A 'bottom up' regional Computable General Equilibrium Model (CGE) model for Vietnam is constructed for 28 commodities and 8 regions (using a GSO input-output table for 2005). The model is used to analyze the recent dramatic increases in the world price of rice on the regional economy of Vietnam, and the Vietnamese policy response to limit exports.

The tsunami that originated from the Indian Ocean in 2004 wreaked massive destruction, killing more than 130,000 people and displacing half a million individuals in Aceh, Indonesia. More than 800 kilometers of coastline was affected, and close to 53,795 land parcels were destroyed. The land administration system sustained significant damage because documentation of land ownership was washed away along with people's houses and other possessions in the affected communities. Physical boundary markers, including trees and fences, also disappeared.

Biologically diverse ecosystems in countries served by the World Bank provide an array of valuable economic services. While the benefits of conserving ecosystems frequently outweigh the costs, conversion of these ecosystems to other uses occurs anyway, because many ecosystem benefits are of a public good nature, without markets that would reflect their real value.

This report is the final product of a country case study prepared in the framework of the comparative analysis of organization and performance of cotton sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa, a study published by the World Bank in 2008.

This report on Sudan's Investment Climate Assessment (ICA) provides a baseline assessment of challenges to productivity, diversification and inclusion. Chapter 1 describes some of the questions underlying the three issues of competitiveness, diversification and broad-based growth. Chapter 2 analyzes firm performance and competitiveness. Chapter 3 discusses markets and trust. Chapter 4 describes the role of the financial sector. Chapter 5 analyses the informal sector. Chapter 6 discusses the conflict-affected private sector development.

Coffee is an ecologically and economically significant crop for Haiti. It is not only the main source of income for more than 100,000 farmers, but the coffee ecosystem also sustains a large part of the remaining tree cover (currently at less than 1.5 percent of land) of the country. This report does not aim to detail the structural constraints impacting upon the Haitian coffee sub-sector.

This study of 23 leases over land on the island of Epi is the first of the Jastis Blong Evriwan (JBE) research activities to examine land and natural resource management (L&NRM) and access to justice on particular Vanuatu islands. The research will be repeated on the island of Tanna. To inform the broader context of land leasing in Vanuatu, JBE, in collaboration with the government of Vanuatu, has begun collecting and analyzing government land-leasing data.

This chapter uses supply chain analysis (SCA) to identify transport and logistics bottlenecks that add costs, times and uncertainty to the exportation of perishable agricultural products from Central America. Macro-level analyses of logistics performance, including the logistics performance index, Doing Business Reports and Enterprise Surveys of the World Bank, as well as the Global Competitiveness Index of the Global Economic Forum, often leave policy-makers unclear on exactly what poor performance means for exporters and producers in Central America.

The current edition of the Rwanda economic update is titled seeds for higher growth and specially features the agriculture sector. The importance of agriculture's contribution to growth in Rwanda remains considerable, despite the emergence of other significant growth drivers, such as services. Rwanda's agriculture sector will play an essential role in attaining the country's development vision of sustainable growth and increased poverty reduction, due to its employment weight.

Russia has seen even higher oil windfall in the past few months, which translates into likely fiscal surpluses this year and next. The government should not miss the opportunity provided by a large oil windfall to substantially improve its long-term fiscal position, further reduce inflation, and, therefore, ensure a strong basis for durable stability and healthy growth in the future. Rising domestic demand and credit activity are increasingly supporting solid growth.

Over the last decade, Kenya's society and economy have changed fundamentally and these deep trends will continue. Rapid population growth and urbanization will create many new challenges which need to be managed well to support Kenya's economic take-off in the medium-term. This fourth edition of the Kenya economic update argues that Kenya can turn the tide in turbulent times and make the most of the ongoing structural shifts.

The Central America region is a small market. The region contains around 43 million inhabitants (0.6 percent of total world population) who generate around 0.25 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While the region has successfully embarked on a regional integration agenda and has strong commercial links with the US, extra-regional trade-mainly with large fast-growing emerging economies-remains a challenge.