South Asia is home to the largest concentration of poverty on the planet. Nearly 40 percent of the world’s poor earning less than a dollar a day live in the region. South Asia generates less than 2 percent of global income, yet supports 22 percent of the world’s population.

China's Strategic Rural Development Challenge

Clean freshwater is essential to sustain life, enable development, and support a healthy environment. Due to population and economic growth, water demand for household, industrial, and agricultural uses is increasing, while the functioning and quality of watersheds and irrigated land are deteriorating, and ground and surface water pollution is increasing.

Land-based resources are a critical asset to poor people in developing countries, who rely on such resources to generate most of their income and subsistence goods. The uses of these resources are wide-ranging and adaptable to varying circumstances, often serving as a form of security against adverse shocks or as a resource that can facilitate access to new opportunities.

The principal goal of this program is to contribute to poverty reduction through policies and interventions that strengthen women’s control over critical assets by:

1. identifying the social, economic and institutional factors that facilitate or impede women’s access and control over assets,
2. assessing the consequences of the asset gap on development outcomes and exploring returns to reducing or eliminating that gap;
3. strengthening methods for measuring men’s and women’s effective access to and control over assets;