Situated in a fertile low-lying river
delta, Bangladesh combines high vulnerability to floods,
tropical cyclones, earthquakes, and climate change with one
of the world’s highest population densities, with around 159
million people living in less than 150,000 sq. km. With the
world’s second lowest per capita income in 1975, it was
labeled ‘the test case for development’ in view of the
formidable development challenges it faced. Nevertheless,

For more than a decade, Africa has enjoyed a mineral boom. is the growth mostly happening in isolated places, sectors and periods? The approach adopted in this study is two-pronged. First, through case studies, including the results of fieldwork, mining’s impacts are examined in a country-specific context for each of three countries, Ghana, Mali, and Tanzania; and second, a statistical analysis is used to test whether the indicators of welfare improve with proximity to a mine.

The objective of this Systematic Country
Diagnostic (SCD) is to identify the priority constraints
Bolivia faces in sustaining its gains on reducing poverty
and enhancing shared prosperity over the next years. It will
analyze the dynamics behind the progress achieved in the
past decade on inclusive growth, and identify a number of
key constraints for sustaining and consolidating this
progress. The SCD begins, in Chapter two, with a

Countries everywhere are divided into
two distinct spatial realms: one urban, one rural. Classic
models of development predict faster growth in the urban
sector, causing rapid migration from rural areas to cities,
lifting average incomes in both places. The process
continues until the marginal productivity of labor is
equalized across the two realms. The pattern of rising
urbanization accompanying economic growth has become one of

Maldives is an island nation scattered
in the Indian Ocean comprising 1,190 small coral islands of
which 190 are inhabited by a local population of 341,000.
Maldives’ unique archipelagic coral island provides the
country with an extremely rich and diverse marine ecological
system. With more territorial sea than land, marine
resources have played a vital role shaping the contours of
economic development, with nature-based tourism being the

Social norms affect almost every aspect
of people’s lives, and can be an obstacle to or support
economic development. This paper outlines what social norms
are and how they work, providing examples from everyday life
and from development case studies. Sometimes not much can be
done about changing undesirable social norms. In those
cases, development economists need to be aware of how the
existence of those norms can impact the effects of the

The housing finance market in Mali
remains small and under developed. Few banks currently offer
a full mortgage product with Banque Malienne de Solidarite,
Mali Housing Bank (BHM), Bank of Africa, and EcoBank being
the main lenders although at minimal levels. The total
annual housing need in Mali based on the household formation
rate amounts to 82,500, split between 51,100 urban units and
31,400 rural units. Overall some social housing is

This study explores the changing
opportunities for children in Africa. While the definition
of opportunities can be subjective and depend on the
societal context, this report focuses on efforts to build
future human capital, directly (through education and health
investments) and indirectly (through complementary
infrastructure such as safe water, adequate sanitation,
electricity, and so on). It follows the practice of earlier

The major role tropical forests play in
biodiversity and climate change has led the world to search
for effective ways to slow down deforestation. Community
forest management (CFM) is an example of the broader concept
of community-based natural resources management (CBNRM). As
part of the decentralization policy in many countries,
mainly in Africa and Asia, CFM was expected to promote: (i)
a more effective stewardship of the resources by involving

The Philippines is among the strongest performers in the region, bucking the trend. In the first half (H1) of 2015, among the major economies in the region, the only countries to accelerate their quarterly growth rates were the Philippines, from 5 to 5.6 percent, and Vietnam. In spite of this acceleration, for the two quarters combined, Philippine growth rate came out at 5.3 percent—its lowest half year growth rate since 2011. On the demand side, the strong performance of private domestic demand at 8.1 percent, supported by record low inflation and robust remittances, drove GDP growth.

The objective of this Poverty and Social
Impact Analysis (PSIA) is to assess the impact of systematic
registration on vulnerable individuals, in general, and
Roma, in particular. Specifically, this PSIA focuses on the
systematic registration approach piloted under the
Complementing EU Support for Agricultural Restructuring
(CESAR, 2009 - 2013) Project, which was supported by the
World Bank. The World Bank involvement in the sector dates

The lessons learned from the
implications of the global crisis for the Armenian economy
led the Government of Armenia to refine its approach to
economic development policy. The business environment, the
market structure, and the incentive pattern had not fostered
reallocation of resources into more productive areas or the
emergence of internationally competitive products and
services. Despite numerous initiatives and multiple efforts,