Urbanization is a source of dynamism
that can enhance productivity and increase economic
integration, a principle evident from the experience of
today’s high-income countries and rapidly emerging
economies. Indeed, during the Industrial Age, no country has
achieved sustained increases in national income without
urbanization. If well managed, cities can help countries
accelerate growth and “open the doors” to global markets in

This paper presents the conceptual framework for a training program on
integrating disaster risk reduction and climate-change mitigation into
Agriculture and Rural Development Department (ARD) programming. Its
target audience consists of World Bank task team leaders and their national
counterparts and partners working in agriculture and rural settings.

This report analyzes the experience of
Ethiopia with the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
process. The focus of the report is on evaluating the
performance of the World Bank in supporting the PRSP
initiative, not on appraising the authorities’ policies. The
emphasis of the report is on the formulation and
implementation of the PRSP until the time of the evaluation
team’s mission to Ethiopia in mid-2003. The report is

This country level analysis addresses land governance in Viet Nam in two ways. First, it summarises what the existing body of knowledge tells us about power and configurations that shape access to and exclusion from land, particularly among smallholders, the rural poor, ethnic minorities and women. Second, it draws upon existing literature and expert assessment to provide a preliminary analysis of the openings for and obstacles to land governance reform afforded by the political economic structures and dynamics in the country.

The city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania has undergone a period of unprecedented urbanization that has contributed to the degradation of the city’s natural environment. With a growth rate above or near 5% for the past three decades, it is the fastest growing city in East Africa. The arrival of thousands of in-migrants year after year has overwhelmed the city’s ability to deliver adequate public services, housing and jobs. Unplanned, densely populated informal settlements that lack basic water, sewer, and waste services now cover much of the city’s land area.

Land take is a phenomenon of great concern nowadays because of the large number of its negative impacts regarding biological, economic and social balance. In Italy, the development of urban and other artificial land has been irreversibly transforming a non-renewable resource such as soil, regardless the almost constant population rate, with different speed depending of the region considered.

The urban heat island effect is often associated with large metropolises. However, in the Netherlands even small cities will be affected by the phenomenon in the future (Hove et al., 2011), due to the dispersed or mosaic urbanisation patterns in particularly the southern part of the country: the province of North Brabant.

In terms of the splintering of cities, it is important to understand contemporary urbanization processes, speculative real estate development, and ways to challenge these via new modes of politics. This case study analyzes the impacts of largely ‘illegal’ city building, on different groups of people within the city, particularly relating to spatial (in)justice and violence.

The term “inclusive cities” is
increasingly being used as a “catch-all” phrase to signify
intent but with little precision in its use. In this note we
use “inclusive cities” to mean cities in which we see a
commitment to an inclusive politics with the establishment
of institutionalized interactions between organized groups
of disadvantaged citizens and the state with local
government taking a primary role. They are also cities in

Afghanistan is a deeply fragile and
conflict affected state. It has been in almost constant
conflict for over 35 years since the Soviet invasion of
1979. Today the country is at a crossroads in its
development with economic growth down sharply and poverty
incidence stubbornly high. Afghanistan faces tremendous
development challenges. Gross domestic product (GDP)
per-capita is among the lowest in the world, poverty is deep

The volume emphasizes the need to rethink cities and to imagine a better urban future by providing the reader with diverse perspectives on urbanization such as the changing economic landscape, city competitiveness, entrepreneurship, inclusion, informality, sustainability, and provision of essential services.

The purpose of this paper is to provide
information on how to transform and strengthen pluralistic
agricultural extension and advisory systems in moving toward
the broader goal of increasing farm income and improving
rural livelihoods. The focus of this book is primarily on
the technical knowledge, management skills, and information
services that small-scale farm households will need to
improve their livelihoods in the rapidly changing global