In 1986 the World Bank prepared a
strategy for low-income housing in developing countries.
This work grew out of the Bank's efforts to support the
urban poor through an extensive housing assistance program
that was launched by Bank President McNamara's speech
on urban poverty. By that time, the Bank had provided more
than $4 billion of such assistance, and had undertaken an
extensive research effort to design support for that

Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD)
is a fundamental component of Ethiopia's economic
growth and poverty reduction strategy. The agricultural
development strategy under Agriculture Development Led
Industrialization (ADLI) and Sustainable Development and
Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP) focused on enhancing the
productive capacity of smallholder farmers, promoting crop
diversification, shifting to a market based system, ensuring

This paper assesses the state of
research and examines priorities for future work in the area
of urbanization and growth. This is done by reviewing and
summarizing the findings of five scoping papers covering the
following topics: urban poverty, the political economy of
urban poverty, urban real estate and housing, urban
infrastructure finance, and external assistance for urban development.

The objective of this paper is to review
experience with completed country environmental analysis
(CEAs) to improve the effectiveness of CEAs as a strategic
analytical tool. Through in-depth analysis of the process,
methodologies, costs, and results of completed CEA pilots,
the paper assesses how effective CEAs have been in informing
and providing strategic guidance to the Bank and client
countries on environment-development issues and the extent

Balochistan offers some of the best
assets for development. Balochistan is generously bestowed
with natural and locational resources. It possesses the
largest land area of any province of Pakistan, proving vast
rangeland for goats, sheep, buffaloes, cattle, camels and
other livestock. Its southern border makes up about two
thirds of the national coastline, giving access to a large
pool of fishery resources. As a frontier province, it is

This publication focuses on public
finance, development economics, and the Chinese economy. The
government will focus on the public good aspects of
education and training-compulsory education and some aspects
of higher education and training. The publication encourages
seven reforms including raising government expenditure on
education to four percent of gross domestic product (GDP),
and ensuring that all children actually receive nine years

In this issue: food price crisis in
Africa; focus: the Doha development agenda; when is deposit
insurance a good idea? Returns to capital in
micro-enterprises; new global poverty estimates; ports and
maritime transport in West and Central Africa; the
consequences of child labor; and gender and asset ownership.

Rwanda established targets for Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) growth and poverty reduction, to be
achieved by the year 2020; these were to (i) raise real per
capita income from $230 to $900; and (ii) reduce the poverty
incidence by half. To reach these targets, the Government
projected in its 2002 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
(PRSP) that GDP growth will to be in the range of 6 to 7
percent over the medium term. The PRSP focused on six

The workshop brings diverse perspectives
from outside the World Bank, providing a forum in which to
exchange ideas and debate in the course of developing the
World Development Report (WDR). Participants at the 2006
Berlin Workshop gathered to discuss challenges and successes
pertaining to agriculture and development. Agriculture is
the major sector contributing to economic development in
many poor countries. Three out of every four poor people in

Housing is one of the most important
sectors of the economy -- in developing countries as in
richer ones -- with large positive externalities in terms of
economic growth, public health and societal stability. It is
the primary form of asset accumulation for the poor -- often
representing more than 50 percent of the assets of
households. However, housing systems in developing countries
are dominated by badly designed, poorly targeted, and

This book argues that Peru faces an
unprecedented opportunity to become the next success story
in Latin America. In the coming five years, policy making
could put the country on a development path similar to the
one that, say, Chile, Costa Rica, or Spain have followed
over the last two decades. This book includes 32
sector-specific chapters and 2 historical perspectives that
precede them. The beginning chapter, a synthesis, builds a

Sub-national Governments play an
important role in the Romanian public sector. In 2009,
sub-national spending was equivalent to 8.5 percent of gross
domestic product (GDP). Romania has frequently adjusted its
system for financing sub-national government over the last
decade. These changes reflect ongoing Government concerns
over the performance of local governments as well as
attempts to increase the transparency and stability of the