Other Poverty Study

351 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2119

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Living Conditions and Settlement Decisions of Recent Afghan Returnees: Findings from a 2018 Phone Survey of Afghan Returnees and UNHCR Data

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06) World Bank Group ; UNHCR

This report is the result of a collaboration between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank Group (WBG). Repatriation or the return of refugees to their country of origin has been rarely studied, and data on their socio-economic outcomes is sparsely available. In such a context, the World Bank and UNHCR teams attempted to make good use of the existing data sources and complemented it with new data collection methods to better understand the patterns and characteristics of recent Afghan refugee returns. More specifically, the team attempted to analytically connect insights between different data sources to explore (albeit imperfectly) questions of selection among Afghans who remained in Pakistan and those documented returnees who returned to Afghanistan.
Informing Durable Solutions for Internal Displacement in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan: Technical Aspects

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04-18) World Bank Group

Understanding forced displacement and developing effective solutions requires closing several critical gaps in the data. With forced displacement rising worldwide, the body of work on displacement is growing rapidly. Data on internally displaced persons (IDPs) are particularly problematic, as the distinction between IDPs and internal migrants are not consistent across countries, and as the presence and number of IDPs is often politicized. While efforts have been made to create standardized frameworks for collecting quantitative data on forced displacement, important data gaps persist. This study helps to close data gaps by using micro-level data to profile IDPs. The report uses micro-data, defined as individual and household-level data that is collected directly through personal interviews. Comprehensive micro-data surveys cover IDP populations in four countries in Sub Saharan Africa: Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. The micro-data surveys represent IDPs, refugees, and non-displaced populations. The analysis is guided by the durable solutions indicator framework while the policy insights focus on overcoming displacement-induced vulnerability. The analysis examines the demographic structure of IDP and resident populations and draws on reasons triggering displacement.
Informing Durable Solutions for Internal Displacement in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan: Overview

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-04-18) World Bank Group

Understanding forced displacement and developing effective solutions requires closing several critical gaps in the data. With forced displacement rising worldwide, the body of work on displacement is growing rapidly. Data on internally displaced persons (IDPs) are particularly problematic, as the distinction between IDPs and internal migrants are not consistent across countries, and as the presence and number of IDPs is often politicized. While efforts have been made to create standardized frameworks for collecting quantitative data on forced displacement, important data gaps persist. This study helps to close data gaps by using micro-level data to profile IDPs. The report uses micro-data, defined as individual and household-level data that is collected directly through personal interviews. Comprehensive micro-data surveys cover IDP populations in four countries in Sub Saharan Africa: Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. The micro-data surveys represent IDPs, refugees, and non-displaced populations. The analysis is guided by the durable solutions indicator framework while the policy insights focus on overcoming displacement-induced vulnerability. The analysis examines the demographic structure of IDP and resident populations and draws on reasons triggering displacement.
Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in The Gambia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02) Mungai, Rose ; Okiya, Stephen ; Scherer, Lauri

Located in West Africa, and The Gambia is the smallest country in mainland Africa. It stretches 400 kilometers along the Gambia River. Its sole neighbor is Senegal, with the remainder of the country bordering the Atlantic Ocean. The Gambia’s total land area is 10,689 square kilometers, with a population density of 208 persons per square kilometer of land area, ranking it the eighth highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The average population density in SSA is 50 persons per square kilometer of land area. The country’s estimated population was 2.1 million in 2017, with 60.6 percent residing in urban areas; however, the population of the largest city accounts for 33.9 percent of the urban population. Annual population growth remains high at 3.0 percent in 2017, with a faster growth in urban areas compared to rural areas, 4.1 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively. The Gambia has experienced decades of volatile growth. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita started to increase during the first decade of the twenty-first century, before beginning a downward trend. The average real GDP per capita growth between 2000 and 2009 was about 0.6 percent, with a drop in 2002 to a low, 6.2 percent. The GDP per capita growth increased from US$515.30 in 1990 to about US$562.50 in 2010, but it has declined since then. The economy is driven by agriculture and tourism sectors and has experienced some shocks in recent times. The agricultural sector was affected by inadequate rainfall and tourism was shaken by the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. The role of remittances is significant and has grown by approximately 150 percent since 2011; remittances accounted for 15.3 percent of GDP in 2017, the second-largest share in GDP in Africa and the seventh largest worldwide.
A Destiny Shaped by Water: A Diagnostic of Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene and Poverty in Niger

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-01-24) World Bank

The Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Poverty Diagnostic (PD) in Niger is part of a global initiative to improve evidence on the linkages between WASH and poverty. The Diagnostic provides a detailed analysis of sector status, strengths, and weaknesses to inform the attainment of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim for universal access to safely managed water supply and sanitation.
When Water Becomes a Hazard: A Diagnostic Report on The State of Water Supply, Sanitation, and Poverty in Pakistan and Its Impact on Child Stunting

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-11-06) World Bank

Despite a substantial decline in poverty, an increase in access to water and sanitation and a large decline in open defecation, diarrhea and stunting rates in Pakistan show few signs of a decline. This report provides evidence that the policy focus on eliminating open defecation rather than the safe management of fecal waste has been largely responsible for this. Water tests reveal shockingly high rates of E. coli contamination in both surface and ground water. To make matters worse, few households practice water treatment and untreated waste water is routinely mixed with surface and ground water for use in crop irrigation. This multiplies the channels through which the oral transmission of fecal bacteria can occur and creates strong downstream effects through food supplies headed to urban centers. Unsurprisingly, rates of diarrhea have remained stubbornly high even among the wealthiest households in metropolitan cities like Karachi. While the impact of of E. coli on diarrhea is well known, new research is showing the far more damaging impact of environmental enteropathy, a process by which fecal pathogens like E. coli can permanently damage the intestinal villi of young children making it difficult to absorb nutrients, even during periods when the child shows no signs of diarrhea. The report urges urgent action on safe sanitation and the treatment of water to combat this health crisis.
Georgia Indebtedness Poverty Note: Analysis Based on Integrated Household Survey

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-11-05) Nozaki, Natsuko Kiso ; Fuchs Tarlovsky, Alan ; Cancho, Cesar A.

There is considerable public concern about the level of household indebtedness in Georgia. The new regulation expected to come into force on November 1, 2018 addresses this concern by enforcing the responsible credit framework targeting commercial banks. The objective of this note is twofold. First, the note presents micro-level evidence using the nationally representative household survey to understand households’ borrowing patterns with supporting evidence from perceptions surveys. Second, the note examines plausible causal effects of over-indebtedness on household’s welfare. This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides macroeconomic indicators and findings from perception survey as the background evidence. Section 3 illustrates the prevalence of borrowing among the households and identifies type of households that borrow from different sources. Section 4 shows results from the causal impact analysis of bank loans on household welfare. Section 5 concludes with directions for future research.
Water and Sanitation for All in Tunisia: A Realistic Objective

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-11) World Bank

In recent decades, Tunisia has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty and increasing access to water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. More than 4 million people in Tunisia have gained access to improved sanitation between 1990 and 2015, and 4 million have gained access to water. This is a significant accomplishment, considering that Tunisia is currently home to 11 million people, 33 percent of whom live in rural areas. Despite this progress, however, around 250,000 people in Tunisia still rely on unimproved drinking water from mostly unprotected wells and springs; of the 900,000 people who use unimproved sanitation, about half use shared latrines, and the other half use mostly unimproved latrines. There are also substantial imbalances in terms of water-resource distribution between the better endowed North and the semi-arid South. If left unaddressed, deficiencies could become more severe in the coming years. Tunisia is a water-scarce country, and water supply security challenges are predicted to be exacerbated by climate change in the coming years. Opportunities for improvement are analyzed and condensed into five clear recommendations for the way forward for the WASH sector in Tunisia.
Afghanistan’s Displaced People: A Socio-Economic Profile, 2013-2014

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08-03) Yde-Jensen, Thea ; Krishnan, Nandini ; Tan, Xiayun ; Wieser, Christina

Afghans represent the world’s largest protracted refugee population, and one of the largest populations to be repatriated to their country of origin in this century. Between 2002 and 2016, over six million refugees returned to Afghanistan from neighboring countries. In 2016 alone, returnees numbered more than a million. In an already difficult context, large-scale internal displacement and return from outside have strained the delivery of public services in Afghanistan and increased competition for scarce economic opportunities, not only for the displaced, but for the population at large. This note aims at contributing to our understanding of displacement in Afghanistan by comparing the socioeconomic profiles of three populations: (i) former refugees who returned to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2014 (“pre-2015 returnees”); (ii) internally displaced persons (“IDPs”); and (iii) non-displaced persons (“hosts”). The note captures and compares these groups’ situations at a specific time-point, using data from the 2013-14 Afghanistan Living Conditions Survey (ALCS). Importantly, the results document socioeconomic conditions just prior to the transfer of security responsibilities from international troops to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in 2014, which was associated with a subsequent decline in aid, both security and civilian, and a sharp drop in economic activity. The results presented here cover the largest return of Afghans to the county following the fall of the Taliban in 2002, but precede the more recent large-scale return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan in 2016-17. Future publications will extend the findings summarized here with analysis of new and existing data covering this recent influx. This research is part of an ongoing effort to document population displacement challenges and solutions in Afghanistan over time. Data from ALCS 2013-14 establish baseline socio-economic profiles for returned refugees, IDPs, and non-displaced hosts. Further research and analysis now in progress will document how these conditions have changed since 2013-14, and will distill evidence for policy to improve socio-economic outcomes among Afghanistan’s displaced and non-displaced people.
Measuring Poverty in West Bank and Gaza: Methodology Review Using PECS 2016

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-07) Al-Salehi, Jawad ; Twam, Feda ; Atamanov, Aziz ; Palaniswamy, Nethra

The Palestinian expenditure and consumption survey (PECS) is a multi-purpose survey (on household budget and living standards), based on which official poverty estimates are estimated for the Palestinian territories. The 2016 PECS was implemented for a 12-month period, starting in October 2016. The technical assistance program had two main goals: (i) improving survey design and reducing the time-gap from survey completion to the availability of data for analysis; and (ii) to inform internal discussions and debate on improving the poverty measurement methodology, by taking advantage of newly available data and improved measurement methods. This main objective of this technical review is to consider several different elements of the official poverty estimation methodology with the aim of informing and improving poverty measurement going forward; and to document the availability and identification of new survey and consumer price index (CPI) data that can be used to implement the improvements. The note also explores the implications of alternate adjustments to household size (per capita versus adult equivalent) on poverty. The main recommendations focus on key improvements needed for more accurate estimates of welfare and distributional measures. The review also highlights additional improvements that can be incorporated and where appropriate, affirms the methodological decisions adopted under current practice. This review is organized as follows: section 1 gives introduction. Section 2 briefly discusses the main methodological issues in poverty measurement. Section 3 explains the construction of different components of the welfare aggregate. Section 4 discusses the methodology for calculating poverty lines. Section 5 examines the robustness of poverty estimates to different methodological choices made; and section 6 concludes with recommendations.