This paper examines poor households in
the city of Mumbai and their exposure, vulnerability, and
ability to respond to recurrent floods. The paper discusses
policy implications for future adaptive capacity,
resilience, and poverty alleviation. The study focuses
particularly on the poor households, which tend to have
greater exposure and vulnerability to floods and limited
ability to respond given the constraints on physical and

Africa is rapidly urbanizing and will
lead the world’s urban growth in the coming decades.
Currently, Africa is the least‐urbanized continent,
accommodating 11.3 percent of the world’s urban population,
and the Sub‐Saharan region is the continent’s
least‐urbanized area. However, the region’s cities are
expanding rapidly, by 2050; Africa’s urban population is
projected to reach 1.2 billion, with an urbanization rate of

Cities are vulnerable to many types of
shocks and stresses, including natural hazards like storms
and sea level rise, but also man-made ones like economic
transformation and rapid urbanization. These shocks and
stresses have the potential to bring cities to a halt and
reverse years of socio-economic development gains. Cities
that are to grow and thrive in the future must take steps to
address these shocks and stresses. Simply put, a resilient

A competitive city is a city that
successfully facilitates its firms and industries to create
jobs, raise productivity, and increase the incomes of
citizens over time. Worldwide, improving the competitiveness
of cities is a pathway to eliminating extreme poverty and to
promoting shared prosperity. The primary source of job
creation has been the growth of private sector firms, which
have typically accounted for around 75 percent of job

East–Southeast Asia is currently one of the fastest urbanizing regions in the world, with countries such as China climbing from 20 to 50% urbanized in just a few decades. By 2050, these countries are projected to add 1 billion people, with 90% of that growth occurring in cities. This population shift parallels an equally astounding amount of built-up land expansion.

GFDRR was established in September 2006
as a global partnership of the World Bank, UN agencies and
bilateral donors, located in World Bank headquarters in
Washington, DC. Its missions are (a) to mainstream disaster
reduction and climate change adaptation (CCA) in country
development strategies, and (b) to foster and strengthen
global and regional cooperation among various stakeholders
under the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

Despite myriad challenges, Kenya has emerged in recent years as one of Africa’s frontier economies, with headline growth in the most recent decade propelling the country toward middle-income status. Less well understood is how risk dynamics associated with production, markets, and policy adversely impact sector performance, in terms of both influencing ex ante decision making among farmers, traders, and other sector stakeholders and causing ex post losses to crops, livestock, and incomes - destabilizing livelihoods and jeopardizing the country’s food security.

El Salvador is the smallest country in
Central America, and one of the most densely populated in
the world. El Salvador is among the countries most affected
by weather-related events and other hazards, incurring
annual losses of around 2.5 percent of GDP. Worldwide, it
ranks second highest for risk exposure to two or more
hazards and highest for the total population at a relatively
high risk of mortality. Furthermore, climate change is

The Country Partnership Framework (CPF)
will succeed the Myanmar interim strategy note (FY13-14) and
be the first full country strategy for Myanmar since 1984.
This CPF comes at a time of great opportunity for Myanmar;
over the three year period covered in this CPF, the reforms
initiated in 2011 have the potential to bring Myanmar into a
new era of peace and prosperity. Myanmar s history, ethnic
diversity, and geography combine into a unique set of

The urban population in Ethiopia is
increasing rapidly. If managed proactively, urban population
growth presents a huge opportunity to shift the structure
and location of economic activity from rural agriculture to
the larger and more diversified urban industrial and service
sectors. If not managed proactively, rapid urban population
growth may pose a demographic challenge as cities struggle
to provide jobs, infrastructure and services, and housing.

Fast growth in Rwanda since the turn of
the century has been accompanied by solid poverty reduction.
Between 2000 and 2013, gross domestic product (GDP) grew at
eight percent per year, resulting in a 170 percent increase
in real GDP. As the poor almost uniquely depend on labor to
generate income, the strong reduction in poverty suggests
tangible improvements in employment outcomes over this
period. This jobs and employment study focuses on the recent

Mauritania is a vast country covering
over a million square kilometers, where a relatively small
population of 3.5 million people lives on just one-fifth of
the country’s total area. With extremely advanced
desertification, the country is particularly vulnerable to
the impact of climate change and other external shocks. The
main sources of income in Mauritania are agriculture, which
is either irrigated or rain-fed, and livestock. This is