What did the global food, fuel, and financial crises of 2008-11 mean to people living in the developing world? How did people cope with the crisis and how effective were they at averting major impacts? These are the questions addressed by this book, which emerged out of qualitative crisis monitoring initiatives carried out by IDS and the World Bank. As such, this is not a book about the causes of the crisis or how to prevent future crises. Instead, this book is about how people lived through ...

"Keep your government hands off my Medicare!" Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler's provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather i...

Viewed from a global scale, steady progress has been made in reducing extreme poverty-defined by the $1.25-a-day poverty line-over the past three decades. This success has sparked renewed enthusiasm about the possibility of eradicating extreme poverty within a generation. However, progress is expected to become more difficult, and slower, over time. This book will examine three central changes that need to be overcome in traveling the last mile: breaking cycles of conflict, supporting incl...

Grassroots Social Security in Asia investigates the role of mutual associations in providing income protection to low-income people in Asia and in particular the region's developing countries. Historically, these associations have consisted of small groups of people with common interests who save regularly to support, maintain and supplement their incomes. Members make regular contributions to a communal fund which is used to provide income protection when they experience financia...

Since the turn of the millennium, more than one million people have been killed and 2.3 billion others have been directly affected by natural disasters around the world. In cases like the 2010 Haiti earthquake or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, these disasters have time and time again wrecked large populations and national infrastructures. While recognizing that improved rescue, evacuation, and disease control are crucial to reducing the effects of natural disasters, in the final analysis, ...

Upon signing the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the international community committed itself to eight development goals with timebound targets and measurable indicators. The third of these eight goals was to "promote gender equality and empower women". The third Millennium Development Goal (MDG3) in the Millennium Declaration has spurred national and international efforts to improve women's situation around the globe. Equality for Women: Where Do We Stand on Millennium Goal 3? tracks co...

• Why have only 13 developing world economies achieved sustained, high growth since World War II? • Why is engagement with the global economy necessary to achieve high growth? • Why do some countries' growth strategies fail to win the public's confidence? • Why are equity and equality of opportunity important components of successful growth strategies? • Why do many countries, blessed with natural resource wealth, not achieve high growth? • Why has no country ever sustained rapid gr...

Perceptions of Africa have changed dramatically. Viewed as a continent of wars, famines and entrenched poverty in the late 1990s, there is now a focus on "Africa rising" and an "African 21st century." Two decades of unprecedented economic growth in Africa should have brought substantial improvements in well-being. Whether or not they did, remains unclear given the poor quality of the data, the nature of the growth process (especially the role of natural resources), conflicts that affect pa...

International migration has become a central element of international relations and global integration due to its rapidly increasing economic, social, and cultural impact in both source and destination countries. This book provides new evidence on the impact of migration and remittances on several development indicators, including innovative thinking about the nexus between migration and birth rates. In addition, the book identifies the effect of host country policies on migration flows, exam...

This book is a compilation of a series of "state of the art" papers on topics related to equity and growth. As inputs to its final report (The Growth Report), the Commission on Growth and Development took stock of the current state of knowledge and understanding of various sectors/issues that have an impact on economic growth, including equity, education, health, leadership and others. The following questions are discussed in the book: - What has been the evolution of poverty and equity durin...

Income inequality has become a global phenomenon. Rapid technological advancement and an expanding global workforce will continue to place huge pressure on wages all over the world, including Singapore. This edited volume is the product of the robust exchanges that took place in a series of closed-door discussions (CDDs) on inequality that the Institute of Policy Studies organised in the first half of 2012. The essays provide a range of views on the multi-faceted nature of inequality in Si...

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has vowed that his institution will fight poverty and climate change, a claim that World Bank presidents have made for two decades. But if worldwide protests and reams of damning internal reports are any indication, too often it does just the opposite. By funding development projects and programs that warm the planet and destroy critical natural resources on which the poor depend, the Bank has been hurting the very people it claims to serve. What explains ...