Paraguay Poverty Assessment: Determinants and Challenges for Poverty Reduction. This report fills a knowledge gap on issues of poverty in Paraguay and builds on the effort by the National Statistical Institute to revise its official poverty measurement methodology through a transparent and participatory process. The report focuses on: (i) recent trends in poverty, inequality, income, and employment through 2008, with an updated annex through 2009; (ii) analyzes the determinants of poverty and inequality, and presents results for the Human Opportunity Index; (iii) presents the tendencies of the urban labor market and an analysis of the rural dimension of poverty; and (iv) simulates the ex-ante poverty impacts of extending two cash transfer programs in Paraguay.   More...

Over the last few decades, women’s social and economic position in LCR has experienced unprecedented change—narrowing, closing, and even reverting several gender gaps that have historically favored men. However, after reaching significant progress on basic indicators of gender equality, LCR countries are still grappling with certain issues of gender inequality in economic opportunities, human development assets and agency.  More... 

Five Key Lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean from the Great Recession As 2011 comes to a close, the global economy is facing yet another economic slowdown. Based on household survey data from 2010 and labor market indicators through the third quarter of 2011, the World Bank draws key lessons from the impact of the Great Recession of 2008/2009 and the quick recovery on Latin America and the Caribbean’s poor and explores their implications for poverty reduction in the region going forward.

According to the new poverty and labor brief, On the Edge of Uncertainty: Poverty Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Great Recession and Beyond, even during the recession Latin America managed to reduce poverty levels. Then, as it quickly rebounded in 2010, poverty dropped even faster -- by 12.6 million -- and continued to decline throughout 2011. Today, we can safely say that moderate poverty in Latin America has dropped by 73 million since 2003.

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Una (R)evolución de género en marcha Este informe tiene por objetivo identificar los factores subyacentes al estancamiento de las tasas de participación femenina en la fuerza laboral, en contraste con la disminución de las brechas salariales y la mayor contribución al ingreso general, que se evidencian en América Central entre 1997 y 2006. Los resultados de este análisis pueden utilizarse para dar forma a políticas públicas que permitan acelerar el incremento de la capacidad femenina para participar en actividades económicas de manera que se beneficie no solo a las mismas mujeres, sino también a sus familias y a la sociedad en conjunto.

+ Book    

A Break with History: Fifteen Years of Inequality Reduction in Latin America Household income inequality in Latin America is on the decline. Latin America is today a more equal region than 15 years ago. From 1995 to 2009, income inequality fell across a range of inequality measures.

+ Book's contents in PDF format  

 

Opportunities for Colombian Children: How Far Have We Come in this Decade? This report aims to shed light to the issue of the relevance of measuring how far Colombia is from providing equality of opportunity among its children and youth by answering questions such as: How unequal is the distribution of opportunities to access key goods and services for children in Colombia and across its regions? What have been the improvements in access opportunities of key public goods and services from 1997 to 2008?

+ Report's contents IN SPANISH (PDF format)

Did Latin America Learn to Shield its Poor from Economic Shocks? The increase in poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean Region during the 2008-09 economic crisis was lower than expected and less marked than during previous crises that have affected the region.

+ Report's contents in PDF format

Challenges in Monitoring and Evaluation: An Opportunity to Institutionalize M&E Systems is a compilation of presentations on the challenges and lessons learned from M&E practitioners from around the world. It comprises best practices and knowledge from around the World that were showcased during the Fifth Annual Conference of the LAC M&E Network in 2009.

+ More about this Book presentation (June 9,2010)...
+ Book's contents in PDF format  

The 2010 Human Opportunity Report for Latin America and the Caribbean
May 13, 2010 - The Human Opportunity Index measures how personal circumstances (birthplace, wealth, race or gender) impact a child’s probability of accessing the services that are necessary to succeed in life (timely education, running water or connection to electricity).
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Poverty Measurement in Peru
In March 2007, INEI requested technical assistance from the World Bank to solve the methodological and data collection issues. The World Bank team proposed the creation of an external Advisory Committee (AC) whose role is to oversee the work of an inter-institutional technical team. + more...  

Community Driven Development in Indonesia
Exchanging knowledge with Bolivia Plurinacional:
On May 6 a knowledge sharing video-conference took place with the participation of Indonesia experts on the Community Empowerment Program in Indonesia and the Bolivia government. + more...

VI Conference of the Latin America and the Caribbean Monitoring and Evaluation Network
(August 25,26 & 27, México City)
This annual conference main topic is "Using M&E Results in the Public Policy Cycle". The principal objective is to determine the balance between technical and political aspects in M&E practices in the region.
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+ M&E Network 

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