One of the most common instruments of industrial policy is Export Processing Zones (EPZs). This paper shows the results of a systematic review of the impact of EPZs on employment, wages and labour conditions in developing countries. The results of synthesising 59 studies suggest that there is no robust evidence that the employment created in the zones is additional. Also, in most cases, EPZs pay higher wages and do not contribute to increase the gender wage gap. The results regarding labour conditions such as health and safety, unionisation or hours worked are mixed when comparing with firms outside the EPZ.

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This paper analyses the evidence on the impact of tariff reductions on employment in developing countries. We carry out a systematic review of the existing empirical literature, and include both, ex post econometric evidence and ex ante Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) simulation studies. The synthesis of results suggests that the effects of tariff reductions on employment are country and trade policy specific. When looking across higher quality econometric studies that control for the endogeneity of tariffs, only a couple of studies have statistically significant results, and these suggest that employment is likely to decrease slightly in the short run following trade liberalization. This is consistent with the notion that there are winners and losers from trade policy reform. These results are in contrast with the CGE findings, which by design incorporate projections of the medium-run economy-wide knock-on effects suggested by economic theory. The synthesis of CGE studies suggests non-negative effects of trade liberalization on aggregate employment and moderate inter-sectoral labour reallocation effects.

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This paper investigates how internal displacement affects the livelihoods of the displaced, using a group of IDPs currently living in Batticaloa in eastern Sri Lanka. These Tamil IDPs have come from Sampur which is located in Trincomalee, in eastern Sri Lanka. As expected, displacement has had a statistically significant negative impact on livelihoods. However, the impact varies among four categories of livelihoods identified by us: Type I Labour, Type II Labour, government service, and entrepreneurship. Type I Labourers with a ready demand in the host community and the salaried class of public servants are able to make ends meet, while entrepreneurs are rendered worse off. Type II Labourers have skills but the demand for their services in the host communities is negligible. They are therefore significantly impoverished in spite of their skills. Though public servants' livelihoods were economically intact, our results show that displacement has had other forms of negative impacts on their livelihoods.

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We included studies examining gender-specific or gender-transformative interventions in fragile and conflict-affected states and situations (FCAS) that were published between 2000 and 2021. Our review included studies that use experimental or quasi-experimental study designs and measure women's empowerment or gender equality for peaceful and inclusive societies as outcomes. We included studies targeting all ages and genders in the eligible countries based on the Gender Inequality Index, the Fragile States Index, the World Bank FCAS list, the OECD FCAS list and the Women Peace and Security Index. Within these four categories, we analysed studies focusing on 14 intervention types: allwomen police stations, asset transfers, cash transfers, community dialogues and reconciliations, community-based services, discussion groups, inclusive communitydriven development, institutional provision of loans and savings, quotas, safe spaces, self-help groups and village savings and loan associations, sensitisation campaigns, technical and vocational education and training.We also included qualitative studies, descriptive quantitative studies, process evaluations and project documents linked to the interventions that were evaluated in the included experimental and quasi-experimental studies. SearchWe searched a broad range of electronic academic databases, internet search engines, websites and collections. We screened titles and abstracts of approximately 100,000 papers, the majority of which were excluded either due to their gender inequality or FCAS index, or because they were not gender-specific or gender-transformative. We screened the full text of 1,330 papers for inclusion. After a final screening by at least two reviewers, we included 136 papers, corresponding to 104 unique studies covering 55 different programmes. Included studiesThe included studies cover programmes across 29 low-and middle-income countries. This includes 78 studies from Sub-Saharan Africa, 29 from South Asia, four from the Middle East and North Africa, two from East Asia and the Pacific, and two from Latin America and the Caribbean. All included studies were published between 2009 and 2021, with most from peer reviewed journal articles published between 2016 and 2020. Based on reported sample sizes, we estimate that the studies included data from over 290,494 beneficiaries.Among the 30 quasi-experimental design studies, only 3% were appraised as low risk of bias, while 45% were high risk of bias and 52% were appraised as having some risk of bias concerns. Among the 91 included studies using an experimental design, 28% of the studies had low risk of bias and 28% had high risk of bias. vi viii Intervention-level results Asset transferAsset transfer interventions yield significant and positive effects on outcomes in two of the three dimensions of the resources-agency-achievement framework. Although asset transfers interventions target outcomes across all three dimensions of women's empowerment, they only produce positive and significant results on access to...