In the literature on the religious contribution to health and development, it is commonly stated that faith-inspired institutions (FIIs) provide from 30 to 70 per cent of all health care provision in Africa. This article tracks the sources of such statements back to the 1960s, highlighting a...

The book, public finance for poverty reduction, includes a series of papers that were prepared in the context of a World Bank Institute (WBI) public finance The book, public finance for poverty reduction, includes a series of papers that were prepared in the context of a WBI public finance...

Conflict and political instability have weakened Guinea-Bissau's productive infrastructure considerably during the past three decades. This situation contributes to an increase in the degree of vulnerability of the population, especially in rural areas where most economic activities continue to...

The objective of this volume is to assess the relationships between growth and poverty reduction on the basis of a number of case studies, all but one of which are based on recent household survey data. The first part of the volume presents data on Ghana and Senegal, two countries that have...

The papers in this volume examine the links between gender, time use, and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. They contribute to a broader definition of poverty to include time poverty, and to a broader definition of work to include household work. The papers present a conceptual framework linking...

Relying on contributions from the International Movement ATD Fourth World, this book deals with questions such as: What does it mean to live in poverty, and especially in extreme poverty? How can very poor people be reached through development projects? How can we assess whether projects succeed...

While consumer utility subsidies are widespread in both the water and electricity sectors, their effectiveness in reaching and distributing resources to the poor is the subject of much debate. This publication brings together empirical evidence on subsidy performance across a wide range of...

This report consists of a collection of case studies from Latin America combining qualitative and quantitative research methods for the analysis of poverty within a social exclusion framework. The first chapter provides an overview of the differences between quantitative and qualitative methods,...

To improve the likelihood of reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), or more generally to improve their social indicators, countries (or states and provinces within countries) basically have two options: increasing the inputs used to "produce" the outcomes measured by the MDGs, or...

A limitation of most empirical cross-country studies that focus on determinants of gross domestic product (GDP) is that they fail to distinguish explicitly between inputs used in production and conditions that facilitate production. For example, physical capital, human capital, and labor are...