This document describes the training
course for lawyers and judges in the Palestinian
Territories, which was designed as an introduction to
residential mortgage lending, and the use of mortgage
collateral. These materials begin with a technical
description of mortgage lending and mortgage collateral, the
purposes and content of mortgage law, and the general
conditions for development and expansion of residential

The objective of this review of
resettlement policy and implementation in Brazil, is to
identify ongoing good practices, as well as areas for
further improvement. It draws upon an assessment of the
Brazilian legal and institutional framework related to land
acquisition for projects in the public interest, a rapid
evaluation of the resettlement programs in six projects
(three projects that received Bank financing and three

Expert statements indicate that annually
approximately 20 billion dollars will be needed to prevent
90 percent deforestation in tropical countries. Development
practitioners are eager to see the benefits from REDD plus
initiatives shared with local partners. Equally important to
understanding how local partners might benefit are questions
such as, who should derive benefits from REDD plus
initiatives, and how to ensure these initiatives reach the

Delhi Jal Board (DJB) is exploring
options for public private partnerships (PPP) in the
wastewater services as part of a strategy to expand sewerage
access and to meet its environmental obligations. The
purpose of this report is to identify those models of
partnership which are most relevant to DJB's situation
and to discuss some of the advantages and risks associated
with them. The report goes on to propose an outline for a

This paper presents a literature review
of issues related to recent subsidies and investments in the
financial sector that have been designed to address the
immediate effects of the crises and to develop the financial
institutions necessary to modernize agriculture. Section two
of the paper discusses the impact of recent food, fuel, and
financial crises on developing countries and the emergency
actions taken by countries and international agencies to

As donors pledge growing support for
protecting and managing forests to address climate change,
the question of how to pay tropical countries to reduce
their emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
assumes greater urgency. Depending on the detailed
implementation of REDD plus at a national and international
level, forest nations may be able to secure funding from a
range of sources, including donors and multilateral funds (a

This report sets out various options for
regulatory reform of the Indian port sector. The terms of
reference from The World Bank require the Author making
recommendations to the Ministry of Finance (Department of
Economic Affairs) with respect to alternative institutional
and legal options for regulation of the port sector in India
as well as analysing key considerations in the regulation of
this sector and the way they are being addressed in the

Reducing poverty continues to be one of
the main priorities of the Government of Albania. Currently,
Albania has an ample platform to provide social protection
to its citizens through social insurance, social assistance
and employment programs. However, these programs are not
efficiently linked to each other, which can lead to unclear
and occasionally overlapping roles among the programs. Among
these social protection programs, Ndihma Ekonomike (NE) is

Lao PDR has experienced high levels of
economic growth in recent years and the incidence of poverty
has fallen dramatically since the 1990s. Yet, this report
shows that Lao households continue to be highly vulnerable
to regular seasonal fluctuations, as well as agricultural
shocks and natural disasters. The report also highlights the
importance of health shocks, injury and death for household
welfare. Households adopt a variety of strategies to cope

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
is the third most populous county in Sub Saharan Africa and
has many natural advantages that would enable it to
experience rapid sustained economic growth and rapid poverty
alleviation. These include rich and diverse natural
resources, such as mining and hydroelectric potential,
abundant fertile land, and a large domestic market. The
country is emerging from conflict and democratic election,

The proposed methodology begins with a
consistent downscaling of projected climatic changes from a
multiplicity of General Circulation to local levels. Subsets
of the suite of downscaled climatic factors are then to be
used to estimate the vector of impacts on key economic
sectors of each country, using sector-specific impact
assessment models. Based on this information, alternative
government adaptation projects will be specified and

Traditionally both national and regional
development planning in Vietnam has been driven by
'top-down' Central Government social and economic
targets based on limited analytical investigation. However,
with the advent of the free market economy in Vietnam since
the late 1980s, vigorous global economic competitiveness and
Vietnam's membership to the World Trade Organization
(WTO), changes in national policy in Vietnam have now