Suchergebnisse

If Pakistan is to reduce gender gaps and achieve its development goals, policy interventions will require a dual focus on near-term and long-term outcomes. In the near term, females need access to basic services and opportunities. In the longer term the economic, cultural, and political environment must sustain improved circumstances for women in health, labor force participation, and other outcomes. Far deeper and more integrated initiatives are needed if long-standing trends in gender inequality are to be reversed. What role does public policy play? In many cases minor changes in laws and institutions can foster greater involvement by women in the public sphere to enable them to pursue activities that further enhance their autonomy and elevate their status. Such changes may encourage parents to educate their daughters, for instance, which will enable future generations of women to make better health-related and economic decisions within the household, and to participate in political life where they can contribute to further social and legal change. What is to be done in the meantime, as institutional reforms and economic growth may make limited and slow progress? Active policy measures to promote gender equality in the present are crucial. In particular, near-term approaches must work around existing constraints on women and girls, augmenting their access to basic services, paid work, and opportunities for decision-making in the public sphere. The analysis in this report has incorporated research and insights from scholars and civil society organizations in Pakistan in order to arrive at precisely these types of near-term approaches.

The Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s not only highlighted the welfare consequences of transparency in the financial sector but also linked this relatively narrow problem to the broader context of transparency in governance. It has been observed that objections to transparency, often on flimsy pretexts, are common even in industrialized countries. This article argues that transparency is indispensable to the financial sector and describes its desirable characteristics: access, timeliness, relevance, and quality. The authors emphasize the need to weigh the costs and benefits of a more transparent regulatory policy, and they explore the connection between information imperfections, macroeconomic policy, and questions of risk. The article argues for developing institutional infrastructure, standards, and accounting practices that promote transparency, implementing incentives for disclosure and establishing regulations to minimize the perverse incentives generated by safety net arrangements, such as deposit insurance. Because institutional development is gradual, the authors contend that relatively simple regulations, such as limits on credit expansion, may be the most reasonable option for developing countries. They show that transparency has absolute limits because of the lack of adequate enforcement and argue that adequate enforcement may be predicated on broader reforms in the public sector.

In recognition that poverty and vulnerability are mutually reinforcing, because the poor lack the ability to insure against risks, often shaping behavior and decision making to minimize exposure to risks, even at the cost of economic efficiency, and long-term interest, this paper reviews what is known about the risk-coping, and risk-mitigating behavior of the poor in South Asia. It examines the support received from the governments, and nongovernmental organizations, as well as the Bank's contributions, and, presents suggestions for a strategy to reduce poverty, and efforts to overcome risk. Analytical work classifies the risks that threaten different vulnerable groups, or poor households, according to poverty incidence and severity, and, a similar effort evaluates both the risk-reducing impact of anti-poverty programs, and the performance and potential of less traditional approaches, such as micro-finance. On assessing government programs, the study evaluates the role, impact, and potential of policy mechanisms, or strategies commonly used in the region, reviewing welfare programs in public works, transfers in cash or kind, innovative programs for savings and insurance services, and pension reforms, as well as how to expand such programs. The study argues on the need for a comprehensive social protection strategy that can address both poverty, and vulnerability, identifying the priorities of vulnerable groups, and specific risks, to then develop an implementation structure, and institutional reforms that expand market opportunities which facilitate formal mechanisms for risk management.

Measuring poverty and tracking it over time is an important prerequisite to national economic planning. Absence of official data on household expenditure or poverty line hampered the ability of Iraqi policymakers to understand the extent of the problem, analyze their causes, and devise appropriate policies. Iraq household socioeconomic survey (IHSES) 2006-07 was the first survey of its kind since 1988 to cover all 18 governorates. The survey collected rich information on income, expenditure, employment, housing, education, health, and other socioeconomic indicators. Building on the experience of the first IHSES survey and using international best practice on sampling and questionnaire design and survey implementation, the second round of IHSES was fielded in 201-/13. To fill the data gap, a larger survey was designed to collect information on correlates of household welfare like demographic characteristics, education, occupation, housing, and assets and estimate small-area poverty rates using projection methods. This report presents results from the exercise, the first of its kind for Iraq. Poverty mapping not only provides a visual representation of poverty at subnational levels, it also reveals pockets of poverty and islands of prosperity where they exist. This knowledge is useful to inform decisions on policy design and targeting of development projects and programs.