This Health Sector Note is the result of
the first phase of an open, participatory three-step process
for developing the Health Sector Policy and Strategic Plan
(HSPSP), and serves as the preliminary basis for further
rounds of discussions, and analyses among stakeholders, to
arrive at a strategic vision for the national health sector.
The socioeconomic situation is reviewed, stipulating Eritrea
remains one of the poorest countries in the world, where

This report reviews poverty in Armenia
in 2001, and examines the most recent trends covering the
1998/99 to 2001 period. It looks at the determinants of
poverty, and analyzes linkages between economic growth,
sector policies and poverty. The findings are based on two
rounds of the Armenia Integrated Living Conditions Survey
(ILCS), one carried out in 1998/99, and the other in 2001.
The report has contributed to the development of

The Tenth Development Plan of the Republic of Turkey is a National Plan with a cross-sectoral approach and its duration is 4 years between 2014 and 2020.

Although a high rate of urbanization and a high incidence of rural poverty are two distinct features of many developing countries, there is little knowledge of the effects of the former on the latter. Using a large sample of Indian districts from the 1983–1999 period, we find that urbanization has a substantial and systematic poverty-reducing effect in the surrounding rural areas.

The new wave of political reforms have set Myanmar on a road to
unprecedented economic expansion, but,
without
targeted policy
efforts and
regulation to
even the playing field, the benefits of new
investment will filter down to only a few,
leaving
small
-
scale farmers
–
the backbone of the Myanmar economy
–
unable
to benefit from

"From Vision to Action", the
Bank's previous rural development strategy launched in
1997, had a decisive influence on global thinking - but
disappointing results on the ground. In 2001, lending for
agricultural projects was the lowest in the Bank's
history. The new strategy is results oriented:
"Reaching the Rural Poor" stresses practice,
implementation, monitoring, and empowerment of the people it

In the Middle East and North Africa
Region, forest resources are generally limited, as is their
contribution to GDP, and it is for this reason their
importance is often overlooked. However, forestry's
contribution to natural resource and environmental
management, is significant, which should not be
underestimated. The report, implemented as an input to the
development of a Bank Forestry Strategy in guiding its work

The overall finding of this report is
that much agricultural policy is made at the regional level,
and here the explicit price, and trade policy distortions
are significantly worse than at the federal level. The
result is patchwork of inconsistent policies, that has
fragmented the Russian national market. The most serious
policy issues at the federal level, are in the legal
framework, the continued state domination of some markets,

The report reviews the Bank's
development assistance to Lesotho, a poor country, of
predominantly rural populations, landlocked and completely
surrounded by, and economically dependent on, South Africa.
Not surprisingly, a major development challenge for the
country is that half the population lives below the poverty
line, and income inequality is among the highest in the
world. Other challenges are low quality of education, and

This report is a pocket edition of the
"World Development Indicators (report no. 22099)."
It is intended as a quick reference for users of the World
Development Indicators 2001" book and CD-ROM, and of
the World Bank Atlas, which between them cover more than 600
indicators spanning more than 30 years. The 207 country
pages in this report present the latest available data for
World Bank members and other economies with populations of

Rural markets are important traditional institutional frameworks which perform a number of key functions in rural societies. Our author presents the major ones in Nigeria.

Not only is biodiversity a valuable asset, but it also represents a possible source of income for rural communities. The article shows how Peru is making use of this potential in the context of the BioTrade concept to sustain both, rural livelihood and conservation of native biodiversity. It further analyses the challenges farmers face and how targeted support for supply chains can help to overcome these challenges.