Many key development outcomes depend on
women's ability to negotiate favorable intrahousehold
allocations of resources. Yet it has been difficult to
clearly identify which policies can increase women's
bargaining power and result in better outcomes. This paper
reviews both the analytical frameworks and the empirical
evidence on the importance of women's bargaining power.
It argues that there is sufficient evidence from rigorous

This paper studies the use of labor
markets to mitigate the impact of violent shocks on
households in rural areas in Colombia. It examines changes
in the labor supply from on-farm to off-farm labor as a
means of coping with the violent shock and the ensuing
redistribution of time within households. It identifies the
heterogeneous response by gender. Because the incidence of
violent shocks is not exogenous, the analysis uses

The Multi Donor Fund for Aceh and Nias
(MDF) and the Java Reconstruction Fund (JRF) have played
significant roles in the remarkable recovery of Aceh, Nias
and Java, following some of the worst disasters in Indonesia
in recent years. The MDF and the JRF, which is patterned
after it, are each considered a highly successful model for
post-disaster reconstruction. This paper discusses the value
of a phased approach to post-disaster reconstruction as a

Does the existing evidence support
policies that foster growth by reducing gender inequality?
The authors argue that the evidence based on differences
across countries is of limited use for policy design because
it does not identify the causal link from inequality to
growth. This, however does not imply that
inequality-reducing policies are ineffective. In other
words, the lack of evidence of a causal link is not in

The forces unleashed by the Arab
political awakening have the power to be transformational.
One critical parameter of success will be whether the Arab
political awakening is accompanied by a concurrent economic
awakening. Economic integration through increased trade and
foreign direct investment (FDI) is one key means available
in the short to medium term to policy makers to put the
Partnership countries on a higher path of sustainable

The Multi Donor Fund for Aceh and Nias
(MDF) and the Java Reconstruction Fund (JRF) have played
significant roles in the remarkable recovery of Aceh, Nias
and Java, following some of the worst disasters in Indonesia
in recent years. The MDF and the JRF, which is patterned
after it, are each considered a highly successful model for
post-disaster reconstruction. This paper presents lessons
from the MDF and JRF's efforts to facilitate

Local populations' economic opportunities can be enhanced through special arrangements governing movement of people and goods in neighboring areas. For instance, in the Tajikistan-Uzbekistan border-crossing points (BCPs), preferential treatment accorded to residents in contiguous regions varies from one BCP to another, even within one borderline, restricting the distance allowed for travel into the territory of another country to the closest large city or marketplace.

"Getting the prices right" is
a good starting point but is not sufficient for achieving
environmentally efficient outcomes. Other policy
interventions are often necessary to complement pricing
policies. Moreover, when pricing is not at all feasible,
regulatory and command-and-control policies must be used
instead. This paper focuses on three interrelated themes at
the core of the pricing problem. First, there is the

Long-term economic growth is the key
driver for increasing the economic wellbeing of the
population, but the pattern and the incidence of growth also
matter. Economic growth narrowly based on certain enclave
sectors or benefitting small groups is neither socially
stable nor sustainable. Along these lines, the World Bank
recently revised its institutional strategy, establishing
two goals, namely: (i) ending extreme global poverty, the

This paper analyzes real estate market dynamics over the past decade in the city of Ahmedabad, India, with a view to improving the living conditions of the large population living in slums. The paper combines census data, the National Sample Survey, and slum household surveys to review the demand side of the market. Satellite photography was used to estimate the production of both formal and informal housing over the past ten years. Analysis of the execution of the development plan for the Ahmedabad region and town planning schemes shows how the system of housing supply has evolved.

Much of the rural poor -- who are
growing in number -- are concentrated in ecologically
fragile and remote areas. The key ecological scarcity
problem facing such poor households is a vicious cycle of
declining livelihoods, increased ecological degradation and
loss of resource commons, and declining ecosystem services
on which the poor depend. In addition, developing economies
with high concentrations of their populations on fragile

Promoting the transfer of
environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) and best practices
to developing and transition countries is a key priority for
all countries that seek to mitigate climate change impacts
and build resilience. The Global Environment Facility (GEF)
is one of the entities entrusted to provide financial
resources to assist developing and transition countries in
implementing the United Nations Framework Convention on