Showing papers on "Poverty published in 2008"

World development report 2008 : agriculture for development

Abstract: Agriculture is a vital development tool for achieving the Millennium Development Goal that calls for halving by 2015 the share of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger. That is the overall message of this year's World Development Report (WDR), the 30th in the series. Three out of every four poor people in developing countries live in rural areas, and most of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. This report provides guidance to governments and the international community on designing and implementing agriculture for development agendas that can make a difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of rural poor. The report highlights two major regional challenges. In much of Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture is a strong option for spurring growth, overcoming poverty, and enhancing food security. Agricultural productivity growth is vital for stimulating growth in other parts of the economy. But accelerated growth requires a sharp productivity increase in smallholder farming combined with more effective support to the millions coping as subsistence farmers, many of them in remote areas. Recent improved performance holds promise, and this report identifies many emerging successes that can be scaled up. In Asia, overcoming widespread poverty requires confronting widening rural-urban income disparities. Asia's fast-growing economies remain home to over 600 million rural people living in extreme poverty, and despite massive rural-urban migration, rural poverty will remain dominant for several more decades. For this reason, the WDR focuses on ways to generate rural jobs by diversifying into labor intensive, high value agriculture linked to a dynamic rural, non-farm sector. In all regions, with rising land and water scarcity and the added pressures of a globalizing world, the future of agriculture is intrinsically tied to better stewardship of natural resources. With the right incentives and investments, agriculture's environmental footprint can be lightened and environmental services harnessed to protect watersheds and biodiversity.

Current Population Reports, P60-235, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007

Abstract: This report presents data on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States based on information collected in the 2008 and earlier Annual Social and Economic Supplements (ASEC) to the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Data presented in this report indicate the following: • Real median household income increased between 2006 and 2007—the third annual increase.1 • The poverty rate was not statistically different between 2006 and 2007. • Both the number and the percentage of people without health insurance coverage decreased between 2006 and 2007. These results were not uniform across groups. For example, between 2006 and 2007, real median household income rose for non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks but remained statistically unchanged for Asians and Hispanics; the poverty rate increased for children under 18 years old but remained statistically unchanged for people 18 to 64 years old and people 65 and over; and the percentage of people without health insurance decreased for the native-born population, while the foreign-born population remained statistically unchanged.2, 3 These results are discussed in more detail in the three main sections of this report income, poverty, and health insurance coverage. Each section presents estimates by characteristics such as race, Hispanic origin, nativity, and region. Other topics include earnings of year-round, full-time workers; families in poverty; and health insurance coverage of children. This report concludes with a section discussing health insurance coverage by state using 2- and 3-year averages.

The end of poverty: economic possibilities for our time.

Abstract: He has been cited by "The New York Times Magazine" as "probably the most important economist in the world" and by Time as "the world's best-known economist." He has advised an extraordinary range of world leaders and international institutions on the full range of issues related to creating economic success and reducing the world's poverty and misery. Now, at last, he draws on his entire twenty-five-year body of experience to offer a thrilling and inspiring big-picture vision of the keys to economic success in the world today and the steps that are necessary to achieve prosperity for all. Marrying vivid eyewitness storytelling to his laserlike analysis, Jeffrey Sachs sets the stage by drawing a vivid conceptual map of the world economy and the different categories into which countries fall. Then, in a tour de force of elegance and compression, he explains why, over the past two hundred years, wealth has diverged across the planet in the manner that it has and why the poorest nations have been so markedly unable to escape the cruel vortex of poverty. The groundwork laid, he explains his methods for arriving, like a clinical internist, at a holistic diagnosis of a country's situation and the options it faces. Rather than deliver a worldview to readers from on high, Sachs leads them along the learning path he himself followed, telling the remarkable stories of his own work in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, India, China, and Africa as a way to bring readers to a broad-based understanding of the array of issues countries can face and the way the issues interrelate. He concludes by drawing on everything he has learned to offer an integrated set of solutions to the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and social problems that most frequently hold societies back. In the end, he leaves readers with an understanding, not of how daunting the world's problems are, but how solvable they are-and why making the effort is a matter both of moral obligation and strategic self-interest. A work of profound moral and intellectual vision that grows out of unprecedented real-world experience, "The End of Poverty" is a road map to a safer, more prosperous future for the world. From "probably the most important economist in the world" ("The New York Times Magazine"), legendary for his work around the globe on economies in crisis, a landmark exploration of the roots of economic prosperity and the path out of extreme poverty for the world's poorest citizens.

Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

Abstract: There is no doubt: we want to help. The well-documented horrors of extreme poverty around the world have created a moral imperative that people have responded to in their millions. Yet the poverty persists. At a time of unprecedented global prosperity, children are starving to death. Are we not being generous enough? Or is the problem somehow insoluble, an inevitable outcome of historical circumstance? In this provocative and compelling book, Dambisa Moyo argues that the most important challenge we face today is to destroy the myth that Aid actually works. In the modern globalized economy, simply handing out more money, however well intentioned, will not help the poorest nations achieve sustainable long-term growth. "Dead Aid" analyses the history of economic development over the last fifty years and shows how Aid crowds out financial and social capital and feeds corruption; the countries that have 'caught up' did so despite rather than because of Aid. There is, however, an alternative. Extreme poverty is not inevitable. Dambisa Moyo shows how, with improved access to capital and markets and with the right policies, even the poorest nations can prosper. If we really do want to help, we have to do more than just appease our consciences, hoping for the best, expecting the worst. We need first to understand the problem.

The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty

Abstract: A new data set on national poverty lines is combined with new price data and almost 700 household surveys to estimate absolute poverty measures for the developing world We find that 25% of the population lived in poverty in 2005, as judged by what “poverty” typically means in the world's poorest countries This is higher than past estimates Substantial overall progress is still indicated—the corresponding poverty rate was 52% in 1981—but progress was very uneven across regions The trends over time and regional profile are robust to various changes in methodology, though precise counts are more sensitive

Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2007.

Abstract: U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration U.S. CENSUS BUREAU 14.3 7.6 1.1 11.9 1.4 13.2 1.6 17.1 1.9 * 0.6 12.6 0.7 * 1.1 9.2 1.2 0.9 1.0 7.5 1.1 1.0 7.6 1.3 * 1.1 16.7 1.9 * 1.5 11.9 0.9 0.7 1.5 1.2 1.4 1.2 1.6 * 1.2 0.9 0.7 0.9 0.9 1.1 1.2 14.3 11.8 1.2 9.2 0.7 9.0 10.0 1.0 10.1 1.2 12.7 1.2 11.4 1.3 13.1 9.0 1.0 9.2 1.1 9.6 13.2 1.3 12.7 1.4 13.8 15.2 0.8 15.4 0.9 15.2 8.0 1.0 6.7 1.0 9.1 9.8 1.1 9.8 1.2 9.9 8.0 1.0 8.1 1.1 8.1 10.4 1.1 10.2 1.2 10.8 15.6 1.3 15.2 1.4 15.6 8.6 0.9 8.9 1.1 8.6

Planning and Financial Literacy: How Do Women Fare?

Abstract: Many older US households have done little or no planning for retirement, and there is a substantial population that seems to undersave for retirement. Of particular concern is the relative position of older women, who are more vulnerable to old-age poverty due to their longer longevity. This paper uses data from a special module we devised on planning and financial literacy in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study. It shows that women display much lower levels of financial literacy than the older population as a whole. In addition, women who are less financially literate are also less likely to plan for retirement and be successful planners. These findings have important implications for policy and for programs aimed at fostering financial security at older ages.

Planning and financial literacy: How do women fare?

Abstract: Many older US households have done little or no planning for retirement, and there is a substantial population that seems to undersave for retirement. Of particular concern is the relative position of older women, who are more vulnerable to old-age poverty due to their longer longevity. This paper uses data from a special module we devised on planning and financial literacy in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study. It shows that women display much lower levels of financial literacy than the older population as a whole. In addition, women who are less financially literate are also less likely to plan for retirement and be successful planners. These findings have important implications for policy and for programs aimed at fostering financial security at older ages.

Implications of Higher Global Food Prices for Poverty in Low-Income Countries

Abstract: In many poor countries, the recent increases in prices of staple foods raise the real incomes of those selling food, many of whom are relatively poor, while hurting net food consumers, many of whom are also relatively poor. The impacts on poverty will certainly be very diverse, but the average impact on poverty depends upon the balance between these two effects, and can only be determined by looking at real-world data. Results using household data for ten observations on nine low-income countries show that the short-run impacts of higher staple food prices on poverty differ considerably by commodity and by country, but, that poverty increases are much more frequent, and larger, than poverty reductions. The recent large increases in food prices appear likely to raise overall poverty in low income countries substantially.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries

Abstract: The challenge for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries is framed by a vision that was distilled in 2000 into the Millennium Development Goals—'a world with less poverty, hunger and disease, greater survival prospects for mothers and their infants, better educated children, equal opportunities for women, and a healthier environment' (UN, 2006: 3). Unfortunately, these global aspirations remain far from being met in many developing countries today. The question addressed by this chapter, therefore, is: What is the role of business in tackling the critical issues of human development and environmental sustainability in developing countries? To begin with, it is worth clarifying my use of the terms developing countries and CSR. There is an extensive historical and generally highly critical debate in 474 csr in global context the development literature about the classification of countries as developed and less developed or developing. Without reviving that debate here, suffice to say that I use developing countries because it is still a popular term used to collectively describe nations that have relatively lower per capita incomes and are relatively less industrialized. This is consistent with the United Nations Developments Program's (2006) cate-gorization in its summary statistics on human development and is best represented by the World Bank's classification of lower and middle income countries. 1 It should be noted, however, that the UNDP's classification of high, medium and low development countries produces a slightly different picture than the World Bank's list of which countries are developed and developing. CSR is an equally contested concept (Moon, 2002b). However, for the purposes of this chapter, I use CSR in developing countries to represent 'the formal and informal ways in which business makes a contribution to improving the governance, social, ethical, labour and environmental conditions of the developing countries in which they operate, while remaining sensitive to prevailing religious, historical and cultural contexts' (Visser et al., 2007). The rationale for focusing on CSR in developing countries as distinct from CSR in the developed world is fourfold: 1. developing countries represent the most rapidly expanding economies, and hence the most lucrative growth markets for business (IMF, 2006); 2. developing countries are where the social and environmental crises are usually most acutely felt in the world (WRI, 2005; UNDP, 2006); 3. developing countries are where globalization, economic growth, investment, and business activity are likely to have the most dramatic social and environmental impacts (both positive and …

Dollar a day revisited

Abstract: The article presents the first major update of the international $1 a day poverty line, proposed in world development report 1990: poverty for measuring absolute poverty by the standards of the world's poorest countries. In a new and more representative data set of national poverty lines, a marked economic gradient emerges only when consumption per person is above about $2.00 a day at 2005 purchasing power parity. Below this, the average poverty line is $1.25, which is proposed as the new international poverty line. The article tests the robustness of this line to alternative estimation methods and explains how it differs from the old $1 a day line.

Cross-country variation in household access to financial services

Abstract: This paper presents estimates, for more than 160 countries, of the fraction of the adult population using formal financial intermediaries. The estimates are constructed by combining information on account numbers at banks and microfinance institutions (together with banking depth and GDP data) with estimates from household surveys for a smaller set of countries. An illustrative application of the data compares them with information on poverty: there is a correlation, but it is not clearly causal.

India: The Emerging Giant

Abstract: Preface Introduction I Growth and Economic Reforms 1 Distinguishing Four Phases 2 Phase I (1951-65): Takeoff under a Liberal Regime 3 Phase II (1965-81): Socialism Strikes with Vengeance 4 Phase III (1981-88): Liberalization by Stealth 5 Phase IV (1988-06): Triumph of Liberalization 6 A Tale of Two Countries: India and the Republic of Korea II Poverty, Inequality and Economic Reforms 7 Declining Poverty: The Human Face of Reforms 8 Inequality: A Lesser Problem III Macroeconomics 9 Deficits and Debt: Is a Crisis around the Corner? 10 The External Sector: On the Road to Capital Account Convertibility? 11 The Financial Sector: Why Not Privatize the Banks? IV Transforming India 12 International Trade: Carrying Liberalization Forward 13 Industry & Services: Walking on Two Legs 14 Modernizing Agriculture V The Government 15 Tax Reform: Towards a Uniform Goods and Services Tax 16 Tackling Subsides and Reforming the Civil Service 17 Telecommunications and Electricity: Contrasting Experiences 18 Transportation: A solvable Problem 19 Health and Water Supply & Sanitation: Can the Government Deliver? Education: Expenditures or Transfers?

The state of the world population 2007: unleashing the potential of urban growth.

Abstract: This 108 page document breaks many myths associated with urbanization. It challenges the belief that urbanization hampers the growth as traditionally urbanization has always been thought to be associated with poverty slums crimes and social disruption. The report mentions that mega-cities have overshadowed the need and demands for development in smaller urban habitations. Secondly many policymakers try to prevent rural to urban migration which is not only futile and counter-productive but may also be a violation of peoples rights. It also makes a note that most urban growth now stems from natural increase (more births than deaths) rather than migration. The report explores some hitherto unknown aspects of urbanization and tries to underline its potential to contribute to the growth of a nation. It adds how urbanization ensures the empowerment of women by better opportunities for education access to health care legal services less gender discrimination and higher employment opportunities. SOWP 2007 provides a comprehensive view of both positive and negative aspects of urbanization. In the last chapter this report recommends few solutions for the existing obstacles in urban development; emphasizes an immediate need for policy intention and planning for the proper development. The report has an annexure on a number of urban development related indicators for all the countries in the world for comparison. (excerpt)

Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes: Social Policy, Informality, and Economic Growth in Mexico

Abstract: Despite various reform efforts, Mexico has experienced economic stability but little growth. Today more than half of all Mexican workers are employed informally, and one out of every four is poor. Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes argues that incoherent social programs significantly contribute to this state of affairs and it suggests reforms to improve the situation. Over the past decade, Mexico has channeled an increasing number of resources into subsidizing the creation of low-productivity, informal jobs. These social programs have hampered growth, fostered illegality, and provided erratic protection to workers, trapping many in poverty. Informality has boxed Mexico into a dilemma: provide benefits to informal workers at the expense of lower growth and reduced productivity or leave millions of workers without benefits. Former finance official Santiago Levy proposes how to convert the existing system of social security for formal workers into universal social entitlements. He advocates eliminating wage-based social security contributions and raising consumption taxes on higher-income households to simultaneously increase the rate of growth of GDP, reduce inequality, and improve benefits for workers. Good Intentions , Bad Outcomes c onsiders whether Mexico can build on the success of Progresa-Oportunidades, a targeted poverty alleviation program that originated in Mexico and has been replicated in over 25 countries as well as in New York City. It sets forth a plan to reform social and economic policy, an essential element of a more equitable and sustainable development strategy for Mexico.

Agriculture at a Crossroads

Abstract: The present path of agricultural development will not achieve development goals according to a recent assessment, but a solid foundation for improvements exists.

Coping with out-of-pocket health payments: empirical evidence from 15 African countries

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To explore factors associated with household coping behaviours in the face of health expenditures in 15 African countries and provide evidence for policy-makers in designing financial health protection mechanisms. METHODS: A series of logit regressions were performed to explore factors correlating with a greater likelihood of selling assets, borrowing or both to finance health care. The average partial effects for different levels of spending on inpatient care were derived by computing the partial effects for each observation and taking the average across the sample. Data used in the analysis were from the 2002-2003 World Health Survey, which asked how households had financed out-of-pocket payments over the previous year. Households selling assets or borrowing money were compared to those that financed health care from income or savings. Those that used insurance were excluded. For the analysis, a value of 1 was assigned to selling assets or borrowing money and a value of 0 to other coping mechanisms. FINDINGS: Coping through borrowing and selling assets ranged from 23% of households in Zambia to 68% in Burkina Faso. In general, the highest income groups were less likely to borrow and sell assets, but coping mechanisms did not differ strongly among lower income quintiles. Households with higher inpatient expenses were significantly more likely to borrow and deplete assets compared to those financing outpatient care or routine medical expenses, except in Burkina Faso, Namibia and Swaziland. In eight countries, the coefficient on the highest quintile of inpatient spending had a P-value below 0.01. CONCLUSION: In most African countries, the health financing system is too weak to protect households from health shocks. Borrowing and selling assets to finance health care are common. Formal prepayment schemes could benefit many households, and an overall social protection network could help to mitigate the long-term effects of ill health on household well-being and support poverty reduction.

Food security, poverty, and human development in the United States.

Abstract: Access to food is essential to optimal development and function in children and adults. Food security, food insecurity, and hunger have been defined and a U.S. Food Security Scale was developed and is administered annually by the Census Bureau in its Current Population Survey. The eight child-referenced items now make up a Children's Food Security Scale. This review summarizes the data on household and children's food insecurity and its relationship with children's health and development and with mothers' depressive symptoms. It is demonstrable that food insecurity is a prevalent risk to the growth, health, cognitive, and behavioral potential of America's poor and near-poor children. Infants and toddlers in particular are at risk from food insecurity even at the lowest levels of severity, and the data indicate an "invisible epidemic" of a serious condition. Food insecurity is readily measured and rapidly remediable through policy changes, which a country like the United States, unlike many others, is fully capable of implementing. The food and distribution resources exist; the only constraint is political will.

The Effect of Poverty on Child Development and Educational Outcomes

Abstract: Poverty affects a child's development and educational outcomes beginning in the earliest years of life, both directly and indirectly through mediated, moderated, and transactional processes. School readiness, or the child's ability to use and profit from school, has been recognized as playing a unique role in escape from poverty in the United States and increasingly in developing countries. It is a critical element but needs to be supported by many other components of a poverty-alleviation strategy, such as improved opportunity structures and empowerment of families. The paper reviews evidence from interventions to improve school readiness of children in poverty, both in the United States and in developing countries, and provides recommendations for future research and action.

Effects of Non-Farm Employment on Rural Income Inequality in Developing Countries: an Investment Perspective

Abstract: This paper makes several points based on a review of household survey evidence from Africa, Asia and Latin America. (i) In contrast to conventional wisdom, the evidence is very mixed as to the effect of non-farm employment on rural income inequality. The non-farm employment and microenterprise programmes now in vogue will not necessarily resolve rural income inequality problems and attendant social tensions nor automatically benefit the poor. (ii) Policymakers should be worried by substantial evidence of poor people's inability to overcome important entry barriers to many non-farm activities. (iii) The main determinants of unequal access to non-farm activities are the distribution of capacity to make investments in non-farm assets and the relative scarcity of low capital entry barrier activities. Therefore, it is crucial for public investments and policy to favour an increase in the access of the poor to assets that allow them to overcome non-farm employment entry barriers, (iv) It would be an error to assume that one can address asset-poverty and inequality in the non-farm sector without addressing farm-side problems and vice versa.

The role of social capital in development : an empirical assessment

Abstract: Foreword Robert D. Putnam Introduction and overview Christiaan Grootaert and Thierry van Bastelaer Part I. Social Capital at the Micro and Macro Levels: A Conceptual Discussion and Review: 1. Social capital and poverty: a microeconomic perspective Paul Collier 2. Social capital, growth, and poverty: a survey of cross-country evidence Stephen Knack Part II. The Impact of Social Capital on Development: 3. Mapping and measuring social capital through assessment of collective action to conserve and develop watersheds in Rajasthan, India Anirudh Krishna and Norman Uphoff 4. Social capital and the firm: evidence from agricultural traders in Madagascar Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 5. How do participation and social capital affect community-based water projects? Evidence from central Java, Indonesia Jonathan Isham and Satu Kahkonen 6. Does social capital increase participation in voluntary solid waste management? Evidence from Dhaka, Bangladesh Sheoli Pargal, Daniel Gilligan, and Mainul Huq Part III. The Creation and Transformation of Social Capital: 7. The impact of development assistance on social capital: evidence from Kenya Mary Kay Gugerty and Michael Kremer 8. Induced social capital and federations of the rural poor in the Andes Anthony J. Bebbington and Thomas F. Carroll 9. Social capital and social cohesion: case studies from Cambodia and Rwanda Nat J. Colletta and Michelle L. Cullen 10. Ethnicity, capital formation, and conflict: evidence from Africa Robert H. Bates and Irene Yackovlev I 11. Measuring impact and drawing policy implications Christiaan Grootaert and Thierry van Bastelaer.

The ‘Feminisation of Poverty’ and the ‘Feminisation’ of Anti-Poverty Programmes: Room for Revision?

Abstract: The construct of the ‘feminisation of poverty’ has helped to give gender an increasingly prominent place within international discourses on poverty and poverty reduction. Yet the way in which gender has been incorporated pragmatically – predominantly through the ‘feminisation’ of anti-poverty programmes – has rarely relieved women of the onus of coping with poverty in their households, and has sometimes exacerbated their burdens. In order to explore how and why this is the case, as well as to sharpen the methodological and conceptual parameters of the ‘feminisation of poverty’ thesis, this paper examines four main questions. First, what are the common understandings of the ‘feminisation of poverty’? Second, what purposes have been served by the popularisation and adoption of this term? Third, what problems are there with the ‘feminisation of poverty’ analytically, and in respect of how the construct has been taken up and responded to in policy circles? Fourth, how do we make the ‘feminisation of ...

Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract: Over the past decade, faster growth and smarter social policy have reversed the trend in Latin America's poverty. Too slowly and insufficiently, but undeniably, the percentage of Latinos who are poor has at long last begun to fall. This has shifted the political and policy debates from poverty toward inequality, something to be expected in a region that exhibits the world's most regressive distribution of development outcomes such as income, land ownership, and educational achievement. This book is a breakthrough in the measurement of human opportunity. It builds sophisticated formulas to answer a rather simple question: how much influence do personal circumstances have on the access that children get to the basic services that are necessary for a productive life? Needless to say, producing a methodology to measure human opportunity, and applying it across countries in one region, is just a first step. On the one hand, technical discussions and scientific vetting will continue, and refinements will surely follow. On the other, applying the new tool to a single country will allow for adjustments that make the findings much more useful to its policy realities. And fascinating comparative lessons could be learned by measuring human opportunity in developed countries across, say, the states of the United States or the nations of Europe. But the main message this book delivers remains a powerful one: it is possible to make equity a central purpose, if not the very definition, of development. That is, perhaps, it's most important contribution.

Aggregate economic shocks, child schooling and child health

Abstract: Do aggregate economic shocks, such as those caused by macroeconomic crises or droughts, reduce child human capital? The answer to this question has important implications for public policy. If shocks reduce investments in children, they may transmit poverty from one generation to the next. This paper uses a simple framework to analyze the effects of aggregate economic shocks on child schooling and health. It shows that the expected effects are ambiguous, because of a tension between income and substitution effects. The paper then reviews the recent empirical literature on the subject. In richer countries, like the United States, child health and education outcomes are counter-cyclical: they improve during recessions. In poorer countries, mostly in Africa and low-income Asia, the outcomes are pro-cyclical: infant mortality rises, and school enrollment and nutrition fall during recessions. In the middle-income countries of Latin America, the picture is more nuanced: health outcomes are generally pro-cyclical, and education outcomes counter-cyclical. Each of these findings is consistent with the simple conceptual framework. The paper discusses possible implications for expenditure allocation.