Regional trade in Africa can play a
vital role in diversifying economies and reducing dependence
on the export of a few mineral products, in delivering food
and energy security, in generating jobs for the increasing
numbers of young people, and in alleviating poverty and
promoting a shared prosperity. Women play a key role in
trade in Africa and will be essential to Africa's
success in exploiting its trade potential. In many countries

The purpose of this report is to
document some of the aforementioned achievements over the
2000-2010 decade and to illustrate their collective impact
on poverty in Bangladesh. Analysis is undertaken to identify
which factors contributed to the rapid decline in poverty
over time. The main limitation of this report is that the
analysis is based on a limited number of data sources, which
do not cover all aspects of the poverty reduction process.

The Congo Basin represents 70 percent of
the African continent's forest cover and constitutes a
large portion of Africa's biodiversity. Agricultural
development is a central lever to help people out of
poverty, as well as a key driver of deforestation.
Forest-friendly agricultural development is a challenge for
the region. This report describes some ways forest-friendly
agricultural development can materialize in the Congo Basin.

The report's main objective is to
provide policy makers, regulators, and the private sector,
primarily in emerging economies and developing countries,
with a tool for enforcing international best practice and
for developing strategies for successful reforms in the area
of construction regulation. This paper is divided into the
following eight chapters: 1) the importance of construction
regulation reform. The first chapter defines three

In declaring 2012 the international year
of sustainable energy for all, the United Nations (UN)
general assembly (2011) established at the personal
initiative of the UN secretary general- three global
objectives to be accomplished by 2030. Those goals are to
ensure universal access to modern energy services (including
electricity and clean, modern cooking solutions), to double
the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and to

This study sought to determine a 22-year past and future land use and land cover trend and its implication on green spaces in an eThekwini Municipal Area’s peripheral settlement. Results show a consistent pattern of decline in land use and land cover types associated with green spaces and an increase in impervious surfaces. The study is taken to confirm recent urban bio-physical transformation and anticipated increased pressure on peripheral urban green spaces in eThekwini Municipality.

Industrial parks are as popular as they
are controversial, in India and globally. At their best they
align infrastructure provision and agglomeration economies
to jolt industrial growth. More often, they generate
negative spill-overs, provide handouts, sit empty, or simply
do not get built. This paper disaggregates how parks are
built and how they fail. It contextualizes parks in India,
followed by a thick case study of an innovative scheme that

The aim of this study is to explore the
relationship between women's labor market outcomes and
partner violence among Tanzanian women, and to estimate the
difference in women's weekly earnings between women who
have been abused and women who have not. In addition, this
study estimates the lost earnings to women because of
partner violence as a share of Tanzania's gross
domestic product. Partner violence is the most common form

Access to markets is argued to have a
significant role in development. In order to quantify the
access of places to markets, policy makers are showing
increasing interest in accessibility indicators (Yoshida and
Deichmann 2009). This paper seeks to examine the spatial
relationship of access to market in the Kyrgyz Republic
using a recent census and household survey in order to
identify possible linkages with rates of poverty and other

Argentina has expanded the use of its
portion of the Parana-Paraguay waterways system for the
transportation of soy and other bulk commodities through an
innovative tolling system that self-finances the dredging
and maintenance of the rivers. Brazil, in turn, is pursuing
a 'green trucking' strategy to improve efficiency
of its cargo haulage industry, reduce petroleum usage, and
curb pollution from trucking. For the entire hemisphere, the
expansion of the Panama Canal will bring post-Panama vessels

The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC)
region has a unique mix of qualities and challenges when it
comes to the environment. It is exceptionally endowed with
natural assets, with globally significant biodiversity and
valuable crops, and also harbors the world s greatest carbon
sink in the Amazon. The purpose of the series is to
contribute to the global knowledge exchange on innovation in
environmental and water resources management and the pursuit

Reducing the footprint of growth
requires a focus on three key issues: a) transforming urban
areas into greener, more efficient, resilient, and socially
inclusive cities, better able to capture the economic
benefits associated with urbanization; b) ensuring sound
management of the brown environmental agenda to provide the
conditions for continued sustainable economic green growth
while preventing and minimizing negative impacts and risks