As of February 18, 2015 Liberia has reported over 9,000 cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), and 3,900 deaths. Since the previous round of data collection, in December 2014, Liberia continues to show progress toward getting to zero cases, and in the 21 days leading up to January 28, there were only 20 confirmed cases nationally, down from 92 in the 21 days ending on December 31, 2014, and a high of 546 in late August and early September.
... Voir la suite It is believed that all those currently infected are seeking care in Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs), some of which have begun to close in recent weeks as a result of declining need. The World Bank Group, with the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services and the Gallup Organization, has continued to monitor the socio-economic impacts of EVD on households through a series of mobile-phone surveys conducted in October, November, and December 2014, and January 2015. As the health crisis continues to abate in Liberia, it will be crucial to tackle the important medium- and long-term economic and welfare impacts of Ebola on households. As Liberia continues on the path to eradicating Ebola, it will be important to identify and support those who are most vulnerable to the sluggish economy and whose long-term welfare may be negatively impacted by coping decisions made in the name of immediate stability. As households send their children back to school in the next month, the World Bank Group and partners will continue to monitor the crisis and work to support the Liberian government and its people as they move into economic recovery.
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The need for safety nets in Sub-Saharan Africa is vast. In addition to being the world?s poorest region, Sub-Saharan Africa is also one of the most unequal.
... Voir la suite In this context, redistribution must be seen as a legitimate way to fight poverty and ensure shared prosperity, and all the more so in countries where growth is driven by extractive industries that are not labor-intensive and often employ very few poor people. Given that most African countries face difficult decisions about how to allocate limited resources among a number of social programs, evidence is important. Do Safety Net programs actually benefit the poorest people? This book demonstrates with empirical evidence that it is possible to reach the poorest and most vulnerable people with safety net programs, and provides lessons for the effective use of targeting methods to achieve this outcome in the region. The book's introduction presents the rationale for targeting safety net programs to households that are chronically food insecure or vulnerable to food insecurity. A chapter on methods outlines the various ways that targeting can be carried out, along with providing technical details on proxy means test (PMT) and PMTplus methods. Seven case studies (Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, and Senegal) are then presented that document a variety of approaches and experiences in country targeting eff orts, taking into account country needs and existing programs. Each case study covers the extent of poverty and current safety net coverage, available data, targeting indicators chosen, procedures for long-term (and, in some cases, short-term) targeting, ex ante evaluation of targeting mechanisms, and key lessons learned. In the conclusion, the report discusses future challenges in regarding investments in data, procedures, and methods to improve program targeting. Particular emphasis is placed on the need for countries to invest in targeting methods and procedures to safeguard households against exposure to the negative short-term shocks that are prevalent in African countries.
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Publication 94117 JAN 26, 2015
del Ninno, Carlo [editor]; Mills, Bradford [editor]
The economic impact of Ebola survey is a high frequency cell phone survey designed to monitor the socio-economic impacts of the ongoing Ebola crisis in Liberia.
... Voir la suite The survey has been conducted in three rounds from October to December 2014. The sample is based on the nationally representative household income and expenditure survey (HIES) implemented from February to August 2014 by the Liberia institute of statistics and geo-information services (LISGIS). This effort was designed to provide rapid indicators of well-being from households across the country at a time when conducting a traditional face-to-face survey is extremely challenging. The survey was conducted by phone, and attempted to contact all households that participated in the HIES and for which cell phone numbers were recorded. As in the previous two rounds, low response rates hinder the representativeness of the survey. The report begins with an update of the situation in Liberia with regards to the Ebola virus disease (EVD) crisis and response at the time of the third round of data collection (December 2 - 8, 2014). This was followed by updates on employment, prices, food security, and migration. About three-quarters of households indicated that they were worried at some point in the previous week that they will not have enough to eat. Around two-thirds of households responded that they were not able to purchase enough rice to meet their needs in the previous two weeks, and nearly 80 percent of those cited a lack of money as the main reason.
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The majority of Papua New Guinea's population lives in rural areas, largely dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Coffee and cocoa are the main cash crops, with half of the country's total workforce involved in their production, processing, and sale.
... Voir la suite Despite its importance, the quality and productivity of Papua New Guinea's coffee has been declining, largely due to a lack of replanting, limited incentives for smallholder farmers, and poor access to markets. The cocoa industry has been experiencing similar issues in addition to the threat posed by the cocoa pod borer. The Productive Partnerships in Agriculture Project (PPAP) aims to combat these problems in order to improve the livelihoods of smallholder cocoa and coffee producers, and promote rural development and poverty reduction more broadly.
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Solomon Islands is at high risk to natural hazards. Located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and within the cyclone belt, it is one of the 20 countries in the world most vulnerable to economic risk exposure caused by geological, hydrological and climatic hazards.
... Voir la suite This includes tropical cyclones, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, floods and droughts. There have been seven major disasters triggered by natural hazards in the past 30 years, causing loss of life and having a severe and adverse impact on the economy each time. Modelling predicts natural hazards and climate change will lead to an average direct loss of US$20.5 million - or 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) - annually for the next 50 years. In April 2014, 23 people, predominantly women and children, lost their lives after a low depression caused flooding that swept through Honiara and the Guadalcanal Plains. Total damage and losses from the floods is estimated at US$108 million or 9.2 percent of GDP.
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Malnutrition is one of India's most serious and persistent problems. While nutrition outcomes across India are poor, they are typically worse in tribal and backward areas.
... Voir la suite The South Asia food and nutrition security initiative (SAFANSI) has provided funding to the national rural livelihoods mission (NRLM) to strengthen the capacity of government and or communities to deliver effective food and nutrition security interventions in tribal and conflict-affected areas. This study seeks to examine how the NRLM can enhance the effectiveness of the program's core livelihoods focus, while strengthening the capacity of the Government of India (GoI) to deliver (or support) effective food and nutrition security (FNS) interventions in tribal and backward areas. In order to make sustainable and positive changes going forward, it will be critical to support FNS as a core approach for tribal areas. Empowered self-help groups can bridge service delivery gaps, increase awareness and utilization of programs, or advocate for improved coverage and service quality.
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Malnutrition is responsible for nearly half (45 percent) of all deaths in children under five. Children who are undernourished between conception and age two are at high risk for impaired cognitive development, which adversely affects the countrys productivity and growth.
... Voir la suite The World Bank is supporting nutrition-related interventions through multiple projects. For example, the PNPM Generasi Sehat dan Cerdas (National Program for Community Empowerment, Healthy and Bright Generation) has set nutrition-sensitive targets including improving the use of maternal and child health services and consumption of Vitamin A for children under five. In 2014, PNPM Generasi is expected to extend to three more provinces, and to include a new focus on stunting reduction by providing IYCF (Infant and Young Child Feeding) training to service providers and community volunteers to improve their counseling skills. In the PKH/Program Keluarga Harapan, a conditional cash transfer is being piloted to focus on improving the health and education services utilization including prenatal and postnatal check-ups, professionally attended birth, growth promotion and monitoring, Vitamin A supplementation, etc. At the policy level, the World Bank is supporting the Review of Double Burden of Malnutrition (DBM) in Indonesia to discuss the magnitude and causes of this emerging problem, and to improve the capacity and governance to address the DBM in the country.
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This paper investigates the link between competitive, well-functioning food markets and consumer welfare. The paper explores two key food markets in Kenya -- sugar and maize -- and argues that a variety of factors conspire to distort market prices upward.
... Voir la suite Distortionary factors include import tariff policy, nontariff barriers, potential anticompetitive conduct by firms, and direct state intervention in markets. Changes in sugar and maize prices are shown to have significant welfare effects on consumers. Equivalent income effects are estimated using the most recent available representative household survey data -- the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey 2005/06. The paper shows that relaxing trade barriers to allow sugar prices to fall by 20 percent could reduce poverty by 1.5 percent. Similarly, adjusting government interventions in the maize market, which have been shown to inflate maize prices by 20 percent on average, could reduce poverty by 1.8 percent. The magnitude of the estimated income effects may vary based on updated household-level consumption data, assumptions regarding demand elasticities, and estimates of import parity prices for these staples. However, in all the scenarios, more competitive prices have a larger average effect on the poorest households in urban and rural areas, supporting the relevance of effective competition policies for poverty reduction strategies.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7179 JAN 01, 2015
Does the same question asked of the same population yield the same answer in face-to-face interviews when other parts of the questionnaire are altered?
... Voir la suite If not, what would be the implications for proxy-based poverty measurement? Relying on a randomized household survey experiment implemented in Malawi, this study finds that observationally equivalent as well as same households answer the same questions differently when interviewed with a short questionnaire versus the longer counterpart that, in a prior survey round, would have informed the prediction model for a proxy-based poverty measurement exercise. The analysis yields statistically significant differences in reporting between the short and long questionnaires across all topics and types of questions. The reporting differences result in significantly different predicted poverty rates and Gini coefficients. While the difference in predictions ranges from approximately 3 to 7 percentage points depending on the model specification, restricting the proxies to those collected prior the variation in questionnaire design, namely demographic variables from the household roster and location fixed effects, leads to same predictions in both samples. The findings emphasize the need for further methodological research, and suggest that short questionnaires designed for proxy-based poverty measurement should be piloted, prior to implementation, in parallel with the longer questionnaire from which they have evolved. The fact that at the median it took 25 minutes to complete the food and non-food consumption sections in the long questionnaire also implies that the implementation of these sections might not be as overly costly as usually assumed.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7182 JAN 01, 2015
The South Asia Food & Nutrition Security Initiative was established in 2010 to address the South Asian Enigma - how chronic malnutrition remains intractable despite high economic growth - by fostering the crosscutting actions that will lead to measurable improvements in food and nutrition security.
... Voir la suite Since its formation in 2010, it has financed 53 activities, of which 21 are complete and 32 are under way. Looking back at the portfolio since its inception, one can see a trend. Its team started at the national, and even the international level, undertaking analyses and engaging governments on food and nutrition security issues. The high-level dialogue has yielded results with a Nutrition Action Framework in Afghanistan supported by five key ministries; food and nutrition data and priorities incorporated into Bangladesh's current Five Year Plan; a multi-sector food security and nutrition report produced as a joint effort by multiple organizations. SAFANSI's work at the national level, the community level, its focus on women, and activities in agriculture are reviewed in detail. Tools which have been created for practitioners by the development community and client governments are also highlighted.
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The development objective of the Forest Investment Program : Enhancing Natural Forest and Agro-forest Landscapes Project for Ghana is to improve forest and tree management practices by cocoa farmers, community resource management area (CREMA) communities, and forest reserve managers to reduce forest loss and degradation in selected landscape corridors in Ghana's high forest zone.
... Voir la suite Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) avoiding environmentally sensitive sites and unnecessary exposure or access to sensitive habitat; consult environmental protection agency (EPA) in the selection and use of such sites; (2) promoting buffer zones along the local streams to ensure their integrity and protection of other aquatic life forms; (3) ensuring that enrichment planting is done in patches of degraded areas along the slopes; (4) maintaining a constant phyto-sanitary observation to help prevent the outbreak and spread of any potential disease and pest into the whole plantation; (5) ensuring appropriate compensations are paid to project affected people (PAPs) as defined in the process framework; (6) educating and training community fire-fighting volunteers on fire hazards, prevention, and use of equipment and implementing regular drills; and (7) encouraging the use of personal protective equipment and apparels such as wellington boots and safety boots, gloves, overalls, and raincoats for field workers.
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Beyond the terrible toll in human lives and suffering, the Ebola epidemic currently afflicting West Africa is already having a measurable economic impact in terms of forgone output, higher fiscal deficits, rising prices, lower real household incomes, and greater poverty.
... Voir la suite These economic impacts include the costs of healthcare and forgone productivity of those directly affected but, more importantly, they arise from choices by others to avoid exposure to the disease, called aversion behavior. This report provides a systematic analysis of the channels of economic impact and the likely magnitude of that impact for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, as well as West Africa as a whole. The short-term (2014) impact of Ebola on economic output is on the order of US$359 million in foregone output in 2013 prices. Two alternative scenarios are used to estimate the medium-term (2015) impact of the epidemic. A low Ebola scenario corresponds to rapid containment within the three most severely affected countries, while high Ebola corresponds to slower containment in the core three countries, with some broader regional contagion. The estimates of the GDP lost as a result of the epidemic in the core three countries for 2015 alone sum to US$97 million under low Ebola (implying some recovery from 2014), and US$809 million under high Ebola (in 2013 dollars). Over the medium term, however, both epidemiological and economic contagion in the broader sub-region of West Africa is likely. This report uses a multi-country general equilibrium model to estimate the medium-term impact on output for West Africa as a whole. Under low Ebola, the loss in GDP for the sub-region is estimated to be US$2.2 billion in 2014 and US$1.6 billion in 2015. Under high Ebola, the estimates are US$7.4 billion in 2014, and US$25.2 billion in 2015. This analysis shows that the economic impacts are already very serious in the core three countries, particularly Liberia and Sierra Leone, and could become catastrophic under a slow-containment, high Ebola scenario. In broader regional terms, the economic impacts could be limited if immediate national and international responses succeed in containing the epidemic and mitigating aversion behavior. If, on the other hand, the epidemic spreads into neighboring countries, some of which have much larger economies, the cumulative two-year impact could reach US$32.6 billion by the end of 2015, almost 2.5 times the combined 2013 GDP of the core three countries.
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Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) daily economic news are as follows: financial markets; high income economies; and developing economies in Europe and Central Asia; Latin America and Caribbean; and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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As of early November, 2014, Liberia has had nearly 7,000 cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) and more than 2,500 deaths. Many of the cases have occurred in the poorest and most densely populated areas of the capital city, Monrovia, but all counties have now been affected by EVD.
... Voir la suite In an effort to measure the economic impact of EVD on Liberian households, the World Bank, with the Liberian Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services and the Gallup Organization, has conducted two rounds of mobile-phone surveys, in October and November 2014. Based on these results, it is clear that the EVD has substantially impacted the Liberian economy across all sectors of employment, in both affected and non-affected counties. In all, nearly half of the working population of Liberia is no longer working since the crisis began. Those engaged in self-employment activities have been the hardest hit, in large part due to the closure of markets in which they operate. Before the crisis, over 30 percent of working household heads were self-employedas of this latest survey, this is down to just above 10 percent. The wage employment sector has also seen substantial job losses, with only about half of those originally surveyed still working since the crisis unfolded. The main reason cited by respondents is that their business or government office is closed; illness-related absence was only named by a small percentage of respondents.
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This paper assesses the impact of three methodologies of food data collection on the welfare distribution, and poverty and inequality measures in Niger.
... Voir la suite The first methodology is a 7-day recall period, the second one is a usual month, and the third one is a 7-day diary. The paper finds that there is a difference in the distribution of welfare between, on the one hand, the two first methodologies (7-day recall and a usual month, which give results close to each other) and, on the other hand, the 7-day diary method. When considering annual per capita consumption, the 7-day diary lags the 7-day recall by 28 percent. This gap is not only at the mean of the distribution, it has been found at any level. These differences lead to differences in poverty and inequality measures even when alternate poverty lines are used. This study underscores the problem that many developing countries face when it comes to monitoring poverty indicators over time where different methodologies have been used over the years.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7090 NOV 01, 2014
This paper shows how a developing country, Lao PDR, imports high glutinous rice prices by exporting its staple food to neighboring countries, Vietnam and Thailand.
... Voir la suite Lao PDR has extensive export controls on rice, generating a sizable difference between domestic and international prices. Controls are relaxed after good harvests, leading to a surge in exports early in the season and rapidly rising prices later in the year. There is thus a strong case for removal of trade restrictions since they give rise to price spikes, keep the long-term price of glutinous rice low, and thereby hinder increases in income from agriculture. Although this is a case study of Lao PDR, the findings may equally apply to other developing countries that export their staple food.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7119 NOV 01, 2014
The second phase of the National Agricultural Technology Program (NATP-2) for Bangladesh will increase the agricultural productivity of smallholder farms and improve smallholders' access to markets in selected districts.
... Voir la suite The sub-projects proposed to be supported under the NATP-2 involve use of natural resources (soil, water, biodiversity) and may have an impact on these natural resources and on the surrounding environment through over exploitation and waste generation. The project affects the environmental baseline of the following sectors: agriculture, livestock and fisheries. This report highlights the key environmental issues in each sector. The climate change impacts and adaptation needs specific to the three sectors are also highlighted. Negative impacts to the agriculture sector include stress on water resources, occurrence of drought, arsenic contamination, nutrient and pest management, post-harvest losses and processing. Negative impacts to the livestock sector include scarcity of fodder, under-utilization of dung, loss of biodiversity, public health risk, air pollution, and poor hygiene. Negative impacts to the fisheries sector include feeding practices, processing, and fish diversity. Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to the impact of climate change for the reasons it is a low-lying and very flat country which is subject to riverine flooding and vulnerable to sea level rise, and because a large portion of its population is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. To mitigate these environmental impacts, the program lists activities that are not supported by sub-projects under the NATP-2. The mitigating factors include: a) activities that involve drainage of wetlands for agricultural use; b) activities that involve pesticides that fall in WHO classes IA, IB and II and pesticides banned by the Government of Bangladesh; c) activities involving significant conversion or degradation of critical natural habitats; d) activities within Protected Areas (Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks); and d) withdrawal of groundwater for irrigation that contain arsenic higher than national standard (currently 50 ppb).
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