Download or read book Left Behind written by Renos Vakis and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One out of every five Latin Americans or around 130 million people have never known anything but poverty, subsisting on less than US$4-a-day throughout their lives. These are the region ́s chronically poor, who have remained so despite unprecedented inroads against poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean since the turn of the century. Left Behind: Chronic Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean takes a closer look at the region’s entrenched poor, who and where they are, and how existing policies need to change in order to effectively assist them. The book shows significant variations of rates of chronic poverty both across and within countries. Within a single country, some regions show incidence rates up to eight times higher than the lowest. Despite the higher rates of chronic poverty in rural areas, chronic poverty is as much an urban as a rural issue. In fact, considering absolute numbers, urban areas in many countries, including Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, have more chronic poor than rural areas. Undoubtedly the region has come a long way during the decade in terms of poverty reduction, guided by a mix of sustained growth and increased levels in amounts and quality of public spending and programs targeted directly or indirectly to the chronic poor. While improving endowments and the context where the chronic poor live is a necessary condition going forward, the decade’s experience suggests that it may not be enough to reach the chronic poor. The book posits that refinements to the existing policy toolkit †“ as opposed to more programs †“ may come a long way in helping the remaining poor. These refinements include intensifying efforts to improve coordination between different social and economic programs, which can boost the income generation process and deal with the intergenerational transmission of chronic poverty by investing in early childhood development. Equally important though, there is an urgent need to adapt programs to directly address the psychological toll of chronic poverty on people’s mindset and aspirations, which currently undermines the effectiveness of the existing policy efforts.

Download or read book Reducing Poverty Protecting Livelihoods and Building Assets in a Changing Climate written by Dorte Verner and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2010-06-25 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is the defining development challenge of our time. More than a global environmental issue, climate change and variability threaten to reverse recent progress in poverty reduction and economic growth. Both now and over the long run, climate change and variability threatens human and social development by restricting the fulfillment of human potential and by disempowering people and communities in reducing their livelihoods options. Communities across Latin America and the Caribbean are already experiencing adverse consequences from climate change and variability. Precipitation has increased in the southeastern part of South America, and now often comes in the form of sudden deluges, leading to flooding and soil erosion that endanger people s lives and livelihoods. Southwestern parts of South America and western Central America are seeing a decrease in precipitation and an increase in droughts. Increasing heat and drought in Northeast Brazil threaten the livelihoods of already-marginal smallholders, and may turn parts of the eastern Amazon rainforest into savannah. The Andean inter-tropical glaciers are shrinking and expected to disappear altogether within the next 20-40 years, with significant consequences for water availability. These environmental changes will impact local livelihoods in unprecedented ways. Poverty, inequality, water access, health, and migration are and will be measurably affected by climate change. Using an innovative research methodology, this study finds quantitative evidence of large variations in impacts across regions. Many already poor regions are becoming poorer; traditional livelihoods are being challenged in unprecedented ways; water scarcity is increasing, particularly in poor arid areas; human health is deteriorating; and climate-induced migration is already taking place and may increase. Successfully reducing social vulnerability to climate change and variability requires action and commitment at multiple levels. This volume offers key operational recommendations at the government, community, and household levels with particular emphasis placed on enhancing good governance and technical capacity in the public sector, building social capital in local communities, and protecting the asset base of poor households.

Download or read book Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Marianne Fay and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews Latin America's experience with infrastructure reform over the last fifteen years. It argues that the region's infrastructure has suffered from public retrenchment and unrealistic expectations about private involvement. Poor infrastructure now hampers productivity, growth, and poverty reduction. Addressing this requires more and better spending, and acceptance that governments remain central to infrastructure provision and supervision, although the private sector still has an important role to play.

Download or read book At a Crossroads written by María Marta Ferreyra and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2017-05-18 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean has expanded dramatically in the past 15 years, as the average gross enrollment rate has more than doubled, and many new institutions and programs have been opened. Although higher education access has become more equitable, and higher education supply has become more varied, many of the 'new' students in the system are, on average, less academically ready than are their more advantaged counterparts. Furthermore, only half of higher education students, on average, complete their degree, and labor market returns to higher education vary greatly across institutions and programs. Thus, higher education is at a crossroads today. Given the region's urgency to raise productivity in a low-growth, fiscally constrained environment, going past this crossroads requires the formation of skilled human capital fast and efficiently. 'At a Crossroads: Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean' contributes to the discussion by studying quality, variety, and equity of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. The book presents comprehensive evidence on the recent higher education expansion and evolution of higher education labor market returns. Using novel data and state-of-the-art methods, it studies demand and supply drivers of the recent expansion. It investigates the behavior of institutions and students and explores the unintended consequences of large-scale higher education policies. Framing the analysis are the singular characteristics of the higher education market and the market segmentation induced by the variety of students and institutions in the system. At this crossroads, a role emerges for incentives, information, accountability, and choice."

Download or read book The Urban Poor in Latin America written by Marianne Fay and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About half of the region's poor live in cities, and policy makers across Latin America are increasingly interested in policy advice on how to design programmes and policies to tackle poverty. This publication argues that the causes of poverty, the nature of deprivation, and the policy levers to fight poverty are, to a large extent, site specific. It therefore focuses on strategies to assist the urban poor in making the most of the opportunities offered by cities, such as larger labour markets and better services, while helping them cope with the negative aspects, such as higher housing costs, pollution, risk of crime and less social capital.

Download or read book New Markets New Opportunities written by Nancy Birdsall and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2001-09-19 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace publication Many of the countries that have recently converted to a market-based economic system have also experienced an alarming increase in income inequality — a widening gap between the haves and have nots. But to what extent is the increase in inequality also increasing the opportunities for economic advancement — particularly for those at the bottom of the economic ladder? Does the creation of greater opportunities make a region's move to the market politically acceptable? And, if opportunities don't increase along with inequality, will it eventually cause a political backlash against a country's market policies? This book highlights the importance of finding the answers to those questions by examining the issues of social mobility and opportunity as an essential part of the income inequality puzzle. It provides a summary of the latest research on the economics and politics of social mobility in both developed and emerging market economies, including the conceptual issues involved and the challenges of accurately documenting trends. The book concludes with a discussion of the economics of opportunity and mobility in Latin America and Eastern Europe, and the politics and perceptions of mobility in the two regions.

Download or read book Adaptive Social Protection written by Thomas Bowen and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2020-06-12 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adaptive social protection (ASP) helps to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to the impacts of large, covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflict, and forced displacement. Through the provision of transfers and services directly to these households, ASP supports their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to the shocks they face—before, during, and after these shocks occur. Over the long term, by supporting these three capacities, ASP can provide a pathway to a more resilient state for households that may otherwise lack the resources to move out of chronically vulnerable situations. Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks outlines an organizing framework for the design and implementation of ASP, providing insights into the ways in which social protection systems can be made more capable of building household resilience. By way of its four building blocks—programs, information, finance, and institutional arrangements and partnerships—the framework highlights both the elements of existing social protection systems that are the cornerstones for building household resilience, as well as the additional investments that are central to enhancing their ability to generate these outcomes. In this report, the ASP framework and its building blocks have been elaborated primarily in relation to natural disasters and associated climate change. Nevertheless, many of the priorities identified within each building block are also pertinent to the design and implementation of ASP across other types of shocks, providing a foundation for a structured approach to the advancement of this rapidly evolving and complex agenda.

Download or read book Rethinking Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Marianne Fay and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2017-08-02 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) does not have the infrastructure it needs, or deserves, given its income. Many argue that the solution is to spend more; by contrast, this report has one main message: Latin America can dramatically narrow its infrastructure service gap by spending efficiently on the right things. This report asks three questions: what should LAC countries’ goals be? How can these goals be achieved as cost-effectively as possible? And who should pay to reach these goals? In doing so, we drop the ‘infrastructure gap’ notion, favoring an approach built on identifying the ‘service gap’. Benchmarking Latin America in this way reveals clear strengths and weaknesses. Access to water and electricity is good, with the potential for the region’s electricity sector to drive competitive advantage; by contrast, transport and sanitation should be key focus areas for further development. The report also identifies and analyses some of the emerging challenges for the region—climate change, increased demand and urbanization—that will put increasing pressure on infrastructure and policy makers alike. Improving the region’s infrastructure performance in the context of tight fiscal space will require spending better on well identified priorities. Unlike most infrastructure diagnostics, this report argues that much of what is needed lies outside the infrastructure sector †“ in the form of broader government issues—from competition policy, to budgeting rules that no longer solely focus on controlling cash expenditures. We also find that traditional recommendations continue to apply regarding independent, well-performing regulators and better corporate governance, and highlight the critical importance of cost recovery where feasible and desirable, as the basis for future commercial finance of infrastructure services. Latin America has the means and potential to do better; and it can do so by spending more efficiently on the right things.

Download or read book Overview of rural poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2019-09-12 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Panorama of Rural Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean 2018, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), addresses the important challenges faced by the region in developing its rural territories to achieve the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly SDG 1 to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. After many years of progress, poverty and extreme rural poverty in the region have started to increase again. This is worrying news for countries of the region and the international community because, if they do not return to the path of rural poverty reduction, millions of people will be excluded from the opportunity to contribute to the development of their families, communities and countries. The 33 Member States of the United Nations in the region have pledged their commitment to eradicating rural poverty by 2030 and, despite the recent trend, it is still possible to achieve this goal. This report also highlights the persistence of significant gaps between rural and urban areas, which is incompatible with sustainable and equitable development. Of the 169 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, 132 require actions that must be carried out in rural territories.

Download or read book The Caribbean written by World Bank and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The countries of the Caribbean region benefit from a number of preferential trade arrangements. In addition to the industrialized countrys' General System of Preferences (GSP) which are applicable to most developing countries, there are some very special arrangements formulated to promote exports from the Caribbean countries -- the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) of the United States, CARIBCAN of Canada, and the much older Lome Conventions of the European Communities, which includes the Caribbean as well as most African and some Pacific countries. Yet, in spite of this preferential treatment, the Caribbean export performance has been worse than the performance of the developing countries as a whole. This report examines the Caribbean export performance in the 1980s in some detail, analyzes the possible reasons behind this performance, and presents some recommendations to improve it. The scope of the analysis in this report is limited to the member countries of the Caribbean Group for Cooperation in Economic Development. This report not only has a Caribbean perspective, it examines all three major arrangements - the CBI, CARIBCAN, and Lome Convention in the environment of both groups and specific exporters in the three different markets. In this way, the greatly varying performances can lead to insights on export performance and ways to improve it.

Download or read book Shared Prosperity and Poverty Eradication in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Louise Cord and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-06-18 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last decade Latin America and the Caribbean region has achieved important progress towards the World Bank Group's goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting income growth of the bottom 40 percent, propelled by remarkable economic growth and falling income inequality. Despite this impressive performance, social progress has not been uniform over this period, and certain countries, subregions and even socioeconomic groups participated less in the growth process. As of today, more than 75 million people still live in extreme poverty in the region (using $2.50/day/capita), half of them in Brazil and Mexico, and extreme poverty rates top 40 percent in Guatemala and reach nearly 60 percent in Haiti. This means that extreme poverty is still an important issue in both low- and middle-income countries in the region. As growth wanes and progress in reducing the still high levels of inequality in the region slows, it will be more important than ever for governments to focus policies on inclusive growth. The book includes an overview that highlights progress towards the goals of poverty eradication and shared prosperity between 2003 and 2012, unpacks recent gains at the household level using an income-based asset model, and examines some of the policy levers used to affect social outcomes in the region. It draws on 13 country studies, eight of which are featured in this volume: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. The other case studies include: Bolivia, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Honduras, which will be included in the web version of the book.

Download or read book Escaping the Poverty Trap written by Amartya Sen and published by IDB. This book was released on 2003 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basing their discussions on the concept of "intergenerational transmission of poverty"--the "process by which poor parents pass on poverty and disadvantage to their children," in the words of editor Moran (until recently a senior economist with the International Development Bank's Sustainable Development Department)--five essays reflect on political, philosophical, social, and other dimensions of investing in early childhood in Latin America. The essays include Amartya Sen's discussion of early childhood investment within the context of the overall development process, as well explorations of the relationship between health, nutrition, and cognitive and social dimensions of poverty; the impact of early childhood investment on economic growth and equity; and the role of the state in marshalling resources for early childhood investment. Distributed by Johns Hopkins U. Press. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Download or read book Commodity Cycles Inequality and Poverty in Latin America written by Mr. Ravi Balakrishnan and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-04-26 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decades, inequality has risen not just in advanced economies but also in many emerging market and developing economies, becoming one of the key global policy challenges. And throughout the 20th century, Latin America was associated with some of the world’s highest levels of inequality. Yet something interesting happened in the first decade and a half of the 21st century. Latin America was the only region in the World to have experienced significant declines in inequality in that period. Poverty also fell in Latin America, although this was replicated in other regions, and Latin America started from a relatively low base. Starting around 2014, however, and even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, poverty and inequality gains had already slowed in Latin America and, in some cases, gone into reverse. And the COVID-19 shock, which is still playing out, is likely to dramatically worsen short-term poverty and inequality dynamics. Against this background, this departmental paper investigates the link between commodity prices, and poverty and inequality developments in Latin America.

Download or read book Institutional Frameworks for Social Policy in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Rodrigo Martínez and published by UN. This book was released on 2018 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword .-- Introduction .-- Part 1. Social policy institutions. -- Chapter I. Institutional framework for social development / Rodrigo Martínez, Carlos Maldonado Valera .-- Chapter II. Social development and social protection institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean: overview and challenges / Rodrigo Martínez, Carlos Maldonado Valera .-- Part 2. Components and institutional framewoek of social protection. -- Chapter III. Labour market regulation and social protection: institutional challenges / Mario D. Velásquez Pinto .-- Chapter IV. Institutional aspects of Latin America's pension systems / Andras Uthoff .-- Chapter V. Care as a pillar of social protection: rights, policies and institutions in Latin America / María Nieves Rico, Claudia Robles .-- Part 3. Policies for specific populations and their institutional framework .-- Chapter VI. Life cycle and social policies: youth institutions in the region / Daniela Trucco .-- Chapter VII. Disability and public policy: institutional progress and challenges in Latin America / Heidi Ullmann .-- Chapter VIII. Latin American Afrodescendants: institutional framework and public policies / Marta Rangel.

Download or read book Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America written by George Psacharopoulos and published by Ashgate Publishing. This book was released on 1996 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indigenous people constitute a large portion of Latin America's population and suffer from severe and widespread poverty. They are more likely than any other groups of a country's population to be poor. This study documents their socioeconomic situation and shows how it can be improved through changes in policy-influenced variables such as education. The authors review the literature of indigenous people around the world and provide a statistical overview of those in Latin America. Case studies profile the indigenous populations in Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, examining their distribution, education, income, labour force participation and differences in gender roles. A final chapter presents recommendations for conducting future research.

Download or read book Globalization and Development written by José Antonio Ocampo and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Globalization and Development draws upon the experiences of the Latin American and Caribbean region to provide a multidimensional assessment of the globalization process from the perspective of developing countries. Based on a study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), this book gives a historical overview of economic development in the region and presents both an economic and noneconomic agenda that addresses disparity, respects diversity, and fosters complementarity among regional, national, and international institutions. For orders originating outside of North America, please visit the World Bank website for a list of distributors and geographic discounts at http://publications.worldbank.org/howtoorder or e-mail [email protected].

Download or read book Inequality in Latin America written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: