Publication: Extreme Weather and Poverty Risk: Evidence from Multiple Shocks in Mozambique
Loading...
Published
2019-03
ISSN
Date
2019-03-13
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Thanks to strong economic growth over the last two decades, poverty in Mozambique has decreased and the average household is now more likely to access basic education, health, and housing. Yet, the country is still ravaged by intense and frequent weather disasters. To determine the scale and nature of the impacts of these shocks, this paper analyzes the vulnerability of rural livelihoods across three different extreme weather events: droughts, floods and cyclones. The study finds that per capita food and non-food consumption and asset ownership are reduced among households affected by any of the three weather shocks. Their children are less likely to attend school, have a higher probability of falling sick and show higher engagement in paid and unpaid work. What’s more, staple food prices are disrupted and remain affected nearly a year after the disaster. Helping households confront these events requires comprehensive risk management policies, including making agriculture more resilient to weather, improving the functioning of credit and insurance markets, facilitating economic diversification and market access, and increasing the availability of flexible safety nets – all before the shocks occur.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Baez, Javier E.; Caruso, German; Niu, Chiyu. 2019. Extreme Weather and Poverty Risk: Evidence from Multiple Shocks in Mozambique. Poverty and Equity Notes;No. 11. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31381 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 Extreme Weather and Poverty Risk(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-12)This paper investigates the effects of multiple weather shocks on household welfare in Mozambique, as well as some of the coping responses and price mechanisms at play. The analysis employs a triple-difference strategy that exploits variation in the shocks across space, time, and cropping cycles. The findings demonstrate high levels of vulnerability across various weather risks. Experiencing a cyclone, flood, or drought leads to a drop of up to 25-30 percent in per capita food consumption and around 0.4 fewer meals per day per person. Poverty increased by 12 and 17.5 percentage points in two of the three events analyzed. Human capital accumulation, as measured by school participation and morbidity, is disrupted. Households follow risk-coping strategies, such as increasing the labor supply of their children or selling assets, which entail partial protection in the aftermath of the shock at the cost of lower income growth in the future. In disentangling the channels, the paper shows that maize prices exhibit higher volatility in food markets that are spatially close to the most affected areas. The results are robust to several robustness checks, including analysis of bias from selective migration, and indicate that household welfare and economic mobility in low-income environments are constrained by uninsured weather risks.Publication Tracing Back the Weather Origins of Human Welfare(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-08)Mozambique is among the African countries most exposed to weather-related hazards. Using detailed gridded precipitation data for individuals' birth-year and birth-district, this study investigates the effects of extreme rainfall anomalies around the time of birth on long-run well-being. The results show that the socioeconomic outcomes of adults are influenced by weather shocks that occur early in life. Individuals exposed to floods while in utero or during the first year of life are less likely to participate in the labor market. Consequently, the households that they are heading exhibit lower consumption and are more prone to be poor. In disentangling the mechanisms at play, this paper presents suggestive evidence of variation in agricultural output, food security, and subsequent detrimental effects on human capital accumulation as important drivers behind the impacts. The study concludes that policy efforts aimed at accelerating poverty reduction in Mozambique will have to consider the inability of rural households to shield the well-being of children from the consequences of extreme weather shocks.Publication Rural Households in a Changing Climate(2013-01)This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and other environmental factors. Within this framework, the paper examines evidence from existing empirical literature to compose an initial picture of household-level strategies for adapting to climate change in rural settings. The authors find that although households possess numerous strategies for managing climate shocks and shifts, their adaptive capacity is insufficient for the task of maintaining -- let alone improving -- household welfare. They describe the role of public policy in fortifying the ability of rural households to adapt to a changing climate.Publication Gone with the Storm : Rainfall Shocks and Household Well-Being in Guatemala(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-01)This paper investigates the causal consequences of Tropical Storm Agatha (2010) -- the strongest tropical storm ever to strike Guatemala since rainfall records have been kept -- on household welfare. The analysis reveals substantial negative effects, particularly among urban households. Per capita consumption fell by 12.6 percent, raising poverty by 5.5 percentage points (an increase of 18 percent). The negative effects of the shock span other areas of human welfare. Households cut back on food consumption (10 percent or 43 to 108 fewer calories per person per day) and reduced expenditures on basic durables. These effects are related to a drop in income per capita (10 percent), mostly among salaried workers. Adults coped with the shock by increasing their labor supply (on the intensive margin) and simultaneously relying on the labor supply of their children and withdrawing them from school. Impact heterogeneity is associated with the intensity of the shock, food price inflation, and the timing of Agatha with respect to the harvest cycle of the main crops. The results are robust to placebo treatments, household migration, issues of measurement error, and different samples. The negative effects of the storm partly explain the increase in poverty seen in urban Guatemala between 2006 and 2011, which national authorities and analysts previously attributed solely to the collateral effects of the global financial crisis.Publication Potential for Application of a Probabilistic Catastrophe Risk Modelling Framework to Poverty Outcomes(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06)This paper analyzes the potential to combine catastrophe risk modelling (CAT risk modeling) with economic analysis of vulnerability to poverty using the example of drought hazard impacts on the welfare of rural households in Ethiopia. The aim is to determine the potential for applying a derived set of damage (vulnerability) functions based on realized shocks and household expenditure/consumption outcomes, onto a forward-looking view of drought risk. The paper outlines the CAT risk modeling framework and the role of the vulnerability module, which describes the response of an affected exposure to a given hazard intensity. The need to explicitly account for different household characteristics that determine vulnerability within our model is considered, analogous to how a CAT risk model would differentiate damage functions for buildings by different classes of construction. Results for a regression model are presented, estimating ex-post drought impacts on consumption for heterogeneous household types (e.g. with cattle, safety-net access, illness). Next, the validity/generalizability of the derived functions are assessed, to infer applicability of the derived relationships within a CAT risk modelling framework. In particular, the analysis focuses on external validity: whether the relationships established in the dataset can be used for forecasting outside of the sample used for analysis. The model is stress-tested using statistical methods of resampling. This involves randomly splitting the data into “training” and "testing" datasets. The tests show consistency of results across the datasets. Finally, future plans are outlined with regard to developing a fuller catastrophe risk model to combine with the consumption results.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Morocco Economic Update, Winter 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)Despite the drought causing a modest deceleration of overall GDP growth to 3.2 percent, the Moroccan economy has exhibited some encouraging trends in 2024. Non-agricultural growth has accelerated to an estimated 3.8 percent, driven by a revitalized industrial sector and a rebound in gross capital formation. Inflation has dropped below 1 percent, allowing Bank al-Maghrib to begin easing its monetary policy. While rural labor markets remain depressed, the economy has added close to 162,000 jobs in urban areas. Morocco’s external position remains strong overall, with a moderate current account deficit largely financed by growing foreign direct investment inflows, underpinned by solid investor confidence indicators. Despite significant spending pressures, the debt-to-GDP ratio is slowly declining.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic 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 Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)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.