Other Poverty Study

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Middle East and North Africa - Macro Poverty Outlook Country-by-Country Analysis and Projections for the Developing World: April 2022

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-04-27) World Bank

This edition of the Macro Poverty Outlooks periodical contains country-by-country forecasts and overviews for GDP, fiscal, debt and poverty indicators for the developing countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. Macroeconomic indicators such as population, gross domestic product and gross domestic product per capita - and where available – other indicators such as primary school enrollment, life expectancy at birth, total greenhouse gas emissions and inflation, among others, are included for each country. In addition to the World Bank’s most recent forecasts, key conditions and challenges, recent developments and outlook are briefly described for each country in the region.
Poverty and Food Security in Brazil during the Pandemic

(Washington, DC, 2022-04) World Bank

In contrast with the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, Brazil’s poverty rate is estimated to have decreased between 2019 and 2020 to 13.1 percent. Auxílio Emergencial (AE), a large emergency cash transfer program launched in April 2020, is believed to be the main driver of that decrease, because it more than offset economic losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, food insecurity (FI) estimates showed an opposite trend: Severe and moderate FI went up in 2020. This apparent paradox can be mostly explained by the way in which poverty and FI are measured: Measurements of poverty are based on annualized income estimates, while those of FI are based on the occurrence of an event, whereby the sudden, uncompensated loss of a job or reduction of benefits (such as AE) can turn into the loss of a household’s ability to feed itself in the short term. In 2021, both poverty and FI may have increased. Simulations suggest that poverty increased in 2021 to 18.7 percent. Meanwhile, about 18 percent of households reported running out of food in the past 30 days owing to a lack of resources, twice the pre-pandemic rate. Overall and food inflation, a sluggish labor market recovery with falling real wages, and the significant scaling down of the AE program are all factors in this trend. The war in Ukraine has pushed inflationary expectations upward. Given the projected 0.7 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2022, labor incomes are not expected to boost households’ consumption levels significantly. Coupled with the complete elimination of AE, poverty and FI may further deteriorate in 2022.
Cox's Bazar: Inclusive Growth Diagnostic

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-01-14) World Bank

The district of Cox’s Bazar, in southeastern Bangladesh, is an instructive context to understand how long-standing and newer growth opportunities and constraints manifest at the local level, remote from Bangladesh’s major growth poles of Dhaka and Chittagong. Potentially exacerbating Cox’s Bazar’s pre-existing development challenges, the district is hosting a large influx of displaced Myanmar nationals (Rohingya). More than 884,000 people have crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar, the vast majority since August 2017, more than doubling the population living in the Cox’s Bazar upazilas of Teknaf and Ukhia, which had higher poverty rates than the rest of the district prior to the arrival of Rohingya.
The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty in The Gambia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-01) Carrasco Nunez, Haydeeliz ; Jawara, Hamidou ; Meyer, Moritz

The overall objective of this study is to assess the impact of the fiscal system on poverty and inequality in The Gambia as of 2015. The study presents the first empirical evidence on the distributional impacts of taxes and social spending on households in The Gambia. Furthermore, it also evaluated the distributional effects of recent fiscal policy reforms in The Gambia. The assessment was based on the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Methodology with data from the Integrated Household Survey of 2015 and fiscal administrative data from various government ministries, departments, and agencies. The analyses show that while the fiscal system in The Gambia reduces inequality by 1.2 Gini points, it increases the national poverty headcount by 5.3 percentage points as all households (including the poor) are net payers into the fiscal system. Most of the inequality reduction is due to primary education benefits, with a marginal contribution of 0.44 Gini points, and most of the poverty increase is due to custom duties and VAT with marginal contributions of -2.63 percentage points and -2.07 percentage points, respectively. Simulating the effect of changes in the structure of personal income tax (PIT) and the government’s ongoing absorption of the School Feeding Program indicate that these changes reduce inequality but do not offset the impoverishing effect of the fiscal system. Hence, more cashable transfer programs targeted to the poor are needed to offset the impoverishing effect of indirect taxes and make the fiscal system more pro-poor.
The Gradual Rise and Rapid Decline of the Middle Class in Latin America and the Caribbean

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05-20) World Bank

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) reported over 30 million Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and around 960,000 deaths as of May 2021. Official tracking data shows that Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina have the highest number of reported cases throughout LAC, which in turn is the region with among the highest numbers across all developing regions. Moreover, Brazil is the third-worst affected country worldwide, after the United States and India, with approximately 15.4 million infections. Dramatic declines in economic activity are expected throughout the LAC region due to the global pandemic. Unfortunately, many LAC countries entered the crisis with low potential economic growth and high levels of inequality, following the region’s recent period of stagnant growth. The 2020 COVID-19 crisis will likely reverse in a short time frame many of the social gains that took decades to materialize in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the past two decades, the region has seen a reduction in the number of people living in poverty by nearly half and an increase in the size of its middle class. Income inequality also decreased, as income growth has been primarily pro-poor in recent years. Despite variations across countries, most have experienced positive welfare gains since the early 2000s. However, the growth deceleration of 2014–2019 coupled with the dramatic fall in activity caused by the COVID-19 crisis will negatively impact living standards and well-being across the region. Poverty projections for 2020 suggest that the number of the poor increased in most LAC countries. Brazil, however, implemented a generous emergency transfer program that benefited almost 67 million people and lifted millions out of poverty. As a result, poverty in the LAC region is expected to decline marginally from 22 percent in 2019 to 21.8 percent in 2020. Had no mitigation measures been implemented, the region may instead have seen 28 million new poor in 2020.
Monitoring Social and Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Refugees in Uganda: Results from the High-Frequency Phone - Third Round

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05-18) World Bank

The High-Frequency Phone Survey for refugees in Uganda (URHFPS) tracked the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis on refugees throughout three rounds. The World Bank (WB) in collaboration with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched and conducted the URHFPS. The URHFPS tracked the impacts of the pandemic between October 2020 and March 2021. Data collection for the first round of the URHFPS took place between October 22 – November 25, 2020, the second round took place between December 5-24, 2020, and the final and third round was conducted between February 8-March 14, 2021. This brief discusses the results from the third round. Where possible and appropriate, the results are compared across the three rounds and also benchmarked against Ugandans by using the national High-Frequency Phone Survey on COVID-19 (UHFPS). Detailed results for the first round are available in Atamanov et al. (2021a) and for the second round in Atamanov et al. (2021b)
2021 Compounding Misfortunes: An Update to the Study

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03) World Bank Group ; UNHCR ; World Food Programme ; Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement

COVID-19 (coronavirus) has had an enormous impact on nearly every country in the world. However, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon were already facing difficult to extreme circumstances even before the pandemic erupted, making them particularly vulnerable. This report looks at the impact of the pandemic, associated lockdowns and economic shocks and other misfortunes which have compounded the crisis, such as sharply lower oil revenues in Iraq and the Port of Beirut explosion in Lebanon, as well as political instability in both. The report estimates that 4.4 million people in the host communities and 1.1 million refugees or IDPs were driven into poverty in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, and while this considers all of Lebanon, it only includes three governorates in Jordan and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, due to data limitations. A response commensurate with the magnitude of the shock is needed to prevent further misery. The poverty impact of COVID-19 and the ensuing confinement policies and economic contractions have been felt throughout the world, not least by marginalized communities. However, COVID-19 has compounded existing vulnerabilities or crises in Jordan, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and Lebanon. Syrian refugees – most of whom have been displaced for up to nine years – are particularly exposed given their perilous pre-crisis situation. Host communities in these three countries, who have supported and accommodated such large numbers of refugees, have also been heavily affected; all three countries were in strained positions prior to COVID-19, ranging from economic stagnation and high public debt in Jordan, to a collapse in public revenues due to international oil price shocks in KRI, to complete political and economic crisis in Lebanon. By March 2020, all three countries had witnessed their first cases of COVID-19 and introduced stringent containment policies ranging from partial closures of schools and shops to full curfew. While these measures were initially largely successful in containing the spread of the pandemic, they also led to a decline in economic activity across most sectors, particularly in the informal market. In Jordan and Iraq, the losses are estimated at around 8.2 and 10.5 percent of 2019’s GDP respectively. In Lebanon where the COVID-19 crisis is compounded by economic and political crises the losses are much higher, around 25 percent of GDP. Lebanon has experienced inflation of over 100 percent, largely due to its import dependence and currency depreciation. Unsurprisingly, given the magnitude of these shocks, recent rapid needs assessments and UNHCR administrative data show that refugees, who are highly concentrated in low-skilled jobs in the informal sector, have had to reduce food intake, incur additional debt and in some instances suffered eviction.
Monitoring Social and Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Refugees in Uganda: Results from the High-Frequency Phone Survey, First Round (October-November 2020)

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-02-24) World Bank

The High-Frequency Phone Survey for refugees in Uganda (URHFPS) tracks the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 on refugees. The World Bank (WB) in collaboration with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) launched and conducted the URHFPS. The URHFPS tracks the impacts of the pandemic on a monthly basis for a period of three months. Data collection for the first round of URHFPS took place between October 22 – November 25, 2020. This brief discusses results from the first round of the URHFPS. Where possible and appropriate, results for refugees are compared to nationals by using the national High-Frequency Phone Survey on COVID-19 (HFPS). The survey sample includes respondents with active phone numbers that were selected randomly from the Profile Global Registration System (ProGres) of UNHCR, and the refugee household survey carried out by UBOS and the World Bank in 2018. The targeted sample includes 2,100 households and is representative at seven strata constructed as a combination of regions and different countries of origin: Kampala-Somalia, Kampala-other (Burundi, DRC, South Sudan), South West-Burundi (SW-Burundi), South West-DRC (SW-DRC), South West-South Sudan (SW-South Sudan), South West-Somalia (SW-Somalia), and West Nile-South Sudan (WN-South Sudan). In terms of population size, the largest strata are South West-DRC and West Nile-South Sudan. Both strata account for more than 85 percent of refugees in Uganda in 2020. The realized sample after the first round was 2,010 households. In order to reduce the bias related to only interviewing households with phone numbers and non-response, the data from the 2018 representative refugee household survey was used to produce and calibrate the weights for the phone survey.
COVID-19 Impact Monitoring: Uganda, Round 4-5

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-02) World Bank

In June 2020, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, with the support from the World Bank, has launched the High-Frequency Phone Survey on COVID-19 (coronavirus) to track the impacts of the pandemic on a monthly basis for a period of 12 months. The survey aimed to recontact the entire sample of households that had been interviewed during the Uganda National Panel Survey 2019/20 round and that had phone numbers for at least one household member or a reference individual. This report presents the findings from the fourth and fifth rounds of the survey that were conducted respectively between October 27th and November 17th, 2020 and February 2nd and February 21st, 2021.
Papua New Guinea High Frequency Phone Survey on COVID-19, December 2020 to January 2021

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021) World Bank ; UNICEF

This joint report by the World Bank and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Papua New Guinea (PNG) presents the findings from two mobile phone surveys conducted in December 2020 and January 2021 in PNG. The World Bank survey, conducted in December 2020, was the second in a series. The UNICEF survey, conducted in January 2021, targeted re-contacting all 2,534 households from the World Bank round 2 survey with children under the age of 15, and achieved a final sample of 2,449. These results were also weighted using information from the demographic and health survey (DHS) to develop representative estimates for households with children under 15, 79.8 percent according to the DHS. The UNICEF survey included sections on household impacts as well as on the children living within the household. Compared to the rest of the country, markedly higher shares of respondents in the NCD noted deteriorations since June in situations related to theft, alcohol, and drug abuse, intimidation by police, violence by police, and domestic abuse, as well as higher declines in overall community trust, which can be an indicator of rising tensions. In addition, there were potential warning signs of the impacts of the prolonged crisis on children, with more than one-third of children exhibiting negative behavioral changes in the previous 15 days - though again a lack of baseline data limits the ability to establish a causal link specifically with Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).