agricultural employment of about 0.8 million, while South Asia would gain over 4 million workers in the agricultural sector. Overall as a result of the BRI infrastructure investments the largest share of labor force of 0.9 percent is expected to switch jobs in EAP, followed by the SSA and MENA region where about 0.6 and 0.5 percent of labor force respectively would switch jobs. The BRI area could see a net loss of almost 0.8 million agricultural workers (in 2030 relative to the baseline). The majority of this would be in China, though many other regions would see agricultural employment losses as well such as Malaysia and Thailand. Bangladesh, Pakistan and India would see some significant increases in agricultural employment, as would Kenya and Tanzania. The displacement effect is significantly lower in the non BRI area.

While impacts would vary by countries, income gains under the BRI scenario would lift several million people from poverty relative to the baseline scenario.<sup>8</sup> There will be winners and losers in the short run, but if BRI investments materialize the poor in both BRI and non-BRI countries would likely experience welfare gains. To evaluate the effect on poverty<sup>9</sup> in countries that are likely to be the most affected, i.e. low and middle-income countries, the use of extreme and moderate international poverty lines at PPP$1.90 and PPP$3.20 a day are preferred.<sup>10</sup> Globally, BRI related investments could lift 7.6 million from extreme poverty and 32 million from moderate poverty. Developing countries in the BRI will benefit the most from the reductions in extreme poverty of 4.3 million and moderate poverty of 26.7 million.

In countries like Kenya and Tanzania, an additional 0.7 million poor people would be expected to be lifted from extreme poverty, at PPP$1.90 a day. This is approximately equivalent to an additional 1.0 and 0.9 percentage points reduction in the extreme poverty headcount rate. In South Asia, Pakistan would see some significant additional reductions in extreme poverty with 1.1 million people being lifted compared to the baseline. Bangladesh and India are expected to see a smaller number of people lifted out of poverty i.e. 0.2 million (0.11 percent of headcount) and 0.03 million (0.002 percent of headcount), respectively. In Nepal, the scenario with BRI infrastructure investment alone lifts an additional 60 thousand people out of extreme poverty compared to the baseline. In East Asia and Pacific, Philippines expects to see approximately 90 thousand people lifted out of extreme poverty compared to the baseline.<sup>11</sup>

> 8 In 2015, the World Bank estimated that 53.69 percent of the population in developing countries lived with less than PPP$5.50 a day – or 3,369 million. The baseline scenario, which contemplates a continuation of current demographic and economic trends, projects a reduction of 5.91 percentage points in the poverty headcount at PPP$5.50 a day by 2019 and an additional reduction of 12.64 percentage points by 2030.

> 9 Poverty estimates were obtained by linking results of a CGE model with a simple global microeconomic model. The initial global distribution of per capita consumption/income is based on PovcalNet data. Country-specific growth rates in domestic absorption per capita (real household consumption per capita) from the macro CGE are fully transmitted to household data assuming distribution-neutrality. To calculate the number of poor, the total population in each country is adjusted using United Nations population projections. This is based on the 158 countries in the BRI study that were mapped to the poverty estimates of the 163 countries found in the PovcalNet.

> 10 The World Bank now reports international poverty lines that are more closely related with national poverty standards. These poverty lines are set at $1.90, $3.20, $5.50, and $21.70 a day (in 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP)) for low-, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high-income countries, respectively.

> 11 Detailed country specific results are available from the authors upon request.

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