduces undernourishment (hunger), largely through gaining farmers and others access to productivity-enhancing equipment, translating into beneficial income and general effects. They show specifically that a deeper financial sector leads to higher agricultural productivity, including higher cereal yields, through increased fertilizer and tractor use. Higher productivity in turn leads to lower undernourishment.