Caste is a persistent driver of inequality in India, and it is generally analyzed with government-defined broad categories, such as Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. In everyday life, however, caste is lived and experienced as jati, which is a local system of stratification. Little is known...

Romania aims to be a country in which all citizens are provided with an equal opportunity toparticipate in society, where their basic needs are met and their differences respected, and whereall people feel valued and can live in dignity.Our society is still far from this ideal. One in every five...

Transport connectivity is an essential part of the enabling environment for inclusive and sustained growth. In many developing countries, particularly in Africa, most people are still not connected to local, regional, or global markets. Such rural accessibility is crucial to reduce poverty and...

As 2019 drew to a close, a year when Mozambique faced devastation caused by two severe cyclones, the country looks ahead having made significant progress in terms of economic stability, having strengthened its external buffers and having improved its fiscal position. The metical has been broadly...

By most accounts, rural Malawi has lacked dynamism in the past decade. Growth has been mostly volatile, in large part due to unstable macroeconomic fundamentals evidenced by high inflation, fiscal deficits, and interest rates. When rapid economic growth has materialized, the gains have not...

This paper presents the initial findings from six rounds of research conducted between 2012 and 2016 on livelihoods and social change in rural Myanmar, undertaken as part of the Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring initiative. These data provide unique insights into the ways in which broad...

Due to the strong economic growth maintained in the last 15 years, Uzbekistan made progress in reducing gender inequality. At the same time, several demographic and structural challenges remain; and effectively engaging women in the economy is one of them. While modernizing various sectors of...

The study is conducted in two states with different geographic, public health, and socioeconomic characteristics, together spanning a range of conditions in rural India: Maharashtra and Orissa. The secondary objectives of the study were to develop proxy indicators for routine monitoring of the...

The objectives of the study are to: a) increase understanding of the effects and effectiveness of the implementation of the local government reform launched in 2006; and b) assess the impact of a World Bank-supported intervention that aimed to enhance effectiveness of the reforms by increasing local...

There is a growing concern among policy makers and the international development community about the rapid concentration of migrants in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar (UB) and its social, economic, and environmental consequences (UNDP, 2003). These concerns call for a good understanding of the...