Atamanov, Aziz

Person:
Atamanov, Aziz

Poverty and Equity Global Practice, The World Bank

Author Name Variants

Atamanov, Aziz, Atamanov, A.

Fields of Specialization

Poverty Measurement, Income Distribution

ORCID

0000-0002-8229-2371

External Links

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Departments

Poverty and Equity Global Practice, The World Bank

Last updated: August 5, 2025

Biography

Aziz Atamanov is a Senior Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank. He has been working on poverty issues, measurement, and distributional analysis in many countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, West Bank and Gaza, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey. He also co-leads the Middle East and North African Team for Statistical Development. He holds Ph.D. Degree in Development Economics from Maastricht University.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 32

June 2025 Update to the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP)
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-11) Alfani, Federica; Aaron, Danielle V.; Atamanov, Aziz; Aguilar, R.Andres Castaneda; Diaz-Bonilla, Carolina; Devpura, Nancy P.; Dewina, Reno; Finn, Arden; Fujs, Tony; Gonzalez, Maria Fernanda; Krishnan, Nandini; Kochhar, Nishtha; Kumar, Naresh; Lakner, Christoph; Ibarra, Gabriel Lara; Lestani, Diego; Liniado, Julia; Lønborg, Jonas; Mahler, Daniel G.; Mejía-Mantilla, Carolina; Montalva, Veronica; Herrera, Laura L.; Nguyen, Minh C.; Rubiano, Eliana; Sajaia, Zurab; Castro, Diana M.; Seshan, Ganesh K.; Tetteh-Baah, Samuel K.; Mendoza, Martha C. Viveros; Wu, Haoyu; Yonzan, Nishant; Wambile, Ayago
The June 2025 update to the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) introduces several important changes to the data underlying the global poverty estimates. The most important change is the adoption of the 2021 Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs). In addition, new data for India has been incorporated and the existing series adjusted for comparability. This document details the changes to underlying data and the methodological reasons behind them. Depending on the availability of recent survey data, global and regional poverty estimates are reported up to 2023, together with nowcasts up to 2025. The PIP database now includes 74 new country-years, bringing the total number of surveys to over 2,400, for 172 economies.
Poverty and Prices: Assessing the Impact of the 2017 PPPs on the International Poverty Line and Global Poverty
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2025-08-05) Jolliffe, Dean; Mahler, Daniel Gerszon; Lakner, Christoph; Atamanov, Aziz; Kofi Tetteh-Baah, Samuel
Purchasing power parities (PPPs) are used to estimate the international poverty line (IPL) in a common currency and account for relative price differences across countries when measuring global poverty. This paper assesses the impact of the 2017 PPPs on the nominal value of the IPL and global poverty. Updating the 1.90 dollars IPL in 2011 PPP dollars to 2017 PPP dollars results in an IPL of 2.15 dollars, a finding that is robust to various methods. Based on an updated IPL of 2.15 dollars, the global extreme poverty rate in 2017 falls from the previously estimated 9.3 to 9.1 percent, reducing the count of people who are poor by 15 million. This is a modest change compared with previous updates of PPP data. The paper also assesses the methodological stability between the 2011 and 2017 PPPs, scrutinizes large changes at the country level, and updates alternative, complementary poverty lines with the 2017 PPPs.
The Growth Elasticity of Poverty: Is Africa Any Different ?
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-02-01) Wu, Haoyu; Atamanov, Aziz; Bundervoet, Tom; Paci, Pierella
On current trends, the future of global poverty reduction will be determined by Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet even during Sub-Saharan Africa’s period of high economic growth — roughly corresponding to the first decade and a half of the 2000s — the extent to which this growth translated into improved living standards for African households was hotly debated. This paper revisits the issue of Sub-Saharan Africa’s relatively low growth elasticity of poverty using a sample of 575 successive and comparable growth spells between 1981 and 2021. The findings confirm that, even controlling for initial differences in poverty, income levels, and inequality, Sub-Saharan Africa consistently had a significantly lower growth elasticity of poverty relative to other regions over this period. The lower growth elasticity of poverty, which has remained unchanged over time, is due to a lower passthrough between growth in gross domestic product per capita (or growth in household final consumption expenditure as measured by national accounts) and growth in household consumption expenditures as measured from surveys. Given the low passthrough of economic growth to households, Africa thus needs higher rates of economic growth than its peer countries in other regions to achieve equal rates of poverty reduction. Given the challenge of achieving this in the current global economic environment, success in reducing global poverty will require a focused effort to strengthen the effect of aggregate economic growth on household welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results suggest that this will require (i) improved provision of basic education services and basic infrastructure, (ii) faster structural transformation, and (iii) a decrease in the occurrence and persistence of violent conflicts.
The Costs Come before the Benefits: Why Donors Should Invest More in Refugee Autonomy in Uganda
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2024-01-29) Atamanov, Aziz; Hoogeveen, Johannes; Reese, Benjamin
When host countries allow refugees to earn income, two main groups benefit: refugees, who become financially autonomous, and international institutions that can reduce the humanitarian aid that would otherwise be needed to support refugees. Uganda is one of the more progressive countries when it comes to promoting the financial independence of refugees and shifting from humanitarian aid to development ways of working. This note considers how successful refugees in Uganda have been in becoming financially independent and estimates how assistance has been saved due to these efforts at economic inclusion. Using the international poverty line of US$2.15 in 2017 purchasing power parities to proxy the costs of basic needs, the results suggest that the amount of total aid needed was reduced by almost 45 percent. They also show that many refugees live in poverty, implying that the present combination of aid and work is inadequate to assure a decent standard of living. While more assistance is needed in the short run, reductions in development assistance are feasible but require upfront investments in refugee earning capacity to realize them.
New Evidence on Inequality of Opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa: More Unequal Than We Thought
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-19) Atamanov, Aziz; Cuevas, P. Facundo; Lebow, Jeremy; Mahler, Daniel Gerszon
Unequal access to economic opportunity for individuals with different innate characteristics, such as ethnicity or parents’ socioeconomic status, is often seen as both morally undesirable and bad for economic growth. This paper estimates inequality of opportunity, or the share of inequality explained by birth characteristics, across 18 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. For many countries, this is the first time inequality of opportunity is measured. The paper uses nationally representative household survey data harmonized to allow for cross-country comparisons. Using consumption per capita as the outcome, the findings show that inequality of opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa is stark and more pronounced than previously estimated. On average, inherited circumstances explain more than half of inequality in the region. Estimates range from 40 to 60 percent in most countries and reach 74 percent in South Africa. The findings show that birthplace, parents’ education, and ethnicity tend to be the most significant contributors, but there is large variation in the importance of circumstances across countries. This represents the most comprehensive estimate of inequality of opportunity to date in the poorest and one of the most unequal regions in the world, and it underscores the pressing need for policy makers to intensify their efforts to address inequality of opportunity to foster societies that are more equitable and unlock the full potential for growth in the region.
What Do You Want to Be?: Education and Work Aspirations Among the Ugandan Youth
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-01) Atamanov, Aziz; Cochinard, Frédéric; Ilukor, John; Kemigisha, Audrey; Mupere, Andrew ; Ponzini, Giulia
This brief discusses results from the survey of the youth population in Uganda using results from the Uganda High-Frequency Phone Survey (UHFPS). UHFPS has been collected by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) in collaboration with the World Bank since June 2020. The fourteenth round conducted in August-September 2023 included questions to capture education and career aspirations of the youth population aged 15-25.
Monitoring Impacts of COVID-19 and Other Shocks on Households in Uganda: Findings from the 17th Round of the High-Frequency Phone Survey, Round 17, January - February 2024
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-06) Atamanov, Aziz; Cochinard, Frédéric; Ilukor, John; Kemigisha, Audrey; Mupere,, Andrew; Ponzini, Giulia
In June 2020, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), in collaboration with the World Bank, officially launched the Uganda High Frequency Phone Survey (UHFPS) to track the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic regularly. In June 2022, the scope of the survey was expanded to monitor economic sentiments and the socioeconomic impact of other shocks, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the Ebola outbreak, and extreme weather events. In addition, the survey is also being used to collect perceptions on different development policies and programs. The survey aimed to recontact the entire sample of households interviewed during the Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS) 2019/20 round and that had phone numbers for at least one household member or a reference individual. The sample was refreshed in the 13th round, conducted in July/August 2023, by adding households from the Uganda National Household Survey 2019/20. This brief focuses on the socio-economic well-being of Ugandans, as reported in the 17th round conducted in January-February 2024.
Monitoring Impacts of COVID-19 and other Shocks, Round 13, Jul-Aug 2023
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2024-01-23) Cochinard, Frédéric; Atamanov, Aziz; Ilukor, John; Kemigisha, Audrey; Machingauta, Catherine; Mupere, Andrew; Ponzini, Guilia
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 to track the impacts of the pandemic on a monthly basis for a period of 12 months. In June 2022, the scope of the survey was expanded to monitor economic sentiments and the socioeconomic impact of other shocks such as the Russia-Ukraine war and extreme weather events. 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 set of tables presents findings from the most recent round (12th) of the UHFPS, conducted in July - August 2023.
Monitoring Impacts of COVID-19 and Other Shocks, Round 12, Feb-Mar 2023
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-28) Cochinard, Frédéric; Atamanov, Aziz; Ilukor, John; Kemigisha, Audrey; Kilic, Talip; Mupere, Andrew; Ponzini, Giulia
In June 2020, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), in collaboration with the World Bank, officially launched the Uganda High Frequency Phone Survey (UHFPS) to track the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on a regular basis. In June 2022, the scope of the survey was expanded to monitor economic sentiments and the socioeconomic impact of other shocks such as the Russia-Ukraine war, Ebola outbreak and extreme weather events. In addition, the survey is being used to collect perceptions on different development policies and programs. The survey aimed to recontact the entire sample of households that had been interviewed during the Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS) 2019/20 round and that had phone numbers for at least one household member or a reference individual. This brief presents findings from the most recent round (12th) of the UHFPS, conducted in February-March 2023.
Assessing the Impact of the 2017 PPPs on the International Poverty Line and Global Poverty
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-02-21) Tetteh Baah, Samuel Kofi; Jolliffe, Dean Mitchell; Mahler, Daniel Gerszon; Lakner, Christoph; Atamanov, Aziz
Purchasing power parity exchange rates (PPPs) are used to estimate the international poverty line (IPL) in a common currency and account for relative price differences across countries when measuring global poverty. This paper assesses the impact of the 2017 PPPs on the nominal value of the IPL and global poverty. The analysis indicates that updating the $1.90 IPL in 2011 PPP dollars to 2017 PPP dollars results in an IPL of approximately $2.15—a finding that is robust to various methods and assumptions. Based on an updated IPL of $2.15, the global extreme poverty rate in 2017 falls from the previously estimated 9.3 to 9.1 percent, reducing the count of people who are poor by 15 million. This is a modest change compared with previous updates of PPP data. The paper also assesses the methodological stability between the 2011 and 2017 PPPs, scrutinizes large changes at the country level, and analyzes higher poverty lines with the 2017 PPPs.