Stand alone books
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Publication
Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022)Regardless of the poverty line used, the speed and scale of China’s poverty reduction are historically unprecedented. Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below US$1.90 per day—the international poverty line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty—has fallen by close to 800 million, accounting for almost three-quarters of the global reduction in extreme poverty. In 2021, China declared that it had eradicated extreme poverty according to its national poverty threshold, and that it had built a “moderately prosperous society in all respects.” However, a significant number of people remain vulnerable, with incomes below a threshold more typically used to define poverty in upper-middle-income countries. China has set a new goal of approaching common prosperity by 2035, which can help keep the policy focus on the vulnerable population. Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead explores the key drivers of China’s poverty alleviation achievements and considers the lessons of China’s experience for other developing countries. The report also makes suggestions for China’s future policies. China’s approach to poverty reduction was based on two pillars. The first aimed for broad-based economic transformation to open new economic opportunities and raise average incomes. The second was the recognition that targeted support was needed to alleviate persistent poverty; this support was initially provided to disadvantaged areas and later to individual households. The success of China’s economic development and the associated reduction of poverty also benefited from effective governance, which helped coordinate multiple government agencies and induce cooperation from nongovernment stakeholders. To illustrate the role of broad-based economic transformation for poverty alleviation, separate sections of the report analyze growing agricultural productivity, incremental industrialization, managed urbanization and rural-to-urban migration, and the role of infrastructure. -
Publication
The State of Economic Inclusion Report 2021: The Potential to Scale
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-01-19)The State of Economic Inclusion Report 2021 sheds light on one of the most intractable challenges faced by development policy makers and practitioners: transforming the economic lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Economic inclusion programs are a bundle of coordinated, multidimensional interventions that support individuals, households, and communities so they can raise their incomes and build their assets. Programs targeting the extreme poor and vulnerable groups are now under way in 75 countries. This report presents data and evidence from 219 of these programs, which are reaching over 90 million beneficiaries. Governments now lead the scale-up of economic inclusion interventions, often building on pre-existing national programs such as safety nets, livelihoods and jobs, and financial inclusion, and 93 percent of the total beneficiaries are covered by government programs. The report offers four important contributions: • A detailed analysis of the nature of these programs, the people living in extreme poverty and vulnerability who they support, and the organizational challenges and opportunities inherent in designing and leading them. • An evidence review of 80 quantitative and qualitative evaluations of economic inclusion programs in 37 countries. • The first multicountry costing study including both government-led and other economic inclusion programs, indicating that programs show potential for cost efficiencies when integrated into national systems. • Four detailed case studies featuring programs underway in Bangladesh, India, Peru, and the Sahel, which highlight the programmatic and institutional adaptations required to scale in quite diverse contexts. Data from the report are available on the PEI Data Portal (http://www.peiglobal.org) where users can explore and submit data to build on this baseline. -
Publication
The Fallout of War: The Regional Consequences of the Conflict in Syria
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-09-14)The people of the Mashreq have seen more than their share of deaths, economic losses, and instability over the past decade. As the decade-long conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic created new challenges and worsened the existing ones, economic activity declined, labor markets deteriorated, and poverty increased. These trends would overwhelm even the most advanced economies in the world. The Fallout of War: The Regional Consequences of the Conflict in Syria identifies the impact of the Syrian conflict on economic and social outcomes in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. It combines a large number of data sources, statistical approaches, and a suite of economic models to isolate the specific impact of the Syrian conflict from that of global and regional factors, and it explicitly analyzes the mechanisms through which such an impact is manifested. The analysis suggests that a persistent short-termism in policy making has so far propagated the shock emanating from the Syrian conflict, which led to costly and ineffective service provision, lost economic opportunities, and underfunded programs. The report advocates for a fundamental shift from the short-term mitigation policies to a medium-term regional strategy to address pertinent structural problems. Moreover, as the countries in the Mashreq look toward recovery, a policy approach that takes into account the region’s interconnectedness and seeks to build on it provides better prospects for the people. Such a regional approach that addresses cross-boundary issues—including migration, trade, and infrastructure—will require local, regional, and international commitments. -
Publication
Exploring Universal Basic Income: A Guide to Navigating Concepts, Evidence, and Practices
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020)Universal basic income (UBI) is emerging as one of the most hotly debated issues in development and social protection policy. But what are the features of UBI? What is it meant to achieve? How do we know, and what don’t we know, about its performance? What does it take to implement it in practice? Drawing from global evidence, literature, and survey data, this volume provides a framework to elucidate issues and trade-offs in UBI with a view to help inform choices around its appropriateness and feasibility in different contexts. Specifically, the book examines how UBI differs from or complements other social assistance programs in terms of objectives, coverage, incidence, adequacy, incentives, effects on poverty and inequality, financing, political economy, and implementation. It also reviews past and current country experiences, surveys the full range of existing policy proposals, provides original results from micro–tax benefit simulations, and sets out a range of considerations around the analytics and practice of UBI. -
Publication
The State of Social Safety Nets 2018
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-03-14)The State of Social Safety Nets 2018 Report examines global trends in the social safety net/social assistance coverage, spending, and program performance based on the World Bank Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) updated database. The report documents the main social safety net programs that exist globally and their use to alleviate poverty and to build shared prosperity. The 2018 report expands on the 2015 edition, both in administrative and household survey data coverage. A distinct mark of this report is that, for the first time, it tells the story of what happens with SSN/SA programs spending and coverage over time, when the data allow us to do so. This 2018 edition also features two special themes: Social Assistance and Ageing, focusing on the role of old-age social pensions, and Adaptive Social Protection, focusing on what makes SSN systems/programs adaptive to various shocks. -
Publication
The 1.5 Billion People Question: Food, Vouchers, or Cash Transfers?
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018)Most of the people in low and middle-income countries covered by social protection receive assistance in the form of in-kind food. The origin of such support is rooted in countries’ historical pursuit of three interconnected objectives, namely attaining self-sufficiency in food, managing domestic food prices, and providing income support to the poor. This volume sheds light on the complex, bumpy and non-linear process of how some flagship food-based social protection programs have evolved over time, and how they currently work. In particular, it lays out the broad trends in reforms, including a growing move from in-kind modalities to cash transfers, from universality to targeting, and from agriculture to social protection. Case studies from Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and United States document the specific experiences of managing the process of reform and implementation, including enhancing our understanding of the opportunities and challenges with different social protection transfer modalities.