The demand for verifiable evidence of
results and impacts of development agricultural programs and
projects is growing. However, most of the indicators that
development practitioners have traditionally used in
tracking progress toward achieving projects' objectives
focus on the workings of the development operation itself.
These performance indicators relate mainly to lower-level
inputs and outputs and are used to populate management

This paper focuses on the experience of
the national-level adaptation planning efforts and the
lessons that can be derived for more effective adaptation
from an examination of local governance of development and
natural resources. After examining national level adaptation
plans, particularly the NAPAs (National Adaptation
Programmes of Action), the paper analyzes the range of
institutional instruments and relationships visible in

The agriculture sector has been and will
continue to be important for poverty alleviation efforts in
Indonesia. Indonesia was very successful in increasing
agriculture productivity during the 1970s and up to the
early 1990s, but productivity stagnated during most of the
1990s, partly as a result of declining public investments.
Public spending on agriculture has increased significantly
in the last decade, but a large share of that spending has

This concept note presents the strategic
engagement of the World Bank in the areas of public sector
management and governance in Colombia. It describes the
short and medium term approach through which the Bank will
provide support to the country on those areas of reform, as
well as their links and synergies with other sectors
activities. It also provides a summary of the Bank's
public sector management and governance recent activities

Bangladesh has recorded impressive
economic and social gains since the 1990s. Recent growth has
been at levels close to six percent. The country has doubled
per capita growth and taken large strides toward reaching
many Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ahead of many
comparable countries. Attaining the MDGs calls for
accelerating economic growth to six-seven percent a year.
Accordingly, Bangladesh's Poverty Reduction Strategy

In this introduction, the authors do three things. They first introduce the puzzle and relate it to existing interpretations from market reformists and their critics, arguing that both sets of views are inadequate. The authors then offer an alternative interpretation: that entrenched inequities sustained by a rent-sharing political equilibrium are a primary source of inefficiencies and weak growth. Moreover, this equilibrium has been resilient to democratization in ways that can be explained by the nature of the underlying forces.

After many decades of stagnation, Kenyan
economy started to grow from the early-2000s. Much of this
growth has been attributed to total factor productivity
improvements in Kenyan economy arising out of many factors.
A large share of this growth originated in urban areas, in
the service and manufacturing sectors. These gains also
paralleled reduction in poverty and higher enrolment in
primary education. Yet, it has been argued that Kenyan

Lao PDR's economic outlook remains favorable, with continued strong growth. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth remained at above 7 percent in 2007. Output expanded in mining, newly emerging processing industries, agriculture, and new construction of hydropower projects, tourism and other services. Non-resource sectors contributed over 5 percent to this growth, and the resource sector around 2.5 percent.

At the request of the Government of
Egypt (GOE), the objective of this brief note is to provide
concise recommendations on next steps for the National
Housing Program (NHP). These recommendations and policy
analysis are an elaboration of the framework for housing
policy reform in urban areas in Egypt, a draft of which was
endorsed by the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban
Development (MHUUD) and the Ministry of Investment (MOI) in

The purpose of this Independence
Evaluation Group (IEG) special study is to illuminate the
scale and scope of Bank support for municipal development
and to draw specific lessons from the achievements and
failures of a sample of individual projects. The study
focuses on three dimensions of municipal management:
planning, finance, and service provision that figure
repeatedly in Bank financed municipal development projects

The present study examines the
challenges facing municipal governments in FYR Macedonia.
The introductory chapter provides some further context for
these developments, in terms of the challenges they pose
for urban areas and their governments. Chapter Two examines
issues for financial management of municipalities under the
decentralized regime, and the attendant need for improving
local government capacity. The third chapter highlights

This document presents the main
governance indicators for the country, as compiled by the
World Bank Institute (WBI), and how are they used by
international institutions in making decisions about
assistance to Nicaragua. Although these indicators have
weaknesses, they can provide a general indication of what
are the priority areas for investigation. Accordingly, the
present review concentrates on a few key areas where the