Motivations behind the extreme brutality
used in many cases of rape in the context of armed conflict
in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains poorly
understood and under-researched. This study has been
conducted in partnership with the Non-Governmental
Organization (NGO) vivo international, to determine
individual motivations, as well as strategic or tactical
aspects of sexual violence of different armed groups and

Community-based paralegalism has been
active in the Philippines for the past 30 years, and yet its
contribution to access to justice and the advancement of the
rights and entitlements of the poor has been largely an
undocumented. This paper attempts to provide a framework
study on the history, nature, and scope of paralegal work in
the Philippines, based on the experience of 12 organizations
that are active in the training and development of

This paper revisits the identification
of the binding constraints to investment and growth in
Pakistan by rigorously applying the growth diagnostic
framework. It has a central finding: Pakistan's
economy faces two major groups of constraints emerging and
structural. The emerging constraints include infrastructure
(energy) deficit, high macro-fiscal risks, and inadequate
international financing (high country risks and low FDI

This paper reviews the empirical
evidence on the existence of poverty traps, understood as
self-reinforcing mechanisms through which poor individuals
or countries remain poor. Poverty traps have captured the
interest of many development policy makers, because poverty
traps provide a theoretically coherent explanation for
persistent poverty. They also suggest that temporary policy
interventions may have long-term effects on poverty.

This paper examines the effects of
urbanization on development and growth. It begins with a
labor market perspective and emphasizes the importance of
agglomeration economies, both static and dynamic. It then
argues that more productive jobs in cities do not exist in a
void and underscores the importance of job and firm
dynamics. In turn, these dynamics are shaped by the broader
characteristics of urban systems. A number of conclusions

This paper explains the major issues and
lessons derived from the national forest management program
and REDD+ initiatives in Tanzania. It finds that addressing
the most important drivers of forest degradation and
deforestation, in particular the country energy needs and
landownership, is essential for success in reducing
emissions regardless of the type of program implemented. It
also finds that, through the national program, forest users

Implementation arrangements for Reducing
Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation can be seen as contracts that could address some
of the inherent problems with forest carbon credits that
often lead to high transaction costs -- measuring,
monitoring, and verification. Self-enforcing contracts,
where it is in the best interest of the environmental
service providers to comply with the contracts, may be one

This paper takes a critical view of the
challenges that lie ahead for land?related development
projects in Central America. Drawing upon several sources of
information and types of analysis, including literature
reviews, field visits and rapid participatory assessments,
along with decades of professional experience, the authors
examine land-related development policies and projects over
the past two decades in Central America (although monitoring

Cities exist, grow, and prosper because
they take advantage of scale economies and specialization
wrought by agglomeration. But output growth inevitably
stresses transport infrastructure because production
requires space and mobility. To prevent congestion from
crowding out agglomeration benefits and to expand the supply
of urban land, cities must invest in transport
infrastructure. Building more infrastructures, especially

This paper explores the challenges and
opportunities that government officials face in designing
coherent 'rules of the game' for achieving urban
sustainability during times of growth. Sustainability is
judged by three criteria. The first involves elements of
day-to-day quality of life, such as having clean air and
water and green space. The provision of these public goods
has direct effects on the urban public's health and

The great 21st-century migration into
cities will present both a great challenge for humanity and
a significant opportunity for global economic growth. This
paper describes the diverse patterns that define this
metropolitan migration. It then lays out a framework for
understanding the costs and benefits of new arrivals through
migration's externalities and the challenges and policy
tradeoffs that confront city stakeholders. The paper

Urbanization is undoubtedly a key driver
of development - cities provide the national platform for
prosperity, job creation, and poverty reduction. But
urbanization also poses enormous challenges that one is
familiar with: congestion, air pollution, social divisions,
crime, the breakdown of public services and infrastructure,
and the slums that one billion urban resident's call
home. Urbanization is perhaps the single most important