Over the past two decades, Brazil has been employing a very innovative community-driven development (CDD) approach to reducing rural poverty in its Northeast region. These efforts began with a relatively small pilot in the late 1980s, which was then extended to the entire Northeast region in the...

Brazil has developed a community-led, market-based approach to land reform in which poor rural laborers and farmers, either landless or with insufficient land for subsistence, form beneficiary associations through which to obtain financing to buy agricultural properties, for which they negotiate...

The Northeast region of Brazil has long been the single largest pocket of rural poverty in Latin America. With a combined area of 1.6 million square kilometers-16 percent of Brazil's total-the Northeast is home to 45 million people, 28 percent of Brazil's total population , of whom 5.4 million...

The debate on whether natural disasters cause significant macroeconomic impacts and indeed hinder development is ongoing. Most analyses along these lines have focused on impacts on gross domestic product. This paper looks beyond this standard national accounting aggregate, and examines whether...

East Asia has experienced a dramatic decrease in output growth volatility over the past 20 years. This is good news, as output growth volatility affects poor households because of coping strategies that have long-term, harmful consequences, and the overall economy through its negative impact on...