Publication: Recession, Recovery and Poverty in Moldova
Abstract
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moldova faced the deepest and most prolonged recession among transition countries, and the resulting increase in poverty has made it the poorest country in Europe today. The main objective of this report is to update and assess poverty in Moldova in its multiple dimensions, with a view to informing public policies. It focuses on the period of recession that followed the Russian crisis and the subsequent recovery. It draws mainly on the Household Budget Surveys, collected quarterly by the Department of Statistics and Sociology, between 1997 and 2002, although the analysis is supplemented as needed by information from other surveys collected by Moldova's Department of Statistic s and Sociology, from administrative data sources, from existing qualitative studies, and from studies by local researchers and other donor organizations. It should be noted that the HBS is a population based survey. By providing detailed information on the consumption of households, it permits an analysis of income (consumption) based welfare. In addition, by providing information on those who do not use public services or programs, in addition to those who do, it provides additional value to administrative data in the analysis of non-income dimensions of poverty such as access to health care or education. As such, the distribution of users of public services such as health care services (for example by rural and urban location) is likely to be different from that obtained from administrative data (typically based on information from facilities). Finally, due to data limitations, the analysis focuses on the Right Bank of Moldova.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2004. Recession, Recovery and Poverty in Moldova. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14424 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Armenia : Poverty Assessment, Volume 2. Main Report(Washington, DC, 2003-11)This report reviews poverty in Armenia in 2001, and examines the most recent trends covering the 1998/99 to 2001 period. It looks at the determinants of poverty, and analyzes linkages between economic growth, sector policies and poverty. The findings are based on two rounds of the Armenia Integrated Living Conditions Survey (ILCS), one carried out in 1998/99, and the other in 2001. The report has contributed to the development of Armenia's national strategy for growth and poverty reduction. Poverty is high in Armenia, with an estimated 48 percent of the population below the poverty line in 2001. Despite some 20 percent still living in extreme poverty, there has been nonetheless, a significant decline in poverty, as poverty incidence dropped by 12 percent, and extreme poverty incidence by 25 percent from their respective levels in 1998/99. There is a strong correlation between poverty and low educational attainment, while the unemployed and non-participants in the labor market, face the highest poverty risk, depth and severity of poverty. In rural areas, poverty is positively correlated with the size of landholdings. The drop in poverty reflects a decline in urban poverty since 1998/99. Rural poverty has increased slightly. Yerevan, the capital and largest urban area in Armenia, registered the most significant reduction in poverty, as poverty incidence there dropped by 23 percent and extreme poverty by over a third, to 45 percent and 20 percent, respectively. While poverty in other urban areas also decreased, their poverty incidence still remains above the national rate, at 52 percent. Poverty incidence is now roughly the same in urban and rural areas, 48.5 percent and 47.9 percent, respectively. Government policies aimed at macroeconomic stability and diversification of the economy should be pursued, and, recommendations further include increasing the level and quality of education, and ensuring better health for all, critical to reduce poverty. Concerning social protection, consideration should be given to expanding it to cover most of the extremely poor, as well as refining targeting mechanisms.Publication Malawi Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment : Investing in Our Future, Synthesis Report(Washington, DC, 2007-12)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 Kenya - Poverty and Inequality Assessment : Executive Summary and Synthesis Report(World Bank, 2009-04-01)This assessment of poverty and inequality comes at an important juncture for Kenya. The December 2007 elections and subsequent pronouncements of the newly formed Grand Coalition have underlined the salience of these issues to ordinary Kenyans, and for policy makers. The violence in early 2008 highlighted the importance of addressing poverty and inequality as major goals in their own right, but also for instrumental reasons, as major goals in their own right, the persistent inequalities spark conflict, which is welfare reducing, and this conflict in turn will harm prospects for growth. The onset of the global credit crunch has also shown how poverty and public service delivery related vulnerabilities could be exacerbated by external shocks. Cumulatively, these factors underline the value of appropriate diagnostics about the patterns of poverty and inequality in informing public debates, strategies and actions to overcome exclusion from the benefits of growth and development in Kenya as well as designing policies to minimize the impact of the current global crisis.Publication China - From Poor Areas to Poor People : China’s Evolving Poverty Reduction Agenda - An Assessment of Poverty and Inequality in China(World Bank, 2009-03-01)China's progress in poverty reduction over the last 25 years is enviable. One cannot fail to be impressed by what this vast nation of 1.3 billion people has achieved in so little time. In terms of a wide range of indicators, the progress has been remarkable. Poverty in terms of income and consumption has been dramatically reduced. Progress has also been substantial in terms of human development indicators. Most of the millennium development goals have either already been achieved or the country is well on the way to achieving them. As a result of this progress, the country is now at a very different stage of development than it was at the dawn of the economic reforms at the beginning of the 1980s. China's poverty reduction performance has been even more striking. Between 1981 and 2004, the fraction of the population consuming below this poverty line fell from 65 percent to 10 percent, and the absolute number of poor fell from 652 million to 135 million, a decline of over half a billion people. The most rapid declines in poverty, in both the poverty rate and the number of poor, occurred during the 6th, 8th, and 10th plans. During the 7th plan period the number of poor actually rose, while in the 9th plan period, the poverty rate declined only marginally. But the pace of poverty reduction resumed between 2001 and 2004 and there are indications that during the first couple of years of the 11th plan poverty has continued to decline rapidly. The most recent official estimate of rural poverty in China for 2007 puts the number of poor at 14.79 million, or less than 2 percent of the rural population. While there is no official urban poverty line, estimates by others have found poverty levels in urban areas to be negligible using an urban poverty line that is comparable to the official poverty line for rural areas. These estimates thus suggest that only about 1 percent of China's population is currently in extreme poverty. Notwithstanding this tremendous success, the central thesis of this report is that the task of poverty reduction in many ways continues and in some respects has become more demanding.Publication China - From Poor Areas to Poor People : China’s Evolving Poverty Reduction Agenda - An Assessment of Poverty and Inequality in China(World Bank, 2009-03-05)China's progress in poverty reduction over the last 25 years is enviable. One cannot fail to be impressed by what this vast nation of 1.3 billion people has achieved in so little time. In terms of a wide range of indicators, the progress has been remarkable. Poverty in terms of income and consumption has been dramatically reduced. Progress has also been substantial in terms of human development indicators. Most of the millennium development goals have either already been achieved or the country is well on the way to achieving them. As a result of this progress, the country is now at a very different stage of development than it was at the dawn of the economic reforms at the beginning of the 1980s. China's poverty reduction performance has been even more striking. Between 1981 and 2004, the fraction of the population consuming below this poverty line fell from 65 percent to 10 percent, and the absolute number of poor fell from 652 million to 135 million, a decline of over half a billion people. The most rapid declines in poverty, in both the poverty rate and the number of poor, occurred during the 6th, 8th, and 10th plans. During the 7th plan period the number of poor actually rose, while in the 9th plan period, the poverty rate declined only marginally. But the pace of poverty reduction resumed between 2001 and 2004 and there are indications that during the first couple of years of the 11th plan poverty has continued to decline rapidly. The most recent official estimate of rural poverty in China for 2007 puts the number of poor at 14.79 million, or less than 2 percent of the rural population. While there is no official urban poverty line, estimates by others have found poverty levels in urban areas to be negligible using an urban poverty line that is comparable to the official poverty line for rural areas. These estimates thus suggest that only about 1 percent of China's population is currently in extreme poverty. Notwithstanding this tremendous success, the central thesis of this report is that the task of poverty reduction in many ways continues and in some respects has become more demanding.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication Supporting Youth at Risk(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)The World Bank has produced this policy Toolkit in response to a growing demand from our government clients and partners for advice on how to create and implement effective policies for at-risk youth. The author has highlighted 22 policies (six core policies, nine promising policies, and seven general policies) that have been effective in addressing the following five key risk areas for young people around the world: (i) youth unemployment, underemployment, and lack of formal sector employment; (ii) early school leaving; (iii) risky sexual behavior leading to early childbearing and HIV/AIDS; (iv) crime and violence; and (v) substance abuse. The objective of this Toolkit is to serve as a practical guide for policy makers in middle-income countries as well as professionals working within the area of youth development on how to develop and implement an effective policy portfolio to foster healthy and positive youth development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-21)This report provides an up-to-date overview of existing and emerging carbon pricing instruments around the world, including international, national, and subnational initiatives. It also investigates trends surrounding the development and implementation of carbon pricing instruments and some of the drivers seen over the past year. Specifically, this report covers carbon taxes, emissions trading systems (ETSs), and crediting mechanisms. Key topics covered in the 2024 report include uptake of ETSs and carbon taxes in low- and middle- income economies, sectoral coverage of ETSs and carbon taxes, and the use of crediting mechanisms as part of the policy mix.Publication Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Fall 2024: Better Education for Stronger Growth(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-17)Economic growth in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) is likely to moderate from 3.5 percent in 2023 to 3.3 percent this year. This is significantly weaker than the 4.1 percent average growth in 2000-19. Growth this year is driven by expansionary fiscal policies and strong private consumption. External demand is less favorable because of weak economic expansion in major trading partners, like the European Union. Growth is likely to slow further in 2025, mostly because of the easing of expansion in the Russian Federation and Turkiye. This Europe and Central Asia Economic Update calls for a major overhaul of education systems across the region, particularly higher education, to unleash the talent needed to reinvigorate growth and boost convergence with high-income countries. Universities in the region suffer from poor management, outdated curricula, and inadequate funding and infrastructure. A mismatch between graduates' skills and the skills employers are seeking leads to wasted potential and contributes to the region's brain drain. Reversing the decline in the quality of education will require prioritizing improvements in teacher training, updated curricula, and investment in educational infrastructure. In higher education, reforms are needed to consolidate university systems, integrate them with research centers, and provide reskilling opportunities for adult workers.