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Krishnan, Nandini

Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank

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Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank

Last updated January 31, 2023

Biography

Nandini Krishnan is a Senior Economist with the Poverty and Equity Global Practice. She leads the GP’s program in Afghanistan, and its analytical program on Cox’s Bazar/Rohingya influx in Bangladesh. She has worked on many fragile and conflict affected states (including Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories), and co-led analytical programs focusing on refugee hosting situations. She has supported impact evaluations of large-scale projects and programs in Tanzania, Nigeria, and South Africa, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 20

Soft Skills or Hard Cash? The Impact of Training and Wage Subsidy Programs on Female Youth Employment in Jordan

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-07) Groh, Matthew ; Krishnan, Nandini ; McKenzie, David ; Vishwanath, Tara

Throughout the Middle East, unemployment rates of educated youth have been persistently high and female labor force participation, low. This paper studies the impact of a randomized experiment in Jordan designed to assist female community college graduates find employment. One randomly chosen group of graduates was given a voucher that would pay an employer a subsidy equivalent to the minimum wage for up to 6 months if they hired the graduate; a second group was invited to attend 45 hours of employability skills training designed to provide them with the soft skills employers say graduates often lack; a third group was offered both interventions; and the fourth group forms the control group. The analysis finds that the job voucher led to a 40 percentage point increase in employment in the short-run, but that most of this employment is not formal, and that the average effect is much smaller and no longer statistically significant 4 months after the voucher period has ended. The voucher does appear to have persistent impacts outside the capital, where it almost doubles the employment rate of graduates, but this appears likely to largely reflect displacement effects. Soft-skills training has no average impact on employment, although again there is a weakly significant impact outside the capital. The authors elicit the expectations of academics and development professionals to demonstrate that these findings are novel and unexpected. The results suggest that wage subsidies can help increase employment in the short term, but are not a panacea for the problems of high urban female youth unemployment.
Jordan Now : New Work Opportunities for Women

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-10) Vishwanath, Tara ; Krishnan, Nandini

Improving women's access to economic opportunities remains an important development challenge for the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). Although impressive strides have been made region-wide in improving women's educational and health outcomes, the region's low female labor force participation rates are not commensurate with these achievements. The youth, especially young women, are very vulnerable, facing significantly higher rates of unemployment. Productive use of this increasingly well educated portion of the labor force promises faster and more sustained economic growth for the region as a whole. In this context, MENA countries are looking at various policies and programs to change this situation. This quick note looks at a pilot program in Jordan which is attempting to tackle this challenge.
Gender in the Middle East and North Africa : Progress and Remaining Challenges

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-03) Vishwanath, Tara ; Krishnan, Nandini

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has made impressive strides in reducing gender gaps in human development. The ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary education is 0.96, women in the region are more likely than men to attend university, maternal mortality is around 200 deaths per 100,000 live births (compared to a world average of 400 deaths), and fertility rates have decreased in the past decade. Although gender gaps in school completion rates still exist in some MENA countries, most countries are well on their way to achieving gender parity in key human development indicators.
Expanding Opportunities for South African Youth through Math and Science : The Impact of Dinaledi Program

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010) Blum, Jurgen ; Krishnan, Nandini ; Legovini, Arianna

In 2001, the Government of South Africa launched the Dinaledi Schools program, aimed at increasing the number of African and Indian secondary students entering and succeeding in mathematics and physical sciences Senior Certificate exams. The Dinaledi program provides selected high schools with a combination of supplementary inputs, including teachers, training, textbooks and calculators as well as close monitoring by the National Department of Education. This paper estimates the impact of the Dinaledi program for about 350 schools assigned to the program in the course of its expansion in 2005. It exploits administrative panel data for the years 2005-07 using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy. This is combined with a propensity score matching approach that compares Dinaledi schools with schools that are observably similar prior to the implementation of the program.
The Status of Yemeni Women : From Aspiration to Opportunity

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-04) Krishnan, Nandini

Yemen is on a path of transformation, one that can open opportunities for more inclusive societies and economies, or for greater risk and regression. This transition period will be especially vital for Yemeni women. As Yemen moves forward, it should strongly prioritize gender equality as an important goal in its own right but also because doing so will be vital to lay the foundations of a more inclusive country and society. The objectives of a new report on the status of gender equality in Yemen are two-fold: first, to take stock of the status of gender outcomes in Yemen and understand the forces that are driving the strong gender inequalities; and second, drawing on these insights and outcomes of the study, to highlight promising areas for policy action in this crucial transition period. The report explores how individual aspirations and opportunities in the areas of education, family formation, and labor force participation are constrained by the severe gender gaps in Yemeni society. The report's analytic approach is unique in threading together three bodies of evidence and analysis to shed new light on significant trends and causes underpinning Yemen s large gender disparities. The report presents: (i) a fresh look at available survey data on human development and socio-economic indicators; (ii) a brief history and in-depth analysis of the most critical legal barriers to women's and girl's full participation in Yemeni society; and (iii) insights from a rich qualitative dataset collected in January 2011. The findings highlight the powerful roles of social norms and legal rights and entitlements in placing women and girls at a disadvantage and constraining not only faster progress on gender equality but also on economic development.
Where are Iraq’s Poor?: Mapping Poverty in Iraq

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06-23) Vishwanath, Tara ; Sharma, Dhiraj ; Krishnan, Nandini ; Blankespoor, Brian

Measuring poverty and tracking it over time is an important prerequisite to national economic planning. Absence of official data on household expenditure or poverty line hampered the ability of Iraqi policymakers to understand the extent of the problem, analyze their causes, and devise appropriate policies. Iraq household socioeconomic survey (IHSES) 2006-07 was the first survey of its kind since 1988 to cover all 18 governorates. The survey collected rich information on income, expenditure, employment, housing, education, health, and other socioeconomic indicators. Building on the experience of the first IHSES survey and using international best practice on sampling and questionnaire design and survey implementation, the second round of IHSES was fielded in 201-/13. To fill the data gap, a larger survey was designed to collect information on correlates of household welfare like demographic characteristics, education, occupation, housing, and assets and estimate small-area poverty rates using projection methods. This report presents results from the exercise, the first of its kind for Iraq. Poverty mapping not only provides a visual representation of poverty at subnational levels, it also reveals pockets of poverty and islands of prosperity where they exist. This knowledge is useful to inform decisions on policy design and targeting of development projects and programs.
Seeing is Believing: Poverty in the Palestinian Territories

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06) Vishwanath, Tara ; Blankespoor, Brian ; Calandra, Faythe ; Krishnan, Nandini ; Mahadevan, Meera ; Yoshida, Nobuo

The Palestinian Territories have a uniquely fragmented geography, characterized by the isolation of Gaza from the rest of the world, and the man-made barriers to mobility within the West Bank. The internal mobility restrictions imposed by Israel, unique to the West Bank, play an important role in explaining spatial variations in outcomes within the West Bank. This is strikingly analogous to the role of Gaza s external barriers in explaining the divergence between the West Bank and Gaza. These have consequences for poverty and economic development. Detailed analysis using a series of labor force and household surveys were undertaken as part of the West Bank and Gaza Poverty and Inclusion Assessment, Coping with Conflict? The analysis shows that over the last decade, internal and external barriers have been associated with tremendous constraints to growth and investment, which is evident in high rates of unemployment, especially in Gaza and among women and youth.
Losing the Gains of the Past: The Welfare and Distributional Impacts of the Twin Crises in Iraq 2014

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02) Krishnan, Nandini ; Olivieri, Sergio

Iraq was plunged into two simultaneous crises in the second half of 2014, one driven by a sharp decline in oil prices, the other, by the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The severity and recurrent nature of these crises demand a fast understanding and quantification of their welfare impact, which is critical for policy makers. This paper employs an innovative extension of the micro-simulation methodology to provide an ex ante estimate and analysis of the complex and dynamic poverty and distributional impact of the twin crises. The results show an almost complete erosion of the welfare gains of the past, with poverty falling back to 2007 levels and a 20 percent increase in the number of the poor. While the incidence of poverty is higher among internally displaced persons than the rest of the population (except in the Islamic State–affected governorates, where poverty is higher), internally displaced persons make up only a small proportion of Iraq's eight million poor in 2014. The rest comprise of households who already lived below the poverty line, or those who have fallen below the poverty line in the face of the massive economic disruptions the country is facing. The welfare impact of the crises varies widely across space, with the largest increases in poverty headcount rates in Kurdistan and the Islamic State–affected governorates. Yet, the poorest regions in the 2014 crisis scenario are the same as in 2012, the currently Islamic State–affected, and the South, with poverty rates of 40 and 30 percent, respectively. Although the simulated results are not strictly comparable to ex post micro data estimates, because of survey coverage constraints, overall the results are very much in line, particularly in Kurdistan and the South.
Afghanistan’s Displaced People: A Socio-Economic Profile, 2013-2014

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08-03) Yde-Jensen, Thea ; Krishnan, Nandini ; Tan, Xiayun ; Wieser, Christina

Afghans represent the world’s largest protracted refugee population, and one of the largest populations to be repatriated to their country of origin in this century. Between 2002 and 2016, over six million refugees returned to Afghanistan from neighboring countries. In 2016 alone, returnees numbered more than a million. In an already difficult context, large-scale internal displacement and return from outside have strained the delivery of public services in Afghanistan and increased competition for scarce economic opportunities, not only for the displaced, but for the population at large. This note aims at contributing to our understanding of displacement in Afghanistan by comparing the socioeconomic profiles of three populations: (i) former refugees who returned to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2014 (“pre-2015 returnees”); (ii) internally displaced persons (“IDPs”); and (iii) non-displaced persons (“hosts”). The note captures and compares these groups’ situations at a specific time-point, using data from the 2013-14 Afghanistan Living Conditions Survey (ALCS). Importantly, the results document socioeconomic conditions just prior to the transfer of security responsibilities from international troops to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in 2014, which was associated with a subsequent decline in aid, both security and civilian, and a sharp drop in economic activity. The results presented here cover the largest return of Afghans to the county following the fall of the Taliban in 2002, but precede the more recent large-scale return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan in 2016-17. Future publications will extend the findings summarized here with analysis of new and existing data covering this recent influx. This research is part of an ongoing effort to document population displacement challenges and solutions in Afghanistan over time. Data from ALCS 2013-14 establish baseline socio-economic profiles for returned refugees, IDPs, and non-displaced hosts. Further research and analysis now in progress will document how these conditions have changed since 2013-14, and will distill evidence for policy to improve socio-economic outcomes among Afghanistan’s displaced and non-displaced people.
Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Poverty

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-02-27) Corral, Paul ; Irwin, Alexander ; Krishnan, Nandini ; Mahler, Daniel Gerszon ; Vishwanath, Tara

Fragility and conflict pose a critical threat to the global goal of ending extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2015, successful development strategies reduced the proportion of the world’s people living in extreme poverty from 36 to 10 percent. But in many fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS), poverty is stagnating or getting worse. The number of people living in proximity to conflict has nearly doubled worldwide since 2007. In the Middle East and North Africa, one in five people now lives in such conditions. The number of forcibly displaced persons worldwide has also more than doubled in the same period, exceeding 70 million in 2017. If current trends continue, by the end of 2020, the number of extremely poor people living in economies affected by fragility and conflict will exceed the number of poor people in all other settings combined. This book shows why addressing fragility and conflict is vital for poverty goals and charts directions for action. It presents new estimates of welfare in FCS, filling gaps in previous knowledge, and analyzes the multidimensional nature of poverty in these settings. It shows that data deprivation in FCS has prevented an accurate global picture of fragility, poverty, and their interactions, and it explains how innovative new measurement strategies are tackling these challenges. The book discusses the long-term consequences of conflict and introduces a data-driven classification of countries by fragility profile, showing opportunities for tailored policy interventions and the need for monitoring multiple markers of fragility. The book strengthens understanding of what poverty reduction in FCS will require and what it can achieve.