This is the fourth annual edition of the
World Bank's statistical reference. It provides an
expanded view of the world economy for 148 countries with
chapters focusing on world view, people, environment,
economy, states and markets, and global links as well as
introductions highlighting recent research on major
development issues. This edition includes some key
indicators for 1999. This report aims to make statistics

Considerations of risk and vulnerability
are key to understanding the dynamics of poverty. This study
conceives vulnerability as expected poverty and illustrates
a methodology to empirically assess household vulnerability
using pseudo panel data derived from repeated cross sections
augmented with historical information on shocks. Application
of the methodology to data from rural Kenya shows that in
1994 rural households faced on average a 40 percent chance

This discussion paper: a) proposes a new
approach of targeted collaboration among different sectors;
b) devises new tools or enhances existing ones to facilitate
the contributions of different sectors to help relieve
health problems; and c) puts theory into practice through a
pilot in Ghana. The report is divided into three parts. Part
1 explains the foundations of environmental health and
proposes a new approach that taps health benefits

The study reviews the performance of
four transition countries - Albania, Azerbaijan, the Kyrgyz
Republic, and Moldova - in the areas of private, and
financial sector development, identifying both their
achievements, and challenges, to extract beneficial reform
efforts, and alternative approaches, setting the pace for
sustainable growth. These countries were selected because
they are among the poorest in the region, whose problems are

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 trends toward ecosystem degradation
and social change are affecting coastal areas around the
world, not least in Sub-Saharan Africa. The crisis affecting
this region's coastal and marine areas requires an
urgent and resolute response from the global community. This
report details the challenges facing coastal and marine
environments in Sub-Saharan Africa. It describes the World
Bank's strategy for supporting sustainable development

The World Bank's mission is to
fight poverty for lasting results. Enhancing environmental
quality, improving natural resource management, and
maintaining global ecosystems are all important steps
towards this goal. Better environmental management can
improve people's livelihoods, health, and security
today and in the future. To achieve these lasting results we
need to start from a sound base of information that helps us

An estimated 80,000-100,000 Dominican
farmers produce coffee and cocoa, nearly 40 percent of all
agricultural producers. The sectors also provide employment
for tens of thousands of field laborers and persons employed
in linked economic activities. The majority of coffee and
cocoa producers are small-scale and most are located in
environmentally sensitive watersheds. Recent trends in
international commodity markets have challenged the survival

This report is the successor to the
Country Economic Memorandum for Tanzania prepared in 1996
(World Bank 1996). The 1996 memorandum focused on the
challenge of reforms and paid particular attention to the
impact of reforms on growth, incomes, and welfare in
Tanzania. The present report draws out lessons from
Tanzania's development experience of the past four
decades, with emphasis on the period since the last report,

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 book is based on the World
Development Indicators 2001 and its accompanying CD-ROM.
Under the headings of agriculture, forests, biodiversity,
energy, emissions and pollution, water and sanitation, and
'greener' national accounts, it presents key
indicators of the environment and its relationship to people
for more than 200 countries. The data in this book are for
the most recent year available between 1997 and 2000, unless