PhD candidate Mariajose Silva Vargas has been named a Robert S. McNamara Fellow at the World Bank, where she will be hosted for 2021-22 in the Infrastructure and Climate Change unit, part of the Development Impact Evaluation department, in Washington DC, USA. As a large part of her work, Mariajose uses field experiments to address socio-economic questions in countries of the Global South. For example, she is currently running projects in Uganda to study land markets and the socio-economic integr...

The World Bank launched its Development Impact blog on 1 April 2011, and has since published exactly 1500 posts. To celebrate turning 10, the editors of the blog decided to replace its meteor logo with something that better captures the aim of development research: i.e. to inform on the range of potential outcomes and choices in policy design and development processes. Responding to a call for artistic ideas, our Bolivian-Italian PhD fellow Mariajose Silva-Vargas sent in the image above, which w...

I have always been interested in pursuing a PhD. After working for a number of years and having a family, I felt that I needed a programme that would allow me to pursue my PhD and my career, while not having to interrupt either in any way. GPAC2 was the programme that appeared to fit the most....

I had been searching for a programme that allowed me to combine my specific research interests with a rather busy work schedule. The blended format with in-person classes and distance learning modules worked very well for me, by providing a good balance between flexibility of schedule and the opportunity to meet in person the tutors and faculty staff during the first couple of weeks of the programme. This allowed me to develop a good working relationship with the tutors, while also meeting other...

My research addresses the problem of deforestation and forest preservation in Brazil. This country has the largest stretch of tropical forest in the world. Surprisingly, and this is good news for once, Brazil has reduced yearly deforestation levels dramatically over the last decade. Since the Rio Conference in 1993, the Brazilian government has given protected status to 40% of the ‘Amazônia Legal’ region. This means it has demarcated indigenous areas, monitored deforestation via satellite imager...

Reports on the fight against global poverty are often optimistic — sometimes too optimistic. Part of the problem is “our” reliance on a simplistic measure, which draws an absolute poverty line of $1.90 per day in so-called 2011 international purchasing power parity. What can we do differently and where should we draw the line in our attempts to eradicate extreme poverty? The leading international source on poverty statistics, the World Bank, has many sophisticated measures avai...

Dr. Aziz Atamanov graduated September 2011 from the PhD programme in Public Policy and Policy Analysis here at the School of Governance. He soon joined the World Bank, first as a consultant on the Central Asian region and, since 2012, on data management, poverty and shared prosperity analysis on the MENA region. Dr. Mindel van de Laar spoke with Aziz at World Bank HQ, Washington DC, in early April. She asked him how his PhD launched his career, how he has grown ‘on the job’, and what...

The World Bank’s goal of cutting extreme poverty to less than 3% by 2030 is not achievable, says poverty expert Dr. Richard Bluhm. Development goals should be more realistic and policies should aim to build up institutions that promote inter-ethnic trust and long-term economic growth. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim says we can eradicate extreme poverty worldwide. In the last quarter of a century, the number of extreme poor has fallen by two-thirds: in 1990, 36% of the world’s population had t...

It’s the “International Year of Family Farming” and time we realized that families are key to rural development in Africa. Smallholders manage 80 per cent of African farmland, often doing a lot more than tilling the land. Homes and markets are full of family entrepreneurs, working in everything from entertainment to hairdressing to repairs. So we think that 2014 should also highlight the work of non-farm businesses. In the 1960s and 70s these small businesses were low productive, survivalist act...

Will African nations choose their own development paths, moving away from former colonial powers? How should we interpret China’s efforts to increase its presence in Africa? Does it pose a threat to African populations or is it an opportunity for change? These are among the questions of a “debate café” held in Maastricht on 25 February 2014. The debate features panel members from UNU-MERIT, including Profs. Adam Szirmai and Wim Naudé, as well as PhD Fellow Tobias Broich. Background A...