Many researchers have shown that Brazil?s Bolsa Família programme had a large impact on reducing poverty and income inequality. But evidence for the programme?s impact on educational outcomes is in short supply. Does Bolsa Família increase school enrolment? Does it reduce dropout rates? Does...

Though it is classified as an upper middle-income country and has an estimated annual gross national income (GNI) per capita of US$4,210, Namibia still faces the twin problems of relatively high levels of poverty and high income inequality. Difficult economic times began in 2008 as real economic...

By the second half of 2006, Brazil?s Bolsa Família Programme (Programa Bolsa Família, PBF) had reached its pre-fixed target of covering 11 million families. That target was revised in January 2009, when an increase in coverage was authorised, expanding it to 12.5 million. Since the PBF?s...

Our research indicates that Petrobras Biocombustíveis can help alleviate poverty among small-scale family farmers by enhancing stakeholder integration into the Brazilian biodiesel programme. This corroborates numerous studies pointing out the importance of stakeholder networks (Rowley, 1997;...

The intensity and magnitude of large-scale land acquisition in Africa over the past decade is putting severe pressure on the demand for land and the quality of land available for less powerful users. The most heavily targeted countries are DRC, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Sudan, Tanzania...

Aid disbursements to Namibia, historically one of the main recipients of official development assistance (ODA) in Africa, are projected to decline over the next few years. Namibia aspires to become a prosperous sand industrialised country and to be ranked among the developed countries of the...

Peripheral countries usually encounter significant economic problems as a result of external factors. Brazil is an example, since its economy has always been extremely affected by international crises. The external debt crisis of the 1980s and the ?financial globalisation? crisis in the 1990s...

In the remarkable expansion of anti-poverty transfer programmes in developing countries in the last decade, human development income transfer programmes, popularly known as conditional cash transfers, have played a very significant role. Their corefeature combines income transfers to households...

One Pager No. 218 ? The Old-age Allowance Programme in Bangladesh: Challenges and Lessons By Sharifa Begum, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and Dharmapriya Wesumperuma, HelpAge International, East Asia Pacific Regional Development Centre The Old-age Allowance Programme of...

One Pager No. 217 ? The Challenges of the Old-age Allowance System in Thailand By Worawet Suwanrada, College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University and Dharmapriya Wesumperuma, HelpAge International, East Asia Pacific Regional Development Centre The old-age allowance system in Thailand...