Publication:
Republic of Mali: Priorities for Ending Poverty and Boosting Shared Prosperity

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (2.4 MB)
655 downloads
English Text (484.41 KB)
84 downloads
Published
2015-06-22
ISSN
Date
2015-11-20
Editor(s)
Abstract
This document presents the Systematic Country Diagnosis (SCD) for Mali. The SCD was prepared following a consultative process within and outside the World Bank. It identifies constraints and opportunities for achieving the twin goals of ending poverty and improving shared prosperity by 2030 while acknowledging (i) the need for selectivity in pro-poor interventions, and (ii) the many competing ‘binding’ reasons for poverty in Mali. The objectives of the twin goals are similar for Mali as the incidence of dollar-a-day poverty exceeds 40 percent of the population. Selectivity means the identification of principal opportunities for poverty reduction in the next 15 years, as well as the identification of binding constraints to reaping such opportunities. In the search for selectivity, there is the risk of not identifying the correct set of opportunities and constraints. However, the risk of not being selective would probably have more serious implications as it could lead the government and its development partners to disperse their resources and attention too thinly over too many competing priorities. Selectivity also implies making trade-offs between immediate and longer term objectives. In this document priority is given to the identification of poverty reduction opportunities which could deliver results before 2030, while acknowledging that efforts should not undermine the prospects for poverty reduction and shared prosperity beyond 2030. In this regard, particular attention is paid to environmental and fiscal sustainability.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank Group. 2015. Republic of Mali: Priorities for Ending Poverty and Boosting Shared Prosperity. Systematic Country Diagnostic;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23108 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Malawi Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment : Investing in Our Future, Synthesis Report
    (Washington, DC, 2007-12) World Bank
    This study builds a profile of the status of poverty and vulnerability in Malawi. Malawi is a small land-locked country, with one of the highest population densities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and one of the lowest per capita income levels in the world. Almost 90 percent of the population lives in rural areas, and is mostly engaged in smallholder, rain-fed agriculture. Most people are therefore highly vulnerable to annual rainfall volatility. The majority of households cultivate very small landholdings, largely for subsistence. As a result, poverty is pervasive and not merely the situation of the lowest economic groups. Therefore, while this report focuses on the least-well-off sections of the population, the analysis provides valuable information to accelerate wealth creation and economic growth for the whole of Malawi. This synthesis report presents the main findings and policy recommendations stemming from the analysis. Due to the length and detail of this study, the 'full report' presenting the detailed analysis and results underpinning these policy recommendations is available as a separate publication. This report highlights some of the key characteristics and causes of poverty in Malawi, and focuses on the main sources of risk affecting households, namely food insecurity and health shocks. Based on these findings, the report goes on to develop a set of policy recommendations for widely shared growth and poverty reduction, and for enabling the most vulnerable to make a living. Finally, the report also provides recommendations for strengthening the monitoring and evaluation systems of poverty reduction strategies, so that policy makers and Malawian society can better track the effectiveness of the policies pursued, and inform future policy choices.
  • Publication
    Zambia : Using Social Safety Nets to Accelerate Poverty Reduction and Share Prosperity
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-03) Tesliuc, Cornelia; Smith, W. James; Sunkutu, Musonda Rosemary
    Despite robust annual growth of 5.7 percent in the recent past, poverty in Zambia remains stubbornly high. The poverty headcount rate is 60 percent (as of 2010), and 39 percent of the population live in extreme poverty, with insufficient consumption to meet their daily minimum food requirements. Chronic malnutrition remains very high, with 47 percent of children under the age of 5 being stunted in 2010, close to the high levels of the early 1990s. The report recommends a unified National Safety Net Program comprising cash transfers and public works to reach the poorest 20 percent of the population. The estimated cost is about US$100 million per year. This is less than 2 percent of public spending and around 15 percent of the current subsidies programs benefiting the non-poor.
  • Publication
    Lesotho - Sharing Growth by Reducing Inequality and Vulnerability : Choices for Change A Poverty, Gender, and Social Assessment
    (World Bank, 2010-06-01) World Bank
    Lesotho began a structural economic transformation in the early 1990s. The transformation has brought higher, more secure incomes to households while the government succeeded in dramatically improving access to services such as education, health, water, and transportation. Yet today, Lesotho faces a number of serious development challenges, including a high rate of chronic poverty, entrenched income inequality, and most troubling one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world. This report focuses on three main areas: i) livelihood patterns among Lesotho's households and how these correlate with opportunity and exclusion; ii) how the government could make access to public services and overall social development more equitable; and iii) how the economic and social vulnerabilities of households, including HIV/AIDS, could be alleviated in order to reduce poverty. In this report concludes that it is possible for Lesotho to reduce poverty and to continue its transition to an economically diverse middle-income country by undertaking three key strategies: continuing to develop the investment climate for labor-intensive production; implementing programs to support commercial agriculture and reduce land degradation in rural areas; and developing a strategy to support socioeconomic and geographic mobility of workers into higher-productivity sectors. Public funds should be better targeted towards assisting the poor to build human capital and manage risks. Other recommendations to improve the plight of the people of Lesotho include creating a more equitable and inclusive society, especially for women, and developing a more effective campaign against HIV/AIDS.
  • Publication
    Mozambique Social Protection Assessment
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-10) Silverio Marques, Jose
    This assessment shows that Mozambique social protection system is developing. While programs to address most of the risks identified exist, there are still major gaps. Poor families with children are not adequately supported, there is no significant youth program, and subsistence farmers and other workers are not properly protected against recurrent shocks. The government spends a considerable amount of its resources on social protection but most are absorbed by untargeted subsidies and pensions that benefit only a few. This assessment suggests that it will be necessary to address three mutually complimentary issues: developing effective mechanisms to maximize the impact of social protection on reducing poverty; rationalizing public expenditures while filling existing program gaps; and strengthening institutional arrangements. In order to address the multiple challenges Mozambique faces to support particularly vulnerable groups and reduce extreme poverty and food insecurity, the report proposes a gradual approach framed in the existing social protection strategy approved by the Government in 2010.
  • Publication
    Nicaragua Social Protection Public Expenditure Review
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-03-12) Marques, Jose Silverio
    This review of public expenditures on Social Protection (SP) in Nicaragua is based on the analytical framework of Social Risk Management (SRM) developed by the World Bank. The concept of managing social risk comes from the notion that certain groups in society are vulnerable to unexpected shocks which threaten their livelihood and/or survival. Social protection focuses on the poor since they are more vulnerable to the risks and normally do not have the instruments to handle these risks. This prevents the poor from taking more risky activities that usually yield higher returns and that could help them overcome gradually their poverty situation. Social risk management involves policies and programs aimed at reducing key risks, breaking inter-generational cycle of poverty and vulnerability. Risk management consists in the choice of appropriate risk prevention, mitigation and coping strategies to minimize the adverse impact of social risks. Social protection under SRM is defined as public interventions to assist individuals, households and communities to better manage risk and provide support to the critically poor. Thus Social protection should provide: a safety net, particularly for the poor that are likely to fall in the cracks of established programs; and a springboard for the poor to bounce out of poverty.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Uganda Systematic Country Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12-04) World Bank Group
    After a destructive civil war and extreme political instability, Uganda began its reconstruction process in 1987. Within the enabling environment of macroeconomic stability, most of the progress on the twin goals was attributable to higher agricultural incomes. Poverty reduction among households primarily engaged in agriculture accounted for 53 percent of the reduction in poverty from 2006 to 2010 and 77 percent of the reduction in poverty from 2010 to 2013. Despite significant progress on the twin goals, vulnerability to poverty in Uganda is high and the sparse social safety nets and limited access to finance have provided little protection. Change in economic and social policies is required to prevent a slowdown in poverty reduction and an increase in vulnerability. In this context, a comprehensive framework based on the three interrelated blocks of growth, inclusion, and sustainability has been used to identify the challenges to and opportunities for ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The first block emphasizes the development of a competitive and resilient private sector to lead the growth process by adequately capitalizing on all the available opportunities. The second block, complementary to the first one, reinforces the need to ensure a fair distribution of the growth dividend across all Ugandans, especially those living in the north and the east, by providing them with access to social and infrastructure services so that they can increase their productive capacity and income generating opportunities. The third block emphasizes the need to undertake the inclusive growth process in a fiscally, socially, and environmentally sustainable manner.
  • Publication
    Indonesia Systematic Country Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-09) World Bank Group
    The systematic country diagnostic (SCD) is designed to identify the most critical binding constraints and opportunities facing Indonesia in ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. In line with the World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) new country engagement model, the findings of the SCD will provide inputs for the preparation of the country partnership framework (CPF), which will outline the WBG’s engagement with Indonesia to achieve the twin goals. This SCD has four main conceptual elements. First, analyze past trends in growth, poverty, and inequality to highlight the deep drivers. Second, identify the key channels for reducing poverty and boosting the prosperity of the Bottom 40 percent. Third, highlight the major challenges and opportunities along each of the key channels, and finally identify prioritized areas of intervention to accelerate progress toward ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity for each of the channels identified.
  • Publication
    Greener Is Not Always Pricier
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-30) Bello, Ridwan Bolaji; Kassim, Olanrewaju; Bello, Sodiq Oladayo
    Voluntary ecolabeling programs have gained popularity in the tourism industry as initiatives for promoting ecofriendly practices among tourism firms. Yet, for these programs to appeal to firms, it is crucial that they generate positive market benefits for ecolabeled firms. This paper studies the effect of a sustainable tourism label on prices of hotel firms. It uses hotel listing data collected from Booking.com and covering more than 6,000 hotels across 10 popular European cities. The paper finds that the presence of the ecolabel is associated with a price premium of approximately 10 percent in the full sample. However, point estimates of this premium vary across cities, from a low of 1 percent in Venice to a high of 22 percent in London. As a novel contribution, the paper shows that the ecolabel delivers a quantitatively and statistically significant price premium only in cities where tourism (destination) competitiveness is high and ecolabel attainment is low. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for firms and policymakers in the industry.
  • Publication
    Systematic Country Diagnostic of Senegal
    (World Bank, Dakar, 2018-10-04) World Bank Group
    This SCD argues that, against a historical backdrop of lackluster economic growth and poverty reduction, Senegal has progressively achieved since 2010 a structural turnaround in its economic performance, based on enhanced international competitiveness and, incipient demographic transition, with tangible impacts on poverty.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.