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This paper summarises the evolution of the Water Poverty Index (WPI) application at different scales since its emergence. The review captures the main milestones and remarkable developments around the world. It sets the foundation for identifying the most appropriate version of the WPI, building on learning from previous versions. In addition, the paper sheds light on the linkages between the WPI and sustainable development goals and applications to fragile contexts. Therefore, it provides a synthesis of knowledge researchers and practitioners' need in sustainable water resources management that helps boost human development in unstable/fragile arid and semi-arid contexts. The methodology included (i) WPI literature shortlisting and reviewing, (ii) review literature links WPI with sustainable human development and fragility, and (iii) data analysis, identification of gaps and future trends. Intensive research was found to address the limitations of the WPI. However, further research is needed to shortlist the multiple versions of the WPI and match them to their respective scale, purpose and context (including fragile contexts). In addition, a time-based WPI was rarely touched to forecast the impact of decisions on community welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a nationally representative dataset extracted from the Jordanian Labor Market Panel Survey (JLMPS) for the two years 2010 and 2016, we apply both the standard Oaxaca–Blinder and quantile decomposition approaches to provide a more comprehensive distributional analysis of the native-immigrant wage differentials in Jordan over the period 2010–2016. By assessing the contribution of a rich set of labor market characteristics to the distributional wage differentials between the two groups and examining the extent to which such differentials reflect marginalization and discrimination against non-natives in Jordan, we find some interesting results that may hold significant policy implications for policymakers and labor market participants. These results reveal an increase in the mean native-immigrant wage gap over time and a relative intensification, throughout the wage distribution, of discrimination against immigrants among middle-wage workers. Compositional differences, primarily in education, between the two groups explain most of the observed wage gap over the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the urban-rural, littoral-inland, as well as metropolitan-nonmetropolitan inequalities across the entire welfare distribution. It draws on micro-data from two nationally representative surveys to investigate the structure and dynamics of regional consumption inequality in Tunisia. The analysis covers the five years before the 2011's revolution. It reveals low and stable levels of welfare inequality between inland and littoral regions, but high and growing inequalities along rural–urban and nonmetropolitan-metropolitan lines. Consistent with earlier studies, these results shed light on an urban and metropolitan bias. Regional inequalities are found to be much higher at the top end and the bottom than at the middle of the welfare distribution in both 2005 and 2010. Using the unconditional quantile decomposition, we decompose the distributional welfare differentials among different regions into endowment effects, explained by differences in households' demographic and general characteristics and return effects attributable to unequal returns to these covariates. We find that differences in households' endowments such as demographic composition, standards of living, and human capital, dominate the return effects and contribute more to the regional disparities throughout the welfare distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of economies, the problem of water resources availability particularly in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) has increased significantly. Specifically, in recent times, addressing the challenge of access to water resources has become a global issue of which countries in SSA are not exceptional since the adequate supply of potable water is as relevant as economic development. Consequently, this current paper seeks to estimate the determinants of water resources availability in sub-Sahara Africa. For this purpose, a panel-based regression model, which represents the availability of water resources, is specified based on the period 2000 to 2016 to examine a panel of 41 SSA countries sub-sectioned into low, lower-middle, and upper-middle-income nations. Considering the existence of residual cross-sectional reliance, outcomes based on the CIP and CADF unit root tests showed that the variables were not integrated at the same order. This thus leads to the employment of the PMG/ARDL estimation approach which unveiled that (i) agriculture production has a significant negative influence on H2O in the lower-middle and low-income panel of SSA countries whereas in the upper-middle-income panel, an insignificant impact is witnessed; (ii) CO2 emissions affect H2O palpably in the upper-middle-income SSA panel while for lower-middle and low-income panels, an adverse effect is identified; (iii) economic growth adversely influenced H2O resources in the lower-middle-income panel whereas in the case of the low-income panel, a significant positive liaison is evidenced; (iv) excluding low-income panel, industrial development concerning H2O has a significant negative influence in upper-middle and lower-middle-income panels; (v) urbanization homogeneously showed a positive relationship with H2O resources across all panels. The results are reconfirmed by the CCEPMG/CS-ARDL and MG employed as robust methods. Causality checks by Dumitrescu-Hurlin test finally revealed a mixture of results regarding the causal paths amid variables among the country panels. Policy recommendations have therefore been proposed based on the study findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper attempts to provide additional light on the structure and dynamics of inequality of opportunity among Tunisian children during the period 2005-2010. The main steps involved in the analysis comprise: estimation of the Human Opportunity Index, assessment of the relative contributions of circumstances, and decomposition of variations in inequality of opportunity in factors driving them across time and space. The results reveal reasonable and declining levels of inequality in access to some basic services at the national level, but increasing inequalities between regions with inland area lagging the rest of the country. The number of siblings, parents' education and wealth and location of residence are key factors causing such disparities. Without more inclusive and pro-poor policy actions, there are few chances for children belonging to the less advantaged circumstance groups to spring out of the poverty and inequality lived by their parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using micro data from the 2010 National Survey on Households’ Budget, Consumption and Standard of Living, this study aims to investigate main factors contributing to poverty distribution, one of the most severe socioeconomic problems in Tunisia. To this end, we use a multilevel Logit model and a multilevel mixed linear model to simultaneously analyze the micro-level (household) and macro-level (governorate) factors that might affect the household poverty status. Household size, household composition, occupation, education levels, the gender of the household head and the number of earner by household variables were assessed at the micro-level. Unemployment rate, poverty rate, industrial and agriculture parts and the migration are included to control the effect of contextual effects. Our findings showed that the likelihood of household being poor is positively and significantly related to household size, more children and lower education level. Extreme poverty is more likely to occur in rural than urban areas. Macro-level analyses indicated that greater neighbourhood unemployment rate was associated with higher odds of poverty, while greater industrial agglomeration and migration balance were associated with reduced odds of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely recognized in the public health literature that healthcare and nutrition during the early childhood period have important long-term and sometimes irreversible consequences on health and wellbeing later in life. In this paper, we endeavor to investigate deeply the patterns of inequality of opportunity in health and nutrition outcomes among under-five children in Tunisia. Several tools are used to do such analysis including comparison of distributions of the considered outcomes across circumstances groups; estimation of the Human Opportunity Index; and measurement of the relative contributions of different circumstances using the Shapley decomposition. The main findings reveal reasonable and low levels of inequality in access to all basic healthcare services and nutrition except access to improved water and sanitation. Besides, parents’ education, wealth status and location of residence are found to be key factors causing low level of inequalities. Thus, it is easy to conclude that without more inclusive and pro-poor policy interventions, there are few chances for children belonging in poor families and living in marginalized rural areas to spring out of the poverty lived by their parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the current literature that increasingly recognizes inequality of opportunity among children, this paper analyzes to what extent access to basic education and core services is influenced by family and individual background factors in Tunisia. The analysis uses the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) methodology developed recently at the World Bank, and micro data from the National Survey on Households’ Budget, Consumption and Standard of Living (HBCLS) for 2010. The main contribution of the study is its in-depth investigation of the key factors affecting child development in Tunisia. The results reveal large and persistent interregional and intra-regional disparities among children, mainly in pre-secondary school enrollment and access to safe water and sanitation services. Such inequalities of opportunity, obviously shown between inland and littoral regions, are found to be driven mainly by geographic factors and parents” education and wealth. These findings may have important policy implications in term of developing better-targeted interventions aiming to reduce inequality in accessing basic services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study details an application of an improved Water Poverty Index (iWPI) to investigate and assess state of water resources in 53 African countries for the period 2000–2012 with a special focus on an international comparison of water poverty among northern and sub-Saharan countries. A multi-faceted approach that combines physical estimates of water availability with socio-economic drivers of poverty and environmental factors, has been used to do such comparison. It is with this in mind that the iWPI was developed based on the theoretical foundations and recent development of the water poverty approach. This would permit an inclusive comprehension of the crosscutting nature of water issues and their impacts on human wellbeing and environment. The results highlight an obvious dissimilarity of water poverty situation between more developed, but water-poor countries located principally in North Africa with that of lower-income and water-rich countries in sub-Saharan region. This can be used to inform policy makers, governments, donors and other stakeholders to assist in prioritization of appropriate policies to be taken towards better service delivery and sustainable water management across space and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study details an application of an improved Water Poverty Index (iWPI) to investigate and assess state of water resources in 53 African countries for the period 2000–2012 with a special focus on an international comparison of water poverty among northern and sub-Saharan countries. A multi-faceted approach that combines physical estimates of water availability with socio-economic drivers of poverty and environmental factors, has been used to do such comparison. It is with this in mind that the iWPI was developed based on the theoretical foundations and recent development of the water poverty approach. This would permit an inclusive comprehension of the crosscutting nature of water issues and their impacts on human wellbeing and environment. The results highlight an obvious dissimilarity of water poverty situation between more developed, but water-poor countries located principally in North Africa with that of lower-income and water-rich countries in sub-Saharan region. This can be used to inform policy makers, governments, donors and other stakeholders to assist in prioritization of appropriate policies to be taken towards better service delivery and sustainable water management across space and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the key factors that shape inter-governorates migration in Tunisia, focusing mainly on the role of demographic, geographical and socio-economic factors in driving migration flows. It uses basic and extended gravity models, as well as Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood model for modeling migration data to assess the relative importance of distance, job market characteristics and economic variables. The main findings reveal that inter-governorate migrations in Tunisia are affected by high population size at the origin and destination locations, high unemployment rate at the origin and low unemployment rate at the destination. The results suggest also that migration flows are negatively affected by high job vacancies and the annual average per capita household expenditure at the origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article details the application of the improved Multidimensional Index of Water Poverty, which associates human economic welfare with physical water availability to point out the degree to which water scarcity impacts African populations. The index and its components vary widely across the African continent, suggesting the need for location-specific policy interventions. These findings highlight more specifically a significant disparity in water poverty between more developed but water-scarce countries, located mainly in northern and southern Africa, and water-rich but lower-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we attempt to analyze, during the period spanning from January 2000 to July 2015, the impact of oil price shocks on inflationand the real exchange rate in a set of oil importers and exporters MENA countries: Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Iran (MENA-6) using a Structural VAR model. The impulseresponse functions reveal that, in the long run, oil price fluctuations havethe major impact on real exchange rate of the oilimporting countries (Tunisiaand Morocco) while the impact on inflation is smaller and absorbed by the rigidity of subsidized products prices. The variance decomposition results also assertthat oil price shocks do not explain notably thevariation in the twoconsidered variables in Algeria and Iran.We further identify an impact on the two variables that is both statistically significant and economically large in the rest of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The universally used socioeconomic indices like education and housing indicators (access to water, sanitation and electricity) appraise solely the coverage level of basic opportunities in a society without capturing the differential intensity across various subgroups. This paper provides a new application of the known Human Opportunity Index (HOI) in order to assess the inequality in distribution of basic services at regional scale in one of the MENA's most unequal countries. Based on the differentiation between circumstance and effort variables in John Roemer's theory, we correlate inequality of opportunities with seven observed circumstances which are not controllable by individuals. Logistic regressions required to calculate various HOI indexes are used to estimate the contribution of main socioeconomic and demographic circumstances. Large and significant disparities particularly in access to safe water and sanitation have been detected between the eastern (littoral) and western (inland) areas. The residence area, the education level of household head and the per capita household expenditure were the most important circumstances causing such regional disparities. The paper affords also some potential policy implications through the HOI estimation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not easy to determine whether water is really scarce in the physical sense or whether it is available, but people cannot get access to it, or use it better. This paper reviews selected physical water scarcity indicators, and criticisms made against them on several grounds. Under the premise that the water scarcity issue is inherently multidimensional, a composite Water Poverty Index has been developed, to complement the traditional physical water indicators. In this paper we propose some technical refinements based on principal component analysis, in order to improve the method of calculation of the index. Using the proposed methodology, the present paper assesses the applicability of the index for the MENA region, by comparing the situation of oil-rich and water-poor countries (Gulf States) with that of lower-income yet water-rich countries (Horn of Africa states). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]