The study examines Bangladesh's
extreme vulnerability to climate change, whose low-lying
topography, and funnel-shaped coast, further exposes the
land to cyclones, and tidal surges, resulting in seasonal
floods. These factors, and the large population base,
widespread poverty, aggravated by the lack of strong
institutional development, makes the country particularly
vulnerable to climate variability. Various climatic factors,

The report first reviews macroeconomic
aspects in Ghana, identifying that much of the
non-traditional exports' expansion, reflects sporadic
foreign investments in key agro-processing activities -
which enjoy preferential treatment in European markets -
but, its value-added seems at best marginal, questioning its
sustainability, should preferences be removed. Besides
compliance with a growing number of European Union

The largest hydrographic basin in the
world, the Amazon is the source of 20 percent of all the
fresh water on the planet. The Basin covers some 600 million
hectares in nine countries, over half of which are located
within Brazil's national boundaries. A striking
characteristic of the Amazon region is its tremendous
biodiversity, which includes an estimated 50,000 species of
plants, 3,000 species of fish and over 400 known species of

This study examines a broad selection of
sustainable transport sector policy options from the
standpoint of a common set of consistently defined
attributes. Ideally, sustainable transport development
should focus on the economic, environmental and social
dimensions of sustainable development. However, in this
volume, the first two aspects receive greater attention. The
social dimension is examined mainly from the equity

This discussion paper: a) proposes a new
approach of targeted collaboration among different sectors;
b) devises new tools or enhances existing ones to facilitate
the contributions of different sectors to help relieve
health problems; and c) puts theory into practice through a
pilot in Ghana. The report is divided into three parts. Part
1 explains the foundations of environmental health and
proposes a new approach that taps health benefits

Structural reforms are often designed to
change the prices of key goods and services. Since the
overall intention of such reforms is the reduction of
poverty, it is important to understand how the resulting
price changes affect the poor. However, organizations
seeking to provide timely advice to policymakers in
developing countries often do not have the data and
resources needed to undertake the most sophisticated

This environment strategy outlines the
current thinking in the World Bank Group Africa Region about
priorities and actions for the institution in the
environmental arena. The Africa Region Environment Strategy
(ARES) outlines the Bank's commitment to help its
clients achieve sustainable poverty reduction through better
environmental management. It identifies the most urgent
issues at the interface of environment and poverty and

Environmental degradation can inflict
serious damage on poor people because their livelihoods
often depend on natural resource use and their living
conditions may offer little protection from air, water, and
soil pollution. At the same time, poverty-constrained
options may induce the poor to deplete resources and degrade
the environment at rates that are incompatible with
long-term sustainability. In such cases, degraded resources

The trends toward ecosystem degradation
and social change are affecting coastal areas around the
world, not least in Sub-Saharan Africa. The crisis affecting
this region's coastal and marine areas requires an
urgent and resolute response from the global community. This
report details the challenges facing coastal and marine
environments in Sub-Saharan Africa. It describes the World
Bank's strategy for supporting sustainable development

Major changes are needed if Africans and
their children are to claim the 21st century. With the
rapidly growing population, 5 percent annual growth is
needed simply to keep the number of poor from rising.
Halving severe poverty by 2015 will require annual growth of
more than 7 percent, along with a more equitable
distribution of income. Trends in Africa will need to change
radically for a catch-up process to materialize. This will

In conformity with its objective of
functioning as a local Government, Kathmandu Metropolitan
City (KMC) sought the assistance of the World Bank for the
preparation of a City Development Strategy (CDS) for
Kathmandu. The various sectoral as well as integrated
strategies presented in this document seem to be an
overwhelming demand on KMC with its limited manpower and
money. However, a CDS is essential if KMC is to focus its

Bringing the United States and major
developing countries to control their greenhouse gas
emissions will be the key challenge for the international
climate regime beyond the Kyoto Protocol. But in the current
quantity-based coordination, large uncertainties surrounding
future emissions and future abatement opportunities make the
costs of any commitment very difficult to assess ex ante,
hence a strong risk that the negotiation will be stalled.