This is an internal status report to ESMAP and Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) which summarizes their ongoing work under a joint energy study entitled INGENS - Income Generation through Energy and. Complementary Services. INGENS has proposed (and started to test) a pragmatic,...

"This paper explores how the elimination of Madagascar's Marketing Board in 1995 affected prices paid to farmers, incentives, and regional indicators of poverty and inequality. After steadily losing market share, Madagascar has been able to regain some of the lost ground since the mid-1990s....

"This paper proposes that individuals care about the relative income of proximate reference groups. Making use of self-reported life satisfaction as a proxy for unobservable utility, the relative income of siblings is tested for relevance as a reference point for new sample data from Venezuela....

"Formal and informal commercial sex work is a way of life for many poor women in developing countries. Though sex workers have long been identified as crucial in affecting the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the nature of sex-for-money transactions remains poorly...

The Philippines regained a modest growth rate of 3.5 percent per annum for 1999-2001, but has not yet managed to reduce the incidence of poverty from its 1996 level. The Medium Term Philippine Development (MTPDP) growth targets of over 5 percent per year are attainable, but only if the key...

This public expenditure review is produced jointly by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, and focuses on social sectors spending and leaves aside infrastructure and other sectors. This report, finalized in June 2002 and discussed with Authorities in mid-August 2002, does not...

This report aims to analyze key aspects of the low-income housing sector in Brazil, and to provide an analytical framework for reviewing alternatives to addressing the lack of adequate formal housing and urban services for the poor. It addresses four fundamental questions for policymakers in the...