Person:
de la Fuente Meraz, Alejandro
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Poverty analysis,
Food security,
Program evaluation,
Risk and vulnerability
Degrees
Departments
Poverty and Equity Global Practice
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Alejandro de la Fuente is a senior economist at the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice. His current work involves providing policy advice and technical support to African governments on poverty analysis, food and nutrition security, program evaluation, and risk and vulnerability. Past engagements at the World Bank have involved working and leading projects on poverty, natural disasters, and weather insurance in countries in East Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. Previous experience outside the Bank includes working for the Human Development Report Office at the United Nations Development Program, the International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction Secretariat, the Inter-American Development Bank, and various positions at the Ministry of Social Development and the Office of the President in Mexico.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 15
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Publication
Natural Disasters, Human Development and Poverty at the Municipal Level in Mexico
(Taylor and Francis, 2012-11-26)This article analyses the effects of natural disasters on human development and poverty levels at the municipal level in Mexico. Using several sources, we build a panel of data in order to uncover if different natural shocks can affect social indicators. After controlling for geographic and natural characteristics which can make municipalities more hazard prone, as well as for other institutional, socio-economic and demographic pre-shock characteristics, in addition to using fixed effects, we find that general shocks, especially from floods and droughts, lead to significant drops in both types of indicator. -
Publication
Living on the Edge : Vulnerability to Poverty and Public Transfers in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11-12)This paper reports that the vulnerable in Mexico—people who left poverty but have not yet gained a place in the middle class—make up 30-40 percent of the population, thanks to a combination of highly unsettled, low-paid employment, living in communities with poor services, and over-exposure to often short-lived and somewhat unpredictable uninsured risks. It seems necessary to distinguish between long-term and short-term sources of vulnerability to poverty, and from a policy perspective, keeping this distinction between quasi-permanent factors and shocks remains relevant as very different measures address each problem. Policy options may include (1) expanding coverage of existing programs to encompass the highly vulnerable in a permanent way or to build mechanisms into existing safety nets so that they can expand support when needed, or (2) pushing for a more radical redesign of existing programs to address simultaneously the differentiated causes (structural and transient) to the threat of future poverty. -
Publication
Living on the Edge : Vulnerability to Poverty and Public Transfers in Mexico
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-01)Social policy in Mexico has focused on identifying and supporting chronically poor households. Yet, Mexico has a significant number of households that are just above the poverty line who are not eligible, by definition, for antipoverty programs and are at risk of falling back into poverty in the event of an economic crisis or shocks like loss of employment and natural disasters. These shocks can have serious negative effects on welfare in the absence of social safety nets targeted to these households. This study uses household survey data to better understand these "vulnerable" households, including their profile and risk exposure and, more importantly, to document the extent to which these households are covered by public transfers and insurance mechanisms. The analysis shows that until 2010 most social programs, including the few with productive components, such as vocational training and productive investment grants, barely covered the vulnerable. The study concludes that public policies need to pay attention to the vulnerable households and find the right policy mix between targeted interventions and universal insurance schemes to serve this economic group. -
Publication
Mapping Subnational Poverty in Zambia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-03-01)Many challenges were identified during the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) in Zambia. To address these challenges and realize pro-poor growth, the Sixth National Development Plan (SNDP) was set in motion. The SNDP, which covers 2011 to 2015, was designed to accomplish three goals: to accelerate infrastructure development (roads, bridges, air, water, rail and border infrastructure, feeder roads, water canals, tourist access roads), to improve the provision of basic services including water and sanitation, electricity access, health, education and skills development to promote rural investment; and to accelerate poverty reduction, mainly through the continued implementation of the Rural Finance Program and to enhance human development. -
Publication
The Poverty Impact of Climate Change in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05-01)This paper examines the effects of climate change on poverty through the relationship between indicators of climate change (temperature and rainfall change) and municipal level gross domestic product, and subsequently between gross domestic product and poverty. The evidence suggests that climate change could have a negative impact on poverty by 2030. The paper proposes a two-stage least squares regression where it first regresses temperature and rainfall (along with geographic controls and state and year fixed effects) on municipal gross domestic product per capita for 2000 and 2005 The resulting gross domestic product per capita is used in a second equation to estimate municipal poverty on the same years. The authors then incorporate projections of temperature and rainfall changes by 2030 into the estimated climate-gross domestic product coefficients to assess the effects of climate change in economic activity and how this in turn will influence poverty. At the same time, they account for the potential adaptive capacity of municipalities through higher population densities and economic growth. Both would reduce poverty by 31.72 percentage points between 2005 and 2030 with changing climate. However, poverty could have been reduced up to 34.15 percentage points over the same period had there been no climate change. This suggests that climate change slows down the pace of poverty reduction. An alternative reading is that poverty is expected to increase from 15.25 percent (without climate change) to 17.68 percent (with climate change) by 2030. Given the existing population projections for 2030, this represents 2,902,868 people remaining in poverty as a result of climate change. -
Publication
Municipal Vulnerability to Climate Change and Climate-Related Events in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04)A climate change vulnerability index in agriculture is presented at the municipal level in Mexico. Because the index is built with a multidimensional approach to vulnerability (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity), it represents a tool for policy makers, academics and government alike to inform decisions about climate change resilience and regional variations within the country. The index entails baseline (2005) and prediction (2045) levels based on historic climate data and future-climate modeling. The results of the analysis suggest a wide variation in municipal vulnerability across the country at baseline and prediction points. The vulnerability index shows that highly vulnerable municipalities demonstrate higher climate extremes, which increases uncertainty for harvest periods, and for agricultural yields and outputs. The index shows at baseline that coastal areas host some of the most vulnerable municipalities to climate change in Mexico. However, it also shows that the Northwest and Central regions will likely experience the largest shifts in vulnerability between 2005 and 2045. Finally, vulnerability is found to vary according to specific variables: municipalities with higher vulnerability have more adverse socio-demographic conditions. With the vast municipal data available in Mexico, further sub-index estimations can lead to answers for specific policy and research questions. -
Publication
Vulnerability to Poverty in Rural Malawi
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-07)Considerations of risk and vulnerability are key to understanding the dynamics of poverty in rural Malawi. This study measures vulnerability to consumption shortfalls and analyzes its sources using a two-period panel of 2,789 households, drawn from the 2010 Third Integrated Household Survey and the 2013 Integrated Household Panel Survey. The results show that in 2010 two-fifths of all households had a chance of at least 40 percent of falling below the poverty line in the future. The results show that many households in rural Malawi are vulnerable to poverty, although, as with many other studies of rural areas in other countries, much of the vulnerability is caused by chronic poverty. Nonetheless, risks, particularly rainfall and loss of off-farm employment, are also important in explaining why poor households remain poor, and why some non-poor households are more likely to fall into poverty in the next period. Household wealth and agricultural assets can protect households from falling into poverty and reduce the severity of the fall when shocks occur. However, there is little evidence to suggest that other strategies to reduce vulnerability are effective. -
Publication
Pathways to Prosperity in Rural Malawi
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-05-31)By most accounts, rural Malawi has lacked dynamism in the past decade. Growth has been mostly volatile, in large part due to unstable macroeconomic fundamentals evidenced by high inflation, fiscal deficits, and interest rates. When rapid economic growth has materialized, the gains have not always reached the poorest. Poverty remains high and the rural poor face significant challenges in consistently securing enough food. Several factors contribute to stubbornly high rural poverty. They include a low-productivity and non-diversified agriculture, macroeconomic and recurrent climatic shocks, limited non-farm opportunities and low returns to such activities, especially for the poor, and poor performance from some of the prominent safety net programs. The Report proposes complementary policy actions that offer a possible path for a more dynamic and prosperous rural economy. The key pillars of this comprise macroeconomic stability, increased productivity in agriculture, faster urbanization, better functioning safety nets, and more inclusive financial markets. Some recommendations call for a reorientation of existing programs such as the Malawi Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) and the Malawi Social Action Fund Public Works Program (MASAF-PWP). Others identify promising new areas of intervention, such as the introduction of digital IDs and biometric technologies to enhance the reach of mobile banking and deepen financial inclusion. Finally, and importantly, the report recommends the scaling up of investments on girls’ secondary education to curb early child marriage and early child bearing among adolescents. This will empower women at home and work and bend the trajectory of fertility rates in rural areas in order to boost human development and reduce poverty. -
Publication
Food Insecurity and Rising Food Prices: What Do We Learn from Experiential Measures?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05)Throughout many countries in the world, the measurement of food security currently includes accounting for the importance of perception and anxiety about meeting basic food needs. Using panel data from Malawi, this paper shows that worrying about food security is linked to self-reports of having experienced food insecurity, and the analysis provides evidence that rapidly rising food prices are a source of the anxiety and experiences of food insecurity. This finding controls for individual-level fixed effects and changes in the economic well-being of the individual. A particularly revealing finding of the importance of accounting for anxiety in assessing food insecurity is that individuals report a significant increase in experiences of food insecurity in the presence of rapidly rising food prices even when dietary diversity and caloric intake is stable. -
Publication
Living on the Edge: Vulnerability to Poverty and Public Transfers in Mexico
(Taylor and Francis, 2018)Social policy in Mexico has focused on identifying and supporting households in extreme poverty. Yet, the country has a significant number of households just above the poverty line who are not eligible, by definition, for antipoverty programs and are at risk of falling into poverty in the event of adverse shocks without appropriate social safety nets. This study uses cross-section and longitudinal data to understand better the profile of those ‘vulnerable’ households, their risk exposure, and the extent to which they are covered by public transfers and insurance mechanisms. The analysis shows that until 2010 most social programs, including the few with productive components, barely covered the vulnerable. The study calls for public policies to pay attention to the vulnerable and find a policy mix on the continuum between targeted interventions and universal insurance schemes to serve this income group.