|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
The recent past has witnessed phenomenal growth in MFIs around the
world. Today as many as 200 million people are beneficiaries of
microfinance. Given its worldwide attention, microfinance has
received serious criticism, including the argument that it is a fad
with less-than-expected benefits for the poor. Surely, microfinance
is not without any pitfalls. Yet the premise of improving access to
financial services for consumption smoothing by the poor has never
been a subject of controversy. What has been controversial is
whether microfinance can alleviate poverty. That the poor lack an
effective and affordable alternative financing mechanism to support
income generation does not necessarily mean microfinance is a
panacea since it involves entrepreneurial skills, which many poor
lack. It is little wonder that studies evaluating the benefits of
microfinance have produced conflicting results. Of course, study
findings are contextual: They are positive in conducive
environments and less so in unfavorable ones. Microfinance must be
distinguished from anti-poverty schemes (e.g., conditional cash
transfers) because benefits from microfinance-supported activities,
which involve participants' entrepreneurial skills and ability,
take time to realise. This book using household long panel survey
of 1991/92-2010/11 from Bangladesh addresses some of criticisms -
including whether pushing microfinance has made it redundant as a
tool for poverty reduction - while investigating whether it still
matters for the poor after two decades of extensive growth. The
book's findings confirm the positive effects of continued borrowing
from a microfinance program. Despite a manifold increase in
microfinance borrowing, loan recovery has not declined and
long-term borrowers are not trapped in poverty or debt. Interest
rates charged by MFIs are not too high for realizing returns on
investment, although the MFIs have scope for lowering them. The
book is expected to contribute to the ongoing debate on the
cost-effectiveness of microfinance as a tool for inclusive growth
and development. It is expected to fill knowledge gaps in
understanding the various virtues of microfinance against its
portrayal as having drifted from its original poverty-reduction
mission
Agricultural development through crop diversification, irrigation,
high yielding crop varieties, and public investments in
infrastructure has improved food security and its seasonal
dimension worldwide in recent years. Consequently, the severity of
seasonal hunger caused by agricultural crop cycles has lessened
substantially. Yet in agricultural pockets scattered throughout
Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, seasonal hunger persists, especially
among the rural poor, owing primarily to idiosyncratic shocks
caused by agricultural seasonality. More than four-fifths of the
world's poor live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for
livelihoods. Because of seasonal income shocks, the poor who are
generally poor are likely to be even poorer during a particular
agricultural season, while those who are not poor year-round may
also be so during that season. Also, seasonal hunger may lead to
endemic poverty if its adverse effects on income and consumption
are irreversible. Policies aimed at reducing overall poverty often
disregard its seasonal dimension, because standard poverty
statistics do not consider seasonal hunger in the official data
collection and analysis, there is no direct way to determine how
many of the "bottom billion," as economist Paul Collier refers to
the world's poorest people, suffer from seasonal hunger. Even
worse, regions prone to severe seasonal hunger are unlikely to
attract the public investments required to raise the local
economy's resilience through income diversification and thus break
the seasonal-poverty cycle. The book provides an exhaustive inquiry
of Bangladesh's seasonal hunger with special reference to the North
West region. The seasonality of poverty and food deprivation is a
common feature of rural livelihood but it is more marked in the
north-west region of Bangladesh. The book also presents an
evaluation of several policy interventions launched recently in
mitigating seasonality, which provide a test case of what works and
what does not in combating seasonal hunger. The major findings of
the book are the following: (a) Policies to improve food security
should explicitly take into account the seasonal dimension of food
deprivation. (b) Gains from initiatives to combat seasonal hunger
should be monitored and consolidated to ensure sustainable impacts.
(c) Policies should also focus on areas that, owing to
environmental degradation and climate change, are increasingly
vulnerable to seasonal hunger and food insecurity in
general.|Agricultural development through crop diversification,
irrigation, high yielding crop varieties, and public investments in
infrastructure has improved food security and its seasonal
dimension worldwide in recent years. Consequently, the severity of
seasonal hunger caused by agricultural crop cycles has lessened
substantially. Yet in agricultural pockets scattered throughout
Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, seasonal hunger persists, especially
among the rural poor, owing primarily to idiosyncratic shocks
caused by agricultural seasonality. The book provides an exhaustive
inquiry of Bangladesh's seasonal hunger with special reference to
the northwest region, where it is more pronounced. It also presents
an evaluation of several policy interventions launched recently in
mitigating seasonality, which provide a test case of what works and
what does not in combating seasonal hunger. The major findings of
the book are: (a) Policies to improve food security should
explicitly take into account the seasonal dimension of food
deprivation. (b) Gains from initiatives to combat seasonal hunger
should be monitored and consolidated to ensure sustainable impacts,
and (c) Policies should also focus on areas that, owing to
environmental degradation and climate change, are increasingly
vulnerable to seasonal hunger and food insecurity in general.
Rural energy's importance to the Bangladesh economy cannot be
underestimated. The problems rural people face in obtaining safe,
clean, and reliable energy supplies are not minor inconveniences.
People are cooking with biomass fuels including large amounts of
leaves and grass that expose them harmful indoor air pollution.
They light with kerosene or sometimes candles which give off a dim
light that hampers studying and reading in the evening. Finally,
rural productivity suffers because of lack of access to modern
energy. However, the picture also is not all bleak. This study
underscores how improved access to rural energy services can
created multiple benefits for rural life - from income and labor
productivity to education and women's health. Recommended or
enhancement of programs for improved stoves, rural electrification,
renewable energy and greater access to commercial liquid fuels can
significantly improve both the rural productivity and enhance the
quality of life in rural Bangladesh.
Public programs are designed to reach certain goals and
beneficiaries. Methods to understand whether such programs actually
work, as well as the level and nature of impacts on intended
beneficiaries, are main themes of this book. Has the Grameen Bank,
for example, succeeded in lowering consumption poverty among the
rural poor in Bangladesh? Can conditional cash transfer programs in
Mexico and Latin America improve health and schooling outcomes for
poor women and children? Does a new road actually raise welfare in
a remote area in Tanzania, or is it a 'highway to nowhere'? This
book reviews quantitative methods and models of impact evaluation.
It begins by reviewing the basic issues pertaining to an evaluation
of an intervention to reach certain targets and goals. It then
focuses on the experimental design of an impact evaluation,
highlighting its strengths and shortcomings, followed by
discussions on various non-experimental methods. The authors also
cover methods to shed light on the nature and mechanisms by which
different participants are benefiting from the program. For
researchers interested in learning how to use these models with
statistical software, the book also provides STATA exercises in the
context of evaluating major microcredit programs in Bangladesh,
such as the Grameen Bank. The framework presented in this book can
be very useful for strengthening local capacity in impact
evaluation among technicians and policymakers in charge of
formulating, implementing, and evaluating programs to alleviate
poverty and underdevelopment.
'Handbook on Poverty + Inequality' was originally designed to
support training courses in poverty analysis and inequality. The
'Handbook' begins with an explanatory text that includes numerous
examples, multiple-choice questions to ensure active learning, and
extensive practical exercises that use Stata statistical software.
The 'Handbook' will help researchers and evaluators in charge of
preparing background materials for Poverty Reducation Strategy
Papers (PRSPs) and those responsible for monitoring and evaluating
poverty reduction programs and policies. The World Bank Institute
has used the 'Handbook' in training workshops in countries from
Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, to Cambodia, Indonesia, the
Philippines, and Thailand, to Malawi and Tanzania, as well as in
university courses on poverty and in distance education courses
with participants from Asian and African countries. The 'Handbook'
has also been used in an online asynchronous course with more than
200 participants worldwide. Using the feedback from these courses,
the authors have created a clearly-written text that balances rigor
with practicality. The 'Handbook' is designed to be accessible to
people with a university-level background in science or the social
sciences. It is an invaluable tool for policy analysts,
researchers, college students, and government officials working on
policy issues related to poverty and inequality.
Bangladesh has the world s fastest growing, off-grid solar home
system (SHS) coverage. In the past decade, the number of SHS
installations has risen phenomenally from a five-year target of
50,000 in 2003 to 50,000 a month in 2013, with support from the
World Bank and other development partners. Even so, only 10 percent
of off-grid households have been reached, suggesting ample room for
continued expansion. Given the recent surge in SHS adoption, a key
policy issue is whether the partial subsidy provided under the
current program, implemented by the Infrastructure Development
Company Limited (IDCOL), should be continued. Surge in Solar
Powered Homes: Off-Grid Experience in Bangladesh assesses the
country s remarkable growth in SHS, its support schemes, and the
welfare impacts for rural households, using both large-scale
household survey and institutional data. The book s findings
clearly demonstrate that the social benefits from SHS adoption far
exceed the cost of the subsidy. Within the current market incentive
structure, there is tremendous scope for broadening the rural
market reach. But the high upfront cost of purchasing a SHS at
current market prices is a barrier to future sales, suggesting the
continued need for IDCOL s well-targeted, subsidized operation."
|
|