de la Fuente, Alejandro

Person:
de la Fuente, Alejandro

Poverty and Equity Global Practice

Author Name Variants

de la Fuente, Alejandro, De la Fuente, Alejandro

Fields of Specialization

Poverty analysis, Human Development, Program evaluation, Risk and vulnerability

Departments

Poverty and Equity Global Practice

Last updated:August 4, 2025

Biography

Alejandro de la Fuente is a senior economist at the World Bank with extensive experience leading the Poverty and Equity and prior to that the Social Sustainability and Inclusion Global Practice’s engagements in low- and middle-income countries, including in fragile settings, in West and Southern Africa, Latin America, East and South Asia. His current work involves leading high-quality analytics, policy guidance and operations on poverty, social protection, program evaluation and risk and vulnerability. Previous experience outside the Bank includes working for other multilateral organizations (UNDP, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Inter-American Development Bank) and as public servant at the Ministry of Social Development and the Office of the President in Mexico. Alejandro has published several articles in peer reviewed journals and co-authored/co-edited five books.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing1 - 10 of 16

Droughts Worsen Air Quality by Shifting Power Generation in Latin America and the Caribbean
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-06) Eriksson, Mathilda; del Valle, Alejandro; de la Fuente, Alejandro
This paper studies how air quality around combustion power plants changes in response to hydrological droughts that affect hydropower generation. Using fixed-effect and post-double selection methods, the paper analyzes a unique plant-level panel of fine particulate matter concentrations and meteorological conditions spanning 20 years at monthly frequency. The findings show that, on average, hydrological droughts lead to 0.83 micrograms per cubic meter excess fine particulate matter, equivalent to a 5.3 percent increase from non-drought conditions. Counterfactual simulations for the region indicate that this excess fine particulate matter may have resulted in up to 10,000 premature deaths annually. Combining the estimates with climate, demographic, and policy projections, the paper also shows that this health burden will likely persist over the next four decades.
Droughts and Floods in Malawi: Impacts on Crop Production and the Performance of Sustainable Land Management Practices under Weather Extremes
(Cambridge University Press, 2021-01-25) McCarthy, Nancy; Kilic, Talip; Brubaker, Josh; Murray, Siobhan; de la Fuente, Alejandro
Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of extreme weather events, increasing the vulnerability of smallholder farmers dependent on rain-fed agriculture. We evaluate the extent to which farmers in Malawi suffer crop production losses due to extreme weather, and whether sustainable land management (SLM) practices help shield crop production losses from extreme events. We use a three period panel dataset where widespread floods and droughts occurred in separate periods, offering a unique opportunity to evaluate impacts using data collected immediately following these events. Results show that crop production outcomes were severely hit by both floods and droughts, with average losses ranging between 32–48 per cent. Legume intercropping provided protection against both floods and droughts, while green belts provided protection against floods. However, we find limited evidence that SLM adoption decisions are driven by exposure to weather shocks; rather, farmers with more productive assets are more likely to adopt.
Recurrent Climatic Shocks and Humanitarian Aid: Impacts on Livelihood Outcomes in Malawi
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05) McCarthy, Nancy; Kilic, Talip; Brubaker, Joshua; de la Fuente, Alejandro; Murray, Siobhan
Between 2014 and 2016 unprecedented and consecutive climatic shocks ravaged Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world. The largest ever emergency relief operation in the country’s history ensued. The pathways and extent to which the humanitarian response protected livelihoods remain under researched. This paper uses a unique data set that combines longitudinal household survey data with GIS-based measures of weather shocks and climate conditions and longitudinal administrative data on the World Food Programme’s aid distribution. The paper aims to understand the drivers of humanitarian aid and evaluate the impact of aid and weather shocks on outcomes related to household production and consumption in Malawi. The analysis shows that droughts and floods had consistent negative impacts on a range of welfare outcomes, particularly for households that were subject to sequential shocks. Aid receipt is demonstrated to attenuate such impacts, again particularly for households that experienced the shocks consecutively. Households living in areas subject to a weather shock and with higher World Food Programme aid distribution were more likely to receive food aid, partially explaining the success of aid in mitigating the impacts of shocks. However, there is significant scope for improving the criteria for targeting humanitarian aid beneficiaries.
Impact of the West African Ebola Epidemic on Agricultural Production and Rural Welfare: Evidence from Liberia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06) Jacoby, Hanan G.; de la Fuente, Alejandro; Lawin, Kotchikpa Gabriel
The 2014-15 Ebola epidemic took a devastating human and economic toll on three West African countries, of which Liberia was perhaps the hardest hit. The pathways through which the crisis affected economic activity in these largely agrarian societies remain poorly understood. To study these mechanisms in the context of rural Liberia, this paper links a geographically disaggregated indicator of Ebola disease mortality to nationally representative household survey data on agricultural production and consumption. The paper finds that higher Ebola prevalence (as proxied by local mortality) led to greater disruption of group labor mobilization for planting and harvest, thereby reducing rice area planted as well as rice yields. Household welfare, measured by per capita expenditures spanning two points before and after the crisis, fell by more in Ebola prevalent areas with more intensive rice farming, precisely those areas that were more adversely affected by agricultural labor shortages.
Pathways to Prosperity in Rural Malawi
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-05-31) Karamba, Wendy; Dabalen, Andrew; Nguyen, Nga Thi Viet; de la Fuente, Alejandro; Tanaka, Tomomi; Goyal, Aparajita
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.
Food Insecurity and Rising Food Prices: What Do We Learn from Experiential Measures?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05) Seff, Ilana; Jolliffe, Dean; de la Fuente, Alejandro
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.
Living on the Edge: Vulnerability to Poverty and Public Transfers in Mexico
(Taylor and Francis, 2018) de la Fuente, Alejandro; Rodríguez-Castelán, Carlos
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.
Rural Non-Farm Employment and Household Welfare: Evidence from Malawi
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06) Adjognon, Guigonan Serge; Liverpool-Tasie, Saweda Lenis; de la Fuente, Alejandro; Benfica, Rui
This paper uses nationally representative panel data and a combination of econometric approaches, to explore linkages between rural non-farm activities (wage and self-employment) and household welfare in rural Malawi. The paper analyzes the average treatment effects and distributional effects on participants' welfare indicators, such as households' per capita consumption expenditures. Then it investigates the effects of non-farm activities on the use of agricultural inputs, one channel through which non-farm employment might improve the welfare of rural households. Although participation in non-farm activities is not randomly assigned in the data, the identification strategy relies on fixed effects and correlated random effects estimation methods, dealing effectively with time invariant heterogeneity, coupled with geographical covariate adjustments, controlling for time varying differences in local market conditions and employment opportunities. The results suggest that non-farm wage employment and non-farm self-employment are welfare improving and poverty reducing. However, households at the lower tail of the wealth distribution benefit significantly less from participation than the wealthiest. Although the results support the promotion of the rural non-farm economy for poverty reduction purposes, they indicate that targeted interventions that improve poor households’ access to high-return non-farm opportunities are likely to lead to bigger successes in curbing rural poverty.
Vulnerability to Poverty in Rural Malawi
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-07) Mccarthy, Nancy; Brubaker, Josh; de la Fuente, Alejandro
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.
Shelter from the Storm?: Household-Level Impacts of, and Responses to, the 2015 Floods in Malawi
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-09) McCarthy, Nancy; Kilic, Talip; de la Fuente, Alejandro; Brubaker, Josh
As extreme weather events intensify due to climate change, it becomes ever more critical to understand how vulnerable households are to these events and the mechanisms households can rely on to minimize losses effectively. This paper analyzes the impacts of the floods that occurred during the 2014/15 growing season in Malawi, using a two-period panel data set. The results show that while yields were dramatically lower for households severely affected by the floods, drops in food consumption expenditures and calories per capita were less dramatic. However, dietary quality, as captured by the food consumption score, was significantly lower for flood-affected households. Although access to social safety nets increased food consumption outcomes, particularly for those in moderately-affected areas, the proportion of households with access to certain safety net programs was lower in 2015 compared with 2013. The latter finding suggests that linking these programs more closely to disaster relief efforts could substantially improve welfare outcomes during and after a natural disaster. Finally, risk-coping strategies, including financial account ownership, access to off-farm income sources, and adult children living away from home, were generally ineffective in mitigating the negative impacts of the floods.