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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

High population growth in rural areas, an unprecedented impact on development strategies and resource management S ub-Saharan Africa is following an unusual development path. It faces specific, unprecedented challenges for 2030-2050. According to the 2015 United Nations projections, its population is set to double by 2050 to reach 2.2 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years of age. This increase also concerns rural areas, where the population will grow from 620 million people to more than 1 billion over the same period. The demographic transition is thus pushed back beyond 2050, as is the demographic dividend-a boost in economic productivity associated with a slowdown in population growth and a reduction in the number of dependents. Agriculture is another specific feature. The sector employs more than 60% of the working-age population, and agricultural holdings are mostly small, labour-intensive family farms. Consequently, structural and economic change in sub-Saharan Africa is not following the same path as the industrialised or emerging countries. In those countries, industrialisation has been facilitated by rapid growth in persp ctive e November 2017 44 agricultural productivity and the massive transfer of agricultural workers to the so-called modern sectors. In sub-Saharan Africa, the secondary and tertiary sectors are still mostly informal and are struggling to create employment and wealth. Faced with these challenges, centralised and sectoral public policies persist, in spite of recurrent criticism that these policies are disconnected from local realities, segmented and fragmented: they are clearly permanent and are being reproduced. The mixed results of decentralisation reflect this inflexibility. The public institutions created through decentralisation lack resources; they are struggling to find their place within the existing political and administrative organisations. The secondary cities, which are disadvantaged in terms of infrastructure and strategic capacities, are failing to play their role as development hubs and catalysts of structural change. Consequently, industrialisation is concentrated in the capital cities and a small number of urban agglomerations. In Mali, the Office du Niger region is a good illustration of this trend. With 120 000 hectares of irrigated cropland and 40% of national rice production, the Office du Niger is a strategic region. But the lack of local infrastructure and In sub-Saharan Africa, the magnitude of the demographic challenge implies anticipating targets to be reached within the time horizon of the next generation, in all sectors of activity. We propose an operational methodology that can be implemented by policymakers and actors in rural territories to envision the future and to prepare their development strategy. This territorial foresight methodology combines an analysis of past local dynamics, a 20-year population projection and a participatory foresight process. It enables collective thinking on sustainable paths and provides a framework for monitori...

Poverty, and the Welfare 8razilian householdsare a r w_. . v s .~~~~~~~~~~~heterogenous group)that .of Children in Urban Brazil heteerthat defies stereotyprkg. While most are not poor, a large Ricardo Barros number of the poor, Louise Fox l es lly ch ldren, live in. Rosane Mendonca these households. The most effective antipoverty interention.is to focus on raising the Ifntme of the.

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Estimates of the current and future structure of employment in sub-Saharan Africa (2005-20) are obtained based on household survey estimates for 28 countries and an elasticity-type model that relates employment to economic growth and demographic outcomes. Agriculture still employs the majority of the labor force although workers are shifting slowly out of the sector. Sub-Saharan Africa's projected rapid labor force growth, combined with a low baseline level of private sector wage employment, means that even if sub-Saharan Africa realizes another decade of strong growth, the share of labor force employed in private firms is not expected to rise substantially. Governments need to undertake measures to attract private enterprises that provide wage employment, but they also need to focus on improving productivity in the traditional and informal sectors as these will continue to absorb the majority of the labor force.

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