This study seeks to examine how
National Rural Livelihoods Mission or NRLM may be leveraged
to improve food and nutrition security (FNS) in tribal
areas, preferably in a manner that would enhance the
effectiveness of the program's core livelihoods focus.
More broadly, the objective is to strengthen the capacity of
the Government of India (GoI) to deliver (or support)
effective FNS interventions in tribal and backward areas

Nonseparable household models outline
the links between agricultural production and household
consumption, yet empirical extensions to investigate the
effect of production on dietary diversity and diet
composition are limited. Although a significant literature
has investigated the calorie-income elasticity abstracting
from production, this paper provides an empirical
application of the nonseparable household model linking the

According to global spatial data sets in
2000 more than one-third of the rural population in
developing countries was located on less favored
agricultural land and areas. Less favored agricultural lands
are susceptible to low productivity and degradation, because
their agricultural potential is constrained biophysically by
terrain, poor soil quality, or limited rainfall. Less
favored agricultural areas include less favored agricultural

Is Africa's rural economy
transforming as its economies grow? This paper uses
comparable income aggregates from 41 national household
surveys from 22 countries to explore the extent of income
diversification among rural households in Sub-Saharan
Africa, and to look at how income diversification in
Sub-Saharan Africa compares with other regions, taking into
account differences in levels of development. The paper also

This report is the most recent in a
series aimed at monitoring economic developments in Ghana
and has two sections. The first section summarizes the
recent macroeconomic developments in the country while the
second section presents the main findings on poverty and
employment published recently by the Ghana statistical
service. Ghana s overall macroeconomic conditions have
deteriorated further in 2014 with large twin-deficits

Myanmar is a low-income agrarian country
with a high poverty rate. The livelihood of many poor people
depends on the performance of agriculture, especially the
rice sector. Rice accounts for 70 percent of Myanmar s total
cultivated area and 30 percent of the value of its
agricultural production. Increasing returns to rice
production will be the key to increasing farm wages and
incomes in the short to medium run. Higher rice production

Despite considerable progress in the
area of environmental management over the last decade,
Colombia still faces significant impacts from population
exposure to urban air pollution, inadequate access to water
supply and sanitation, and indoor air pollution from solid
fuel use. This study estimates that the total health cost
attributable to these three factors amounts to about 10.2
trillion Colombian Pesos (COP) annually, or about 2 percent

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

Previous research on sex-selective
abortions has ignored the interactions between fertility,
birth spacing, and sex selection, despite both fertility and
birth spacing being important considerations for parents
when deciding on the use of sex selection. This paper
presents a novel approach that jointly estimates the
determinants of sex-selective abortions, fertility, and
birth spacing, using data on Hindu women from India's

In this issue: Facilitating labor
migration from the Philippines; Incentives and teacher
effort; Electoral accountability and local public spending
in Indonesia; Why don't poor countries do R&D?; How
effective are efforts to raise voluntary enrollment in
health insurance?; How insecure property rights affect
migration in China; the challenges of public service
delivery in the Pacific Islands.

Economic growth, job creation, and
development are central to the decade of transformation
(2015-25) and long-term security for the people of
Afghanistan. The Bank and the Government of the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) recognize that agriculture
and rural development are a key to inclusive growth, and
hence need renewed vigor and strategic long-term
investments. Further, the Bank and the GoIRA acknowledge

The report begins with a summary of
programs reviewed, a description of the PMT targeting
system, and the profile of individuals in the database. It
then presents key findings from the review of budgets and
the analysis of SW Admin/PMT data on program coverage and
distributional equity of program benefits. The report
concludes with a discussion of policy implications and
recommendations that emerged from the key findings and the