Land rights for women are important to
women's overall role in the household economy. In most
Europe and Central Asia (ECA) countries, women have equal
rights to land by law, but practice varies widely across the
region. Improving gender outcomes in land administration is
therefore related more to education and the need to change
norms and habits than it is to a specific legislative
problem. Access to gender-disaggregated data and the

The African coastal countries are facing
several environmental and socio-economic challenges, such as
unplanned urban and economic development, fueled by a
growing rural exodus; non-functional or non-existent public
infrastructures to handle the demographic growth along the
coastline; air, water and soil pollution; and alteration of
coastal ecosystems. West Africa, in particular, is facing
severe land losses and major damage due to coastal erosion

This paper presents a new type of land
market analysis relevant to cities with plural tenure
systems as in West Africa. The methodology hinges on a
systemic analysis of land delivery channels, which helps to
show how land is initially made available for circulation,
how tenure can be formalized incrementally, and the
different means whereby households can access land. The
analysis is applied to the area of Bamako in Mali, where

The Government of Bangladesh, with help
from the World Bank and other donors, has provided aid to a
local agency called Infrastructure Development Company
Limited and its partner organizations to devise a credit
scheme for marketing solar home system units and making
these an affordable alternative to grid electricity for poor
people in remote areas. This paper uses household survey
data to examine the financing scheme behind the

This paper evaluates the impact of
strengthening legal rights on the types of economic
opportunities that are pursued. Ethiopia changed its family
law, requiring both spouses' consent in the
administration of marital property, removing the ability of
a spouse to deny permission for the other to work outside
the home, and raising women's minimum age of marriage.
Thus both access to resources and the removal of

This paper contributes to the
long-standing debate on the merits of decentralized
beneficiary targeting in the administration of development
programs, focusing on the large-scale Malawi Farm Input
Subsidy Program. Nationally-representative household survey
data are used to systematically analyze the decentralized
targeting performance of the program during the 2009-2010
agricultural season. The analysis begins with a standard

Kenya has experienced a decade of
relatively strong economic growth. Between 2000 and 2009,
economic growth in Kenya averaged 3.7 percent. However,
growth declined sharply in 2008 and 2009 as a result of the
violence following the December 2007 presidential elections,
of the global food, fuel, and financial crisis, and of the
drought that occurred after the fourth consecutive year.
This persistent poverty and vulnerability highlights the

This report assesses the challenges and
opportunities for the development of the Khatlon oblast in
Tajikistan. The report argues that the rise in the strategic
significance of Khatlon must be matched by responses in
public policy and a strong upturn in private investment to
strengthen economic prospects. The report identifies four
key reform imperatives for stimulating growth in the oblast.
These are: (i) promoting cities and internal connectivity to

Diversification into high-value cash
crops among smallholders has been propagated as a strategy
to improve welfare in rural areas. However, the extent to
which cash crop production spurs projected gains remains an
under-researched question, especially in the context of
market imperfections leading to non-separable production and
consumption decisions, and price shocks to staple crops that
might be displaced on the farm by cash crops. This study is

In the standard model of corruption, the
rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's
education, reflecting higher ability to pay. This prediction
is, however, driven by the assumption that the probability
of punishment for bribe-taking is invariant across
households. In many developing countries lacking in rule of
law, this assumption is untenable, because the enforcement
of law is not impersonal or unbiased and the poor have

There is now broad consensus among
policymakers that social protection is a powerful way to
fight poverty and promote inclusive growth. This
international consensus is most clearly articulated in the
African Union's Social Policy Framework (SPF), which
was endorsed by all African heads of state in 2009. The SPF
explains that social protection includes 'social
security measures and furthering income security; and also