The paper uses harmonized household
survey micro-data to assess the levels and determinants of
economic inequality in 12 Arab countries. It focuses on the
sources of rural-urban, as well as
metropolitan-nonmetropolitan, inequalities and applies the
unconditional quantile regression decomposition technique to
analyze the welfare gaps across the entire distribution. The
analysis finds moderate inequality levels, with the Gini

This paper examines the employment
growth of Indian districts from 2000 to 2010 in the
manufacturing and services sectors. Specialization and
diversity metrics that combine industries in both sectors
are calculated and related to subsequent job growth. The
analysis finds robust and consistent evidence that the
diversity of industries in the district across the two
sectors links to subsequent job growth. Somewhat

This paper documents a significant
impact of climate variation on urbanization in Sub-Saharan
Africa, primarily in more arid countries. By lowering farm
incomes, reduced moisture availability encourages migration
to nearby cities, while wetter conditions slow migration.
The paper also provides evidence for rural-urban income
links. In countries with a larger industrial base, reduced
moisture shrinks the agricultural sector and raises total

This report argues that Middle East and
North Africa (MENA) countries face a critical choice in
their quest for higher private sector growth and more jobs:
promote competition, equal opportunities for all
entrepreneurs and dismantle existing privileges to specific
firms or risk perpetuating the current equilibrium of low
job creation. The report shows that policies which lower
competition in MENA also constrain private sector

Effectively addressing grievances
from people impacted by World Bank projects is a core
component of managing operational risk and improving a
project s results. Grievance redress mechanisms (GRMs) can
be an effective tool for early identification, assessment,
and resolution of complaints on projects. Understanding when
and how a GRM may improve project outcomes can help both
project teams and beneficiaries improve results. However,

This paper develops a dynamic model that
explains the pattern of population and production allocation
in an economy with an urban location and a rural one.
Agglomeration economies make urban dwellers benefit from a
larger population living in the city and urban firms become
more productive when they operate in locations with a larger
labor force. However, congestion costs associated with a too
large population size limit the process of urban-rural

This report was produced for the Global
Program on Forced Displacement and describes why and how to
conduct political economy analysis (PEA) of forced
displacement. It also illustrates how PEA may contribute to
understanding forced displacement crises with nine case
studies: Casamance (Senegal), Colombia, Cote dapos;Ivoire,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, the Philippines,
Somalia, South Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Forced displacement is

This publication is part of a series
aimed at promoting good policies and practices on rural
transport in Africa. A recent review of the status of Rural
Transport Knowledge Products and Practice (Riverson, 2012)
identified a number of knowledge gaps and recommended the
production of working papers to address these. One of these
gaps was the absence of robust tools, including relevant
indicators and instruments, to measure the impact of rural

This issue of Handshake focuses on
natural resource PPPs that are making a difference. In
Cartagena, Colombia, a hybrid public-private agency is
profiled that has standardized water service to residents
while restoring the coast, and in the process, contributed
to political stabilization. Around Africas Lake Victoria, an
environmental management initiative with the potential to
reduce the pollution and resource footprint of industrial

Section one of the papers provides a
brief overview of the relationship between the Sahel region
of Africa and climate variability trends and predictions,
ultimately posing the primary research question of the
study: Is the Sahel region more likely to have a higher
probability of conflict and migration as a result of climate
change and climate change-related events? In section two,
research and analysis aim to identify causal paths between

This paper is part of a larger effort to
document, assess, and promote scalable models and approaches
to empower poor communities to manage a climate and disaster
risk agenda in support of their development goals and to
identify practical ways of getting climate and disaster risk
financing directly to the ground level where impacts are
felt. Social funds, social protection systems and safety
nets, community-driven development (CDD) projects,

The purpose of this report is to
document some of the aforementioned achievements over the
2000-2010 decade and to illustrate their collective impact
on poverty in Bangladesh. Analysis is undertaken to identify
which factors contributed to the rapid decline in poverty
over time. The main limitation of this report is that the
analysis is based on a limited number of data sources, which
do not cover all aspects of the poverty reduction process.