Global megatrends such as income inequality, climate change, demographic shifts, technological progress, and urbanisation are shaping the future of societies. Yet, their quantitative impacts on development are neither well understood nor established. This paper examines the individual and combined effects of these global forces on poverty, using both cross-section and …
This report, featuring brand new research from Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies around the world, sheds light on who has been most impacted by the pandemic and how. It also examines how Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have adapted their responses to support newly and increasingly vulnerable communities—many …
Niger earns its foreign exchange mainly from uranium and gold, which has limited domestic economic linkages. Distant second, livestock export also provide important revenue to the country. Overall, most of the labor force is employed in a low productivity and shock prone rainfed agricultural sector. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic growth …
This poverty assessment aims to strengthen the analytical foundation for poverty-reduction policies and interventions in Mali. In recent years, important gains have been made across multiple dimensions of household welfare, but poverty in Mali remains widespread and extreme. The COVID-19 induced crisis has reversed much of the progress in poverty …
Assuming the COVID-19 pandemic ends or that successful vaccination programs are implemented, Southern Africa is projected to grow 3.2 percent in 2021 and 2.4 percent in 2022. But this recovery will be inadequate given the region’s estimated 6.3 percent contraction in 2020. Slow growth in South Africa—the region’s largest economy—has …
The informal economy in Africa is large and diverse, and it is the main source of employment in the region. It is projected to grow and create more jobs. The informal economy is well established in the region, but it also faces a host of development challenges. It is characterized …
This paper assesses the nature of agricultural transformation taking place in different parts of Africa and analyzes policy drivers of the transformation using data from the CAADP Biennial Review (BR) on 46 indicators from 2014 to 2018. First, a typology of agriculture transformation in different groups of countries is developed …
Climate change contributed to mounting food insecurity, poverty and displacement in Africa last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and partners said in a report. The State of the Climate in Africa 2020 report highlights the continent’s disproportionate vulnerability but also reveals how investing in climate adaptation, early warning systems, …
The 2021 Global Hunger Index (GHI) points to a dire hunger situation in a world coping with multiple crises. Progress toward Zero Hunger by 2030, already far too slow, is showing signs of stagnating or even being reversed. Based on current GHI projections, the world as a whole—and 47 countries …
Differences in so-called multidimensional poverty among ethnic groups are consistently high across many countries, according to a new analysis. The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), produced by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, also found that in nine specific ethnic groups surveyed, more …
South Asia’s recovery continues as global demand rebounded and targeted containment measures helped minimize the economic impacts of the recent waves of COVID-19. But the recovery remains fragile and uneven, and most countries are far from pre-pandemic trend levels, says the World Bank in its twice-yearly regional update. The latest …
Six years into the 2030 Agenda, there is an urgent need to understand where the world stands in eliminating hunger and food insecurity, as well as in ensuring sustainable agriculture. FAO's new report, “Tracking progress on food and agriculture-related SDG indicators”, offers analysis and trends on indicators across eight SDGs …
This study provides an overview of the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in The Gambian economy, identifying sectoral policies likely to yield good outcomes, and those in which structural reforms are needed to enable the country to “build back better”. The report also uses an innovative Bayesian Vector-Autoregressive (VAR) …
A new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) provides a global overview of progress made around the world over the past decade in extending social protection and building rights-based social protection systems, in the context of COVID-19, and with input from UNICEF Innocenti on social protection gaps and opportunities …
This comprehensive review aims to unpack and understand the ways that multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis can impact on national policies, programmes and accountability mechanisms and ultimately lead to the reduction of multidimensional child poverty. The focus of the review is on actual country examples of the policy use of …
This paper examines spatial heterogeneity in the impacts of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban household incomes in Ethiopia and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Combining new panel household surveys with spatial data, the fixed-effects regression analysis for Ethiopia finds that households in large and densely populated …
A new report has revealed how the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened poverty levels in the country while inhibiting access to health services by marginalized groups. According to Zimbabwe's Second Voluntary National Review (VNR) 2021, COVID-19 affected the country's capacity to offer social protection to the vulnerable people. The limited social …
The Multidimensional Poverty Index examines poverty from more than an income perspective – it includes nutrition, child mortality, tears of schooling, housing, and assets. It is an academically validated, transparent and trusted measure of poverty and is globally comparable. The global MPI addresses a key subset of SDG-poverty related indicators, …
Information and Communication technology (ICT) can boost economic growth and at the same time can create digital divide. The present paper explores both direct impact of ICT dissemination and its indirect impact through the channel of digital finance on poverty eradication and income inequality reduction at the sub-national level in …
Tourism offers Tanzania the long-term potential to create good jobs, generate foreign exchange earnings, provide revenue to support the preservation and maintenance of natural and cultural heritage, and expand the tax base to finance development expenditures and poverty-reduction efforts. The latest World Bank Tanzania Economic Update, Transforming Tourism: Toward a …
The economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the plight of families living in poverty in Lagos State, Nigeria and left many people struggling to afford food and meet other basic needs, Human Rights Watch and Justice & Empowerment Initiatives (JEI) said in a report. The number of Nigerians …
